Niguliste 3
Tel. 631 4330
Bus: 5, 40
Open: 10am- 5pm
Wed- Sun
www.ekm.ee
Saint Nicholas Church in Tallinn is a basilica Gothic church in
Tallinn. The church is dedicated to Nicholas, the saint of merchants and
sailors.
Nicholas Church was one of the city's grandest
sanctuaries in the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 16th century
there were more than twenty side altars. Some of the former cult
artworks exhibited as museums have been ordered from major European art
centers. At one time, these works fetched huge sums. This gives indirect
evidence of the prosperity of the merchants of Tallinn during the
Hanseatic League. The best-known works are the "Dance of Death" by Bernt
Notke, a late medieval master from Lübeck, and the high altar altarpiece
made in the workshop of Hermen Rode, which can still be seen in the
church. An almost four-meter-high, seven-branched chandelier donated to
the church at the beginning of the 16th century is also on display.
Since 1984, the church has operated as a museum-concert hall of the
St. Nicholas branch of the Estonian Art Museum. The old art collection
of the Estonian Art Museum is exhibited and regular organ concerts are
organized. The museum's collection is the most outstanding and valuable
part of Estonian medieval and early modern church art.
Nicholas Church was one of Tallinn's two parish churches and the
city's most important sanctuaries in the Middle Ages. The church
dedicated to Nicholas, the patron saint of merchants and sailors, was
probably built in the middle of the 13th century.
It has been
assumed that the church was originally founded in 1230 as the center of
a settlement of German merchants who arrived from Ojamaa. This
assumption has been disproved.
In the 13th century, Tallinn was
not yet fully surrounded by defense structures. Niguliste was also a
protective church with its heavy-scraped log entrances, shooting holes
and places of refuge. In the 14th century, after the completion of the
city wall, Niguliste became an ordinary parish church.
Presumably, a four-sided, small, square choir room was initially
completed, the walls of which are located below the center of the
current choir section.
At the end of the 13th century, a
three-aisled nave with four vaults was added to the church. It was a
pseudo-basilica the size of the current nave, measuring 26.4×31.7
meters, but the width of its vaults was different from the current one.
The nave also contained the west tower, which was located in its current
location, but did not extend much above the roof of the nave. Raid
portals were located in the side walls of the long building.
By
the end of the 13th century, the sacristy on the north side of the choir
was also completed.
In the north wall, there was a pointed arched
portal with a richly articulated palisade with a straight pediment,
crowned by a vamperg. The portal of the north wall of St. Nicholas is
the oldest known decorative portal in Tallinn, but only the lower part
has been preserved: the original archivolt and flagstone were demolished
in the Middle Ages, the current archivolt probably dates from the 19th
century.
A small two-step portal with a three-arched opening was
located in the south wall, which is the only known one of its kind in
Tallinn. The portal was walled up in the 15th century, but was
discovered and restored during restoration work in the 1960s.
A number of additions were built in the 14th century. On the south
side, above the current St. Anthony's chapel, a half-smaller St.
Matthew's chapel was erected. St. Matthew's chapel was built on the
south side of the tower, while on the north side (moving from west to
east) St. Barbara's chapel next to the tower, St. George's chapel in
front of the main portal and the Small chapel, which is connected to the
north bay by means of two high arches, has been preserved to this day.
The church was thoroughly rebuilt between 1405 and 1420, when a new
choir was built and the nave was reconstructed according to the
principles of the basilica. The new choir was built the same width as
the nave and has a polygonal gable, where the side bays form an envelope
passage in the choir room. The choir rests on four pillars and consists
of 9 vaults. 2 of these pillars on the eastern side are four-sided,
analogous to the pillars of the nave, while the western ones are
octagonal. At that time, a central basilica nave with high walls resting
on four-sided pillars was built in the oblong building, and the entire
building was covered with simple side vaults. New, larger windows were
also installed on the building, and its external walls were supported
with buttresses. A sacristy was built on the south side of the choir,
which has survived to this day. With few changes, the nave and choir
have been preserved to this day. The walls of the church were built
higher in both the central and side bays.
Between 1486 and
1493, Matthew's Chapel (named Antonius' Chapel since the 17th century)
was completely rebuilt. In the process, the chapel was enlarged by two
vaults, turning it into a spacious four-vaulted room with a central
pillar. The facade of St. Anthony's Chapel is a characteristic example
of medieval Tallinn Gothic: the high gable is equipped with numerous
petikniches and a hatch, while the four-step portal is surrounded by an
ornamental wall made of pure stones.
The new tower of the
reconstructed church was completed in 1515. Its stone part was one floor
lower than the current one, and it was equipped with a Gothic tent
spire, which contained four more small corner towers and was similar to
the current spire of Oleviste Church.
At the beginning of the 1520s, the first evangelical preachers
arrived in Tallinn. The reformation movement initiated by Martin Luther
received the support of the local city authorities early on, and the
reorganization of church life began.
Niguliste was the only
church in Tallinn's under-city, whose interior remained intact from the
looting of images that accompanied the Lutheran reformation in 1523. The
cunning leader of the congregation had the locks of the church filled
with molten metal, and the rioting crowd could not enter.
Nicholas Church became a Lutheran parish church. In the middle of the
16th century, Niguliste's Lutheran image program resulted in
renaissance-style parish pews depicting characters from the Old and New
Testaments. In the middle of the 17th century, parish balconies were
commissioned for the church. In 1624, Bogislaus von Rosen donated a
pulpit with scenes depicting the life of Christ. Epitaphs and coat of
arms were erected on the walls in honor of wealthy townspeople, nobles
and pastors buried in the church.
The reconstructions of the 17th and 18th centuries mainly concerned
the northern extensions of the church and the tower. Grave chapels were
built on the north side of the church, among them the chapel of
Bogislaus von Rosen (1651), Gustav Adolf Clodt (1673) and Peter August
von Holstein-Beck (1773). In 1673, the medieval chapel of St. George was
rebuilt. The baroque von Clodt tomb chapel with a lantern on the roof
was built over its western part. The eastern part of the chapel was
reconstructed as a vestibule. A portal decorated with columns and a
volute, crowned by numerous sculptures, were built there. In 1773, the
baroque tomb chapel of Peter August Friedrich von Holstein-Beck was
built on the north side of the west tower in place of the medieval St.
Barbara chapel. The western tower of the church was reconstructed in
1682–1696. The stone part of the tower, which was in a state of
emergency, was repaired and built one floor higher, and a new baroque
spire was built. It has two lanterns and a lower part with bell
cabinets.
From 1846 to 1850, works were carried out in the
church's choir, which was in danger of collapsing, which was demolished
and restored to its former form on new foundations. The frames of most
of the windows were also replaced.
In 1926, 30 barrels of skeletons were removed from the church during the construction of central heating.
In 1943, the evacuation of the church's art assets began. Only a part
of the works could be taken into the war package. During the March 1944
bombing, the church was hit by a bomb. The roofs and the steeple were
destroyed, as well as almost all the objects left in the church, the
pulpit and several magnificent epitaphs, the organ, carved decorations
and pews from the 17th century, carved walls and a Renaissance-style
carved pew built for the members of the town council in 1556-1558 were
also destroyed.
After a few years, most of the high walls of the
nave collapsed along with the vaults. The presbytery of St. Nicholas
Church, located south of the church, was also destroyed.
The most
valuable art assets remain thanks to their quick evacuation. Among other
things, they were saved
baroque epitaphs (17th-18th century);
a
collection of Renaissance and Baroque chandeliers (16th-18th centuries);
Grave slabs covering the floor of St. Matthew's (later St. Anthony's)
chapel (14th-17th century);
Altar of St. Anthony;
The high altar
(1481) made by Lübeck master Hermen Rode;
The beginning of Bernt
Notke's "Dance of Death" (late 15th century);
some details of the
decorative wall of the von Rosen chapel (1655);
seven-branched
candelabra (1519).
All these items have found a place in the
restored building. Apart from these, an oak crucifix dating from the end
of the 13th century, which is located in the History Museum, and a tower
monstrance made by Tallinn goldsmith Hans Ryssenberg in 1477, which was
given as a gift to Prince Menšikov for diplomatic reasons in 1710 before
Tallinn's privileges were confirmed, and is currently located in the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg, have been preserved.
At the end of the 1940s, the church would have been almost
demolished, but it was still decided to restore it.
The
restoration work lasted from 1953 to 1984. Important studies were then
carried out, which allowed the building to be restored to its original
form as much as possible.
In the 1950s, the collapsed central
pillars were rebuilt with high walls, and the building was covered with
new vaults and roofs.
In the 1960s, the south portal, closed in
the 15th century, and the perspective portal of St. Anthony's Chapel, as
well as the arch connecting the chapel to the nave, were opened and
restored.
The newly renovated church fell victim to a fire in
October 1982, but has been restored.
In 1983, the baroque spire
was restored. It follows the form of the helmet built in 1695 and
repaired in 1898 and is 105 m high.
In 1984, a building converted into a museum-concert hall was opened
as a branch of the Estonian Art Museum. It is one of the few museums in
Northern Europe that is located in a former sacral building, allowing
medieval and early modern church art to be presented in a historic
setting. The most valuable and largest collection of church art in
Estonia is stored in the museum.
Retable of the main altar of St.
Nicholas Church in Tallinn
The retable of the main altar with two
pairs of wings of St. Nicholas Church was made in the years 1478-1481 in
the workshop of Hermen Rode, a craftsman and painter from Lübeck. The
altar is one of the largest in terms of dimensions - width with open
wings 6.3 m, height 3.5 m. It is one of the most magnificent and
best-preserved late medieval North German altarpieces and one of the
largest of the Hanseatic cities of the 15th century. The work depicts
more than forty saints and biblical characters. The closed wings of the
altar depict 16 scenes from the life of St. Nicholas and St. Victor. The
altar was commissioned by the Great Guild of Tallinn and the Mustpeade
Brotherhood - the coats of arms of both guilds are depicted on the ship
saved by St. Nicholas, the patron saint of merchants and sailors. The
type is a chapel altar with two pairs of wings resting on a predella.
The main financiers of Kappaltar are considered to be the Tallinn
Suurgild and Mustpeade brotherhood, in addition to the St. Nicholas
congregation, because their emblems are depicted in the closed and
half-open positions of the altarpiece.
Anthony's Chapel, built in 1493 (originally St. Matthew's Chapel
around 1350);
Bogislaus von Rosen's tomb chapel of St. Nicholas
Church, built in 1651;
St. George's Chapel of St. Nicholas Church, in
front of the main portal from the 14th century;
the grave chapel of
county councilor Gustav Adolf von Clodt, built in 1678;
The Peter
August von Holstein-Beck chapel on the north side of the church, built
in 1773.
Next to the church was also its own cemetery (Nigileste
cemetery), which was used until 1772. After that, it was forbidden to
bury people next to the church, and a new church cemetery was
established in 1773 in Kopli (Kopli cemetery).
The congregation of the Saint Nicholas Church in Tallinn was
primarily German-speaking. After the establishment of the Estonian
Evangelical Lutheran Church (E.E.L.K.) in 1917, one Swedish and one
German presbytery were established a few years later. In 1939, Oleviste,
Niguliste and Toomkogudus, among others, belonged to the German
presbytery in Tallinn.
Teachers of St. Nicholas parish
Konrad
von zur Mühlen, 1909–1939, teacher of the St. Nicholas congregation in
Tallinn and 1921–1939 dean of the German diocese,
Adolf Oskar
Undritz, 1896–1932, pastor of the II denomination of the St. Nicholas
congregation in Tallinn.
Niguliste museum-concert hall
The
building has been converted into a museum-concert hall. The auxiliary
rooms necessary for this have been built underground in front of the
north wing of the building.
Three of Estonia's four most
important medieval works of art are exhibited in the Niguliste
museum-concert hall.
Anthony's Chapel
In the Antonius chapel,
there is a preserved part of the unique painting "Dance of Death" by the
master Bernt Notke from Lübeck (end of the 15th century) and the altar
of St. Anthony (16th century). The triumphal arch group of the
Harju-Rist parish, wooden sculptures, which were transferred from the
church to an art museum in 1959 by the Ministry of Culture of the
Estonian SSR, are located in the Antonius chapel. Despite the change of
government, the congregation has not managed to get the statues back,
and they are still located in the Anthony's Chapel of St. Nicholas
Church.
Silver chamber
Silver belongings of guilds, tsunfts,
the Blackheads Brotherhood and the church are exhibited in the silver
chamber. The hall with excellent acoustics is a beloved concert venue.
Barbara Chapel
A small chapel
Anthony's Chapel, built 1486-1493
(originally St. Matthew's Chapel around 1350)
Bogislaus von Rosen's
tomb chapel of St. Nicholas Church, built in 1651
St. George's chapel
of St. Nicholas Church, in front of the main portal from the 14th
century
the grave chapel of county councilor Gustav Adolf von Clodt,
built in 1678
The Peter August von Holstein-Beck chapel on the north
side of the church, built in 1773
Next to the church was also its own
cemetery (Nigileste cemetery), which was used until 1772. After that, it
was forbidden to bury people next to the church, and a new church
cemetery was established in 1773 in Kopli (Kopli cemetery).
"Dance of Death" by Bernt Notke. End of the 15th century
Calvary
group. About 1360-1380
Tombstone of Johannes Balliv. 1520
Arent
Passer. Antonius von der Busch family epitaph. Around 1608
Dietrich
Möller's epitaph. 1614
Coat of arms of Gotthard Wilhelm von Essen.
1693-1694
Heraldic epitaph of Wolter von Delwig. 1698
Gustav
Berg's coat of arms. 1697
Master of the Legend of St. Lucia. Mary's
altar (the so-called Blackheads altar). Around 1495
Coat of arms of
Christian and David Lilienring. 1697-1698
Coat of arms of Tuw von
Saltza. 1702-1703
Hermen Rode and Johannes Stenrat. The main altar of
St. Nicholas Church. 1478–1481
Adriaen Isenbrandt, Michel Sittow.
Altar of the Passion (the so-called Altar of Anthony). 1510s
Coat of
arms of Alexander Gustav von Essen (died 1689). End of the 17th century,
beginning of the 18th century
Master of Liechtenstein Castle.
Presentation of Christ in the Temple. 1430s
Henning van der Heide.
Saint Nicholas, Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist. 1510s
Michel
Sittow. St. George with the dragon. Around 1520
Andreas Bornemann.
Saint Kanut. Around 1540
Clawes van der Sittow. Altar of St. Anna.
About 1460
Saint Dorothea. About 1510; Virgin Mary, Apostles Peter
and Paul. Around 1500
Unknown master of Brussels. Altar of the Holy
Family. Around 1490
Tobias Heintze. Saint Christopher. 1624
St.
Bridget or St. Anna. Around 1500
Coat of arms of Friedrich Wartmann.
1679
Coat of arms of Gottfried Wilhelm Helfreich. Around 1771
Coat
of arms of Magnus Reinhold von Nasackin. Around 1775
Epitaph of Eva
Louisa von Schulmann. Around 1775
Christian Ackermann. Baptismal
chamber of the Swedish-Michael Church in Tallinn. Around 1680
Coat of
arms of a family member. Around 1700
Coat of arms of Anton Philipp
von Saltza. 1686-1687
Coat of arms of Heinrich von Knorring. 1679
Coat of arms of Adolf Eberschildt. Early 1670s
Maarja's chandelier,
the so-called seven-branched floor chandelier. Around 1519
Tombstone
of Hermann von Nieroth and his wife Gertrud. Around 1642
Tombstone of
Berend Reinhold von Delwig. 1677
Grave plaque of Hans von Payküll.
1679
Tombstone of Adam Schrapfer and his wife Anna. 1630s
Tombstone of Alexander von Essen and his wife. 1653
Tombstone of
Heinrich von Tiesenhausen and his wife Anna. 1654
Jost Dunte's
tombstone. 1624