Церква святого Church of the saint

Rating 8110

One of the oldest buildings in Riga - the Church of St. John, is an interesting combination of different architectural styles from late Gothic, Northern Revival and Mannerism to Baroque. Like most buildings in old Riga, the church was destroyed and rebuilt many times. The first religious building at this place appeared in 1234, it was a wooden one-nave church with a small chapel adjacent to the Dominican monastery. In the 15th century, the church was destroyed for the first time, and it was done by the townspeople, who were dissatisfied with the excessive levies of the Dominicans. However, the influence of the order in this era was still great in Riga, so the church was soon rebuilt and stood until the expulsion of the Dominicans from the city, after which a crowd of townspeople, fueled by the sermons of the German anti-Catholic missionary Melchior Hoffmann, broke into the church and completely destroyed the interior yere
After that, the abandoned building was used as a stable, a granary and even an arsenal, until the end of the sixteenth century, when Stefan Batory became the suzerain of Riga, who transferred the church of St. John to the Lutheran community, in whose possession it is to this day. In 1587, a large-scale reconstruction and completion of the temple began - the old apse, which had fallen into disrepair, was demolished, thereby freeing up space for the creation of a new altar extension. The work, as a result of which the church significantly increased in size, was completed by 1589.
As for the architectural characteristics of the annex itself, it is made in the fashionable style of Mannerism, it is a three-nave spacious room with an altar part of a neat polygonal shape. The floor made of brick cross vaults, organically combined with the mesh decoration of the vaults of the main nave of the parish hall, rests on columns of the Tuscan order.
In 1677, one of the strongest and most devastating fires in Riga's history occurred in Riga, during which the eastern part of the altar was completely burned down. After the fire, the brick ceilings of the apse of the church were restored from wood, two sculptures were added to the outer symmetrically located niches of the altar part - John the Baptist, symbolizing the gullibility and naivety of the Lutheran residents, and Salome, who embodies the treachery and treachery of the city's Catholic elite.
In the following centuries, the church was extended and rebuilt many times. The last time the wooden tower was burned by a shell was in 1941. After that, in 1973, it was restored, but it was no longer wooden, but metal.
There is a legend associated with the church of St. John - in the 15th century, two monks of the monastery really wanted to be canonized. They were buried alive in the wall of the monastery.
While they were alive, the Ryzhans fed them through a specially left hole in the wall. However, after the death of the monks, the Pope never canonized them. The remains of the monks are still inside the walls of the monastery, and in memory of their death, a cross-shaped hole was made in the outer wall. Today, regular services and organ music concerts are held in the church, and the church is also open to tourists.