The Basilica of the Twelve Apostles in Cologne, Germany

For the feast of Ss Simon and Jude, we continue our series on the twelve Romanesque basilicas of Cologne, Germany, with the church of the Twelve Apostles. (All images from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)

This photograph of the year 1899 gives a good sense of the proportion of the church’s various towers/ (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

A small monastery was founded on this site by at least the tenth century, possibly earlier, and rebuilt on a larger scale in the early decades of the 11th. Large parts of the outer walls are retained from this first rebuilding as the core of the walls of the current structure. Starting around 1150, a new choir was built on the church’s west side (remodeled out of existence in 1633-44), while the crypt of the previous church was filled to provide support for a new tower, which rises to about 220 feet. After a fire in 1192, a new choir with three apses was built on the east side, starting around the year 1200, and modeled another of the Cologne basilica, Great St Martin, which had been completed a few years before. Like most of the churches of Cologne, the building was severely damages during World War Two; the post-war restorations have further damaged the church with an almost featureless sanctuary and some atrocious paintings in the apse and crossing.

The eastern side with the apse of the main choir, and the two smaller lateral apses.

by Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas; CC BY-SA 3.0

The western side with the main tower.

by Raimond Spekking

These old photographs give a good sense of the interior space; the first two were taken around the same time as the first one, at the very end of the 19th century.

As noted previously in this series, only one of the twelve churches, St Mary ‘in Lyskirche’, preserves any of the original decoration in the ceiling. By 1925, when this photo was taken, the empty spaces in the crossing of Twelve Apostles had been filled with Byzantine-style mosaics and frescoes. The German Wikipedia article about the church is a little vague on this point, but seems to say that these were removed in the post-war restorations not because they damaged during the war, but because they were out of fashion.

This mosaic of Christ as the Good Shepherd in the tympanum over one of the doors is apparently the only part of this more recent mosaic work left intact.

by Karl-Heinz Meurer, CC BY-SA 3.0

The paintings with which they have been replaced in the crossing are truly horrible, Picasso mugs Chagall in grey-and-white.

by Johann Bakker

by Hans Peter Schaefer

A longer view of the nave.

by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro

The church possesses quite a number of good statues, including a set of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, which range in age from about 1500-1800, and were formerly part of an altar dedicated to them as a group (now long-since dismantled. The next eight pictures are all by Charlie1965nrw.) Ss Vitus, George, Pantaleon and Giles.

Ss Denis, Erasmus, Eustachius and Achatius.

Ss Blase, Barbara, Catherine, Margaret and Cyriacus.

and last of all, a large statue of St Christopher mounted on one of the pillars.

These two statues of Ss Peter and Paul were saved from the former Baroque high altar of the church, which was dismantled in 1819. They are now set up at the back of the church in front of an organ, to either side of the baptismal font seen below.   

The baptismal font, made ca. 1200. 

In the north apse, a painting of the Martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria, formerly over an altar dedicated to her; also the work of a native of Cologne, a painter named Johann Wilhelm Pottgießer (ca. 1637 - 1683/90.

A relatively new (1908) statue of St Anne with the Virgin and Child, by Friedrich Wilhelm Mengelberg (1837-1919), who was born in Cologne, and produced a lot of neo-Gothic work for churches in Germany and the Netherlands, including the famous cathedral of his native city. In German, this motif is called a “Selbdritt”, which means “she herself (i.e. St Anne) is the third.”

by Qwertzu111111

This neo-Gothic retable of the year 1910 has a sculpture of the Madonna and Child made in Swabia around 1500 in the middle. The other compartments have been filled with some very unattractive modern sculptures.

by HOWI