For the feast of St Andrew the Apostle, we continue our ongoing series on the twelve Romanesque basilicas of the city of Cologne, Germany, with the one dedicated to him. We have already seen part of the church earlier this month, on the feast of St Albert the Great, since he is buried in the crypt. It also houses relics of the Maccabee brothers in a very beautiful reliquary shrine, shown below. (All images from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)
The church was founded as a secular canonry in 974, but significantly expanded and rebuilt in the 12th and 13th centuries;
the westwork, nave and central tower date from this period. Cologne was where the Dominicans established their very first house in Germany, only a very short time after St Dominic’s death, welcomed by the canons of this church. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Dominicans’ were suppressed in Germany, and their church and monastery in Cologne were both destroyed; they returned to the city in 1947, and have had charge of St Andrew’s church ever since then.
In the 15th century, the original choir was destroyed, and rebuilt in the Gothic style (lower right in the this photo), followed by the north transept in 1470/80 (on the right), and the south transept by 1492.
There are not a lot of good photos of the building available, but one can see
a very good panorama of the interior on Google maps. Here we see the nave from the second bay (moving forward), roughly the point at which the architecture transitions from Romanesque to Gothic. I suspect that the Crucifix and statues of Our Lady and St John mounted on the arch were originally part of a rood screen, which would have been positioned right below where they are now.
Looking back down the nave from the sanctuary.
The Gothic choir
One of the side aisles.
One of the two staircases which leads up into the central tower.
The reliquary shrine of the Maccabees, made in 1520-27. According to German Wikipedia, these relics were plundered from Milan by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and brought to Cologne in 1164 at the same time as those of the three Magi, who are now in Cologne cathedral. (Our Ambrosian expert Nicola de’ Grandi had never heard of this, so at the very least, the story needs further confirmation.) For a long time, these relics were kept in a church belonging to a house of Benedictine nuns, and dedicated to the Maccabees; they have been kept in the south transept of St Andrew since the convent was suppressed.
A small shrine with relics of the Apostles Ss Simon and Jude at the back of the church.
This large stone vessel, also rescued from the church of the Maccabees, was said to contain the blood of some of the 11,000 virgins martyred with St Ursula.
A fresco in the north transept, painted at the time it was built, in the late 15th century: at top, the Coronation of the Virgin; second band, the Annunciation, Visitation and Birth of Christ...
in the third band, the Adoration of the Magi...
and at the bottom, the Crucifixion.
An altarpiece of the Crucifixion by the painter Bartholomew Bryn the Elder (1493-1555), who was active in Cologne for most of his career. On the right wing is shown the crucifixion of St Andrew, on the left, Pope St Urban I (who baptized St Cecilia, and was very popular in Germany), and St Ulrich of Augsburg, the very first Saint canonized by the Pope after a formal process.
On the closed wings, an unidentified Sainted Pope, and three military Saints, Maurice, George, and hometown hero Gereon.
An altarpiece originally commissioned for a Rosary brotherhood, the work of an anonymous painter of the early 16th century known as the Master of St Severin. Ss Dominic and Peter Martyr hold up the cloak of the Virgin as groups of religious lay kneel under it; on the extremities, Ss Dorothy and Cecilia.
A painted wooden Pietà of the 15th century.
Two wooden statues of the 16th century, St Michael
and St Christopher.
A modern fresco of St Bruno of Cologne, the church’s founder.
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