History
The Gothic parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kołobrzeg started to built at the beginning of the 14th century on the site of an older building from the 13th century, whose canon named Rienerus was recorded in 1219. In 1254, Cardinal Peter of Utrecht granted an indulgence for the construction of a new church, probably in connection with the town’s foundation under the Lübeck Law a year later. In 1282 it was already recorded as a collegiate church, but it also served as a municipal parish church. In 1289, “armarium canonicorum” was mentioned in documents.
In 1316, an indulgence was granted to those who supported the construction works started in the first years of the fourteenth century in connection with the thorough, Gothic rebuilding of the church. Initially, it was given the form of a three-nave hall with the lower part of the western massif, probably added to the old chancel. In the years 1323-1331, a new Gothic chancel was built, and in the period 1379-1386 two outer aisles (however it is also possible, that the chancel was built first, and then the naves, as evidenced by the western buttress on the northern side, merged into the eastern wall). In the fifteenth century, a gallery (matroneum) was built into the northern aisle, and a north tower was erected. The southern tower was probably built a bit later. At the end of the fifteenth century, the northern and southern towers were joined into one massive block, a middle helmet was added, and in this way the temple was given its final appearance.
St. Mary’s Church in Kołobrzeg was taken by Protestants in the 16th century, which resulted in the building of galleries over the side aisles. Due to the subsidence of the ground, the temple was repaired several times. In the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous repairs of the vaults were necessary, which were destroyed over the chancel in 1761 during the siege of Kołobrzeg. Reconstruction works combined with regothisation were carried out in the years 1874-1876 and 1887-1890. In 1945 during the fights at Festung Kolberg church was an important point of defense of the city and was destroyed by the fire of Soviet artillery. After World War II, the its ruins were initially intended to be dismantled, fortunately in 1957, it was handed over to the Catholic Church and reconstruction started.
Architecture
The church was erected on a plot south-west of the town market, and because of the orientation towards the sides of the world, its axis was located at an angle to the street network. In the first half of the 14th century, it had the form of a five-bay structure, built of bricks on a stone foundation. Originally erected as a hall with central nave with two aisles, 32 meters long and 25 meters wide, by the end of the 14th century it had acquired a central nave with four aisles, 40 meters wide. On the east a lower chancel, 21.6 meters long and 10.4 meters wide was built. The chancel was pentagonal ended, and a sacristy with a treasury was added to its north wall. The central nave and the adjacent side aisles were uniform in height of 19.5 meters, while the outer aisles were built 3.5 meters lower. The southernmost aisle, like the chancel, was ended polygonal. On the western side, a 40-meter-high tower massif was built on a rectangular plan measuring 15 x 31.6 meters. It was built in the late 15th century, of a quadrangular north and south towers, perhaps combined due to structural issues. The church’s total length was approximately 72 meters, and its maximum width was 46 meters.
The church’s large exterior facades were reinforced with buttresses and pierced with tall windows: two-light and three-light in the chancel, and three-light and four-light in the nave. The windows and entrance openings were pointed, with stepped mouldings. In two places, on the south side of the chancel and in the northwest corner of the nave, the buttresses were replaced by polygonal communication turrets. The five-story western massif in its lower section, corresponding in height to the nave walls, was devoid of any divisions, except for a triad of large windows on the west and slightly smaller ones on the sides. The three upper floors were separated by cornices and decorated with blind windows, regularly spaced on the northern part of the western façade and asymmetrically spaced on the central and southern sections. The northern façade of the western massing was created as a regular structure, while the southern façade was irregular. This was likely the result of the lengthy construction process and subsequent changes, as well as problems with the building’s statics, which led to the abandonment of the twin-tower façade.
Inside the nave, the aisles were divided by four pairs of massive, octagonal pillars, set on plinths. The 9.7-meter-wide central nave, divided into transversely rectangular bays, and the narrower side aisles, divided into short bays parallel to the rectangular axes, were crowned with cross-rib vaults. These were set on piers and prominent tripartite shafts in a cross-shaped arrangement, and on the side walls with single shafts of even larger diameter. The shafts at the pillars were extended in the plinth area with a shallower, yet still tripartite moulding. Their capitals were placed below the bases of the arcades between the central nave and aisles. Furthermore, the cross-section of the first western pair of pillars and half-pillars at the eastern wall was enriched with a half-round moulding inserted into the corners of the octagon. The church’s interior facades and the pillars between the aisles were covered with colorful murals.
The walls of the aisles were originally divided by tall window niches and low pointed-arch recesses in the lower part. In the last quarter of the 14th century, after openings were cut in the thickness of the perimeter walls, these were transformed into tall pointed arcades and rectangular pillars with internal buttresses, separating the older aisles from the outer aisles. The northernmost aisle was built in two stages, leaving an external buttress embedded in its wall at an angle. The southernmost aisle was also built in stages, as a two-bay chapel with a polygonal closure was first built, and then, still in the 14th century, it was extended by three bays to the west. Both outer aisles were crowned with stellar vaults, with the northern aisle divided into two levels by a low gallery, also crowned by a four-pointed stellar vault. The southern aisle was covered with a vault featuring the same star design in its eastern section, while the later western part was crowned with a net vault with densely spaced ribs. These were arranged in a motif of interpenetrating stars, where the inward-pointing arms of four small stars simultaneously formed a larger eight-pointed star. Furthermore, a sort of gallery was created between the pillars in the outer southern aisle.
The central nave was connected to the chancel by a pointed and moulded rood arcade, high but significantly narrower than the two main sections of the church. This narrowing resulted in unusual, highly exposed vertical strips of wall on both sides of the arcade, plastered white and devoid of articulation, possibly intended for a set of wall paintings. The originally narrow arcade and the imperfect junction between the nave and the chancel were partially masked by a late Gothic rood screen, richly decorated with architectural details (tracery of glazed bricks, granite columns). Traditionally, it separated the part of the church accessible to the laity from the part open exclusively to the clergy.
The interior of the chancel was divided into three rectangular bays and a pentagonal closure, but the bay in front of the polygon was made significantly shorter than the others, giving the impression of a larger number of polygons in the closure. A cross-rib vault likely existed in the chancel in the 14th century. The articulation of the walls echoed the original articulation of the nave walls before the construction of the outer aisles. Consequently, high and deep window recesses and low pointed-arch niches in the lower part were created. The edges of the window recesses were moulded somewhat more sculpturally, with a shaft instead of the chamfer used in the nave. Furthermore, single wall shafts were added, running from the base of the vaults to the floor.
Three high rooms were located on the ground floor of the western massif, connected to each other and to the nave of the church. These created a system resembling three interconnected cross-shaped interiors, inscribed between eight massive piers, ranging from 3.5 to 5 meters thick, constituting the structural framework of the western massif. The entire structure was covered with eleven bays of cross-rib vaults of varying sizes. Only to the north and south were polygonal recesses with five-rib vaults. Although the interior of the western massif was connected to the central nave and aisles by full-height arcades, it formed a completely autonomous space, probably referring to the old westwork tradition.
Current state
St. Mary’s Church in Kołobrzeg is one of the finest examples of architectural type widespread in Pomerania in the form of a hall with an aisleless chancel and a monumental west massif, for which it was probably the archetype. It is also one of the most impressive Gothic sacral buildings in Western Pomerania. To this day, due to the war damages, medieval rood screen has not survived, and the chancel vaults, destroyed in the 18th century, are a post-war reconstruction, as well as the nave vaults and the east gable destroyed during the World War II.
The medieval equipment includes: a Gothic menora dating from 1327, a crucifix from 1330, a baptismal font from 1355, a Gothic candlesticks from 1420, and a Schlieffen Crown from 1523, grave plaques of Kołobrzeg’s burghers, as well as stalls of municipal councilors from XIV century. They are the oldest stalls in Poland. On the north-eastern pillar there is a Gothic polychrome with a representation of Madonna with a child, in the north aisle a painting of a Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the Passion scenes in the ground level.
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