Europe In These Times - Churches of Nuremberg

Europe In These Times is a series of posts by the American Catholic freelance writer Kevin Duffy, detailing his encounters—sometimes sought out, other times not—with the rich religious heritage of the European continent.

Nuremberg, Germany, 20 June 2021

St. Sebald

Nuremberg in the summer—in its old, walled section—is a city of terrace dining and outdoor markets, squares and pedestrian streets, bridges and urban islets on a slow and narrow stretch of the Pegnitz river; a worthy destination in the warmer months, even if the city’s fame in recent years stems mostly from its apparently impressive Christmas market.

On our second day in the city one June weekend, it rained steadily if lightly from the morning into the afternoon. We welcomed the weather, as the precipitation somewhat broke the stifling heat of the previous day, when we had returned to our hotel for several hours for the relief offered by the air conditioning.

Rain also, of course, incentivized indoor activities, and so we decided on some museum visits and set out uphill toward the northern end of the walled city. As a general proposition, and time permitting, however, I find it inadvisable to pass by an open church door while on holiday, and so after a mere two blocks of walking, we stepped into the church of St. Sebald. All dark stone and stunning high vaults, the church is defined by a narrow-seeming nave, its columns adorned with statuettes. It is uncluttered but subtly ornate, a space of abundant natural light despite the darkness of the stone, a flood of color from the exterior rays refracting through the stained glass of the apse, where the ambulatory wraps around a small tomb containing the relics of the titular Saint.

Just a few hundred yards away, a second set of open doors led us into the church of St. Egidien, and an entirely different aesthetic. There, the nave is all white and unadorned, strikingly absent of art or architectural feature. The long apse, however, stands in stark contrast, with impressively intricate scrollwork covering the extensive vaulting. Although it is unlikely that this architectural feature is a testament to the church’s history, I cannot help but attribute it in this way: St. Egidien was originally a Catholic church and part of a Benedictine Abbey that was dissolved in the Reformation, and today it remains a Lutheran house of worship (St. Sebald, too, was converted from Catholic to Lutheran in this period).

St. Egidian

The attention of anyone standing in St. Egidien, though, is less drawn to the contrasting style of nave and apse than to the wholly unique crucifix positioned immediately behind its plain, barely-elevated altar. Standing perhaps twenty feet high, the bronze crucifix would be a simple work, were it not for the dozen curved branches emerging from both sides of the cross, a bunch of fashioned grapes hanging from each. These are the fruits of the crucifixion (our won salvation), perhaps, or the origin of the sacramental wine made into the blood of the very cross from which they hang. Either way, they make for a visually striking work, a memorable testament to the way in which the cross—as truth, as gift, as challenge, as new beginning, as hope—is, among so many other things, a font of endless artistic inspiration. We stepped back out into the rain, and moved on with our plans.

The museums were fine, if mostly unremarkable, but some photographs and historical descriptions, appearing in several displays, stood out: the city of Nuremberg, as one might have suspected, was utterly destroyed by the bombing of the Second World War, and neither St. Sebald nor St. Egidien was spared. Both were wrecked, roofs collapsed and walls crumbling. But both, as I knew from my day’s walk, had also been rebuilt and restored, given new life for their old faiths. To have been present in both churches just moments before seeing these images focused the mind on contrasts, present and past: the heat and the rain, the dark surfaces of St. Sebald and the plain white of St. Egidien, the Catholic and the Protestant, the conflicts of reformation and the following peace, the wars of twentieth-century conquest and the following peace, the destruction and the rebuilding. But for all the contrasts of history and existence, there is a remarkable consistency: near the base of that crucifix in St. Egidien, instead of the grape bunches hanging off their branches, two doves emerge from either side, heads arched skyward and bodies following, taking flight up toward that unfolding death, toward those grapes, eager to bring the world the knowledge and blessing of that sacrifice, that fruit. Destruction, rebuilding.