Essen's Muenster

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Essen's Münster is the bishop's church of the diocese Essen, the Ruhr diocese. The church dedicated to the holy Cosmas and Damian as well as the virgin Mary is situated at the Burgplatz in Essen's eastern city centre.
The house of worship is Essen's former collegiate church. The cathedral is gothic hall church built after 1275 in light sandstone. The octagonal westwork and the crypt are parts of the preserved Ottonian previous building. A cloister is connected to the Münster in the north..
War destruction and reconstruction
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The present state of construction with the church St. Johann Baptist, atrium and complete cloister
During the night from the 5th to the 6th of March 1943, the Royal Air Force attacked with 442 airplanes the city of Essen, which had become important for the war economy of the National Socialism due to the Krupp plant. In less than one hour 137.000 firebombs and 1100 high explosive bombs were dropped onto the city centre. The Münster church burnt out and suffered great damage only the older part of the building, the west building and the crypt were less damaged. The decision to rebuild was decided unanimously after the liberation through allied troops in one of the first meetings by the appointed city council under communist lord mayor Heinz Renner. The west building and the longhouse could be used again already in 1952 until in 1958 the rest of the church was completed. The cloister's north side was closed off again. The completely restored church became then in 1958 bishopric seat.
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Latest additions
The collegiate church never grew beyond the size of the Ottonian church. Only the setting up of the Ruhr diocese made further extension necessary as Franz Cardinal Hengsbach, the first Ruhr bishop, declared during his lifetime that he wanted to exercise his right to be buried in his bishop's church but not next to the holy Altfrid in the Ottonian crypt. To fulfil his wish a west crypt was built 1981-1983 below the atrium; the entrance is inside the old west building. In this Adveniat-crypt, decorated with modern concrete cast relief, whose name remembers that Cardinal Hengsbach was co-founder of the episcopal aid organisation Adveniat, medieval mortal bones of buried canons found during the excavation were buried again and in 1991 also Cardinal Hengsbach.
The south nave aisle chapel is dedicated since the 10th of October 2004 to Nikolaus Groß, who was beatified in 2001.
Further artworks
The holy grave in the south aisle is late gothic. The epoch of baroque is represented at Essen's Münster through two epitaphs. The older, the abbess countess Elizabeth von Bergh, who died 1614, still holds clear renaissance elements. This plate made of black marble is situated at the north wall of the eastern nave aisle bay and shows the abbess in her  vestment surrounded by the coat-of-arms of her ancestors. The second epitaph, the abbess Johanna von Baexen, stems from 1677 and is situated at the southern exterior wall.
Due to war destruction the Münster church has no medieval windows. The present windows stem from the time of reconstruction. The  Michael window and the windows of the gallery floor of the west building were created by Heinrich Campendonk, the choir windows by Ludwig Gies, the longhouse windows by Wilhelm Buschulte and the windows of the crypt by  Alfred Manessier. The altar frieze is a work by the sculptor Elmar Hillebrand and his pupil Ronald Hughes. The bronze doors of the atrium and the church as well as the crossway frieze in the longhouse are works by the Austrian artist Toni Schneider-Manzell.
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image author: wikipedia

Cathedral treasure
The Münster owns a cathedral treasure that is open to the public. Apart from the golden Madonna and the seven-arm candle holder that in the church itself the child crown of Otto III from his Aachen crowing, the four Ottonian processional crosses, the long executioner's sword of the martyrs Cosmas and Damian as well as the Theophanu-Evangeliar are also well worth mentioning.
Usage history
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From the beginning to 1803
The Essen Münster was since its founding of the first church building till  1803 the collegiate church of the cathedral chapter Essen and the centre of cathedral life. The church was neither parish nor bishop church but served mainly the members of the convent. It's position could be compared with a minster even though the convent Essen didn't follow the Benedictine monastery rules but the Institutio sanctimonialium, the in 816 stipulated canon lifeform for women communities in an even more secular form by the Aachen Reichssynode. Liturgy of the hours and masses of the convent community took place at the Münster as well as litanies for deceased convent members, the aristocratic patrons of the convent and their ancestors in the course of the organised dead rememberance (Memoria). The number of noble canonesses who the church was serving, fluctuated over the centuries between 70 during the heydays under the abbess Mathilde in the 10th century and 3 in the 16th century. The church was only open on important holidays for the convent dependent and later for Essen's population. Usually mass was held at the St. Johann Baptist church in front of the Münster church, which had developed from the Ottonian baptistery or the St. Gertrudis church (today Markt church) at the Marktplatz.
The reformation had no influence on the Münster church due to its association to the catholic convent. The citizens of the city of Essen who were anyway in a permanent dispute with the convent, became predominately protestant but the convent stayed catholic. The protestant citizens chose the St. Gertrudis church, situated outside the convent terrain, the citizens who stayed catholic used the St. Johann Baptist further on as parish church.
The convent was secularised in 1803 by the kingdom Prussia. But the Münster church inclusive interior was taken over immediately by the parish community St. Johann Baptist.
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1803-1958
The church was parish church for the next 150 years. The name Münster church stayed even though the convent didn't exist anymore. It served as parish church for the catholic city centre community of the city of Essen, whose population increased especially in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th. century.
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1958 till the present
After there were first attempts in the twenties of the 20th century to built a diocese in the Ruhr area, a new diocese was created in 1958 from parts of Münster, Paderborn and Cologne and the Essen Münster church became its bishop church. On the 1st of January 1958 the first Essen bishop Franz Hengsbach was inaugurated during a special service by the apostolic nuncio Aloysius Muench. Since then the Essen Münster is the regigious centre of the diocese. The highlight of its thousand-year history is the visit by Pope Johannes Paul II in 1987.
Picture Copyright : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:M%C3%BCnster_Essen_Kreuzgang_20060326.jpgThis article is based on the article from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essener_M%C3%BCnster   the free Encyclopaedia Wikipedia and is under the http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU-Lizenz_f%C3%BCr_freie_Dokumentation . In the Wikipedia is a http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essener_M%C3%BCnster&action=history aivailable.