„Relikwiarzowy” program architektoniczny fary św. Katarzyny w Brodnicy
„Reliquary” architectural program parish church of St. Catherine in Brodnica

Summary/Abstract: The present paper is devoted to the reconstruction of the supposed liturgical and functional program of St Catherine’s Parish Church at Brodnica (German Strasburg), which during the times of Teutonic Order was an important centre of the veneration of Holy Cross. It was due to the donation of a gilded reliquary containing a particle of the True Cross by the Brodnica’s vicar Nicolaus Wolwelim in the year 1343. This event had an important impacton the shape of the architecture of the church, which was begun slightly before. In the easternmost bay of the choir a tall, double-bay structure was erected, which served probably as an elevated platform for the relic display during the most important feasts of the liturgical year. Probably the reliquary was kept normally in the double-storey chapel in the south tower, which was marked with a polygonal apse placed towards the town. The executed analysisshows that the closest comparisons for the supposed reliquary platform in the Brodnica choir are offered by the Grande Châsse of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, reliquary altar in St Ursula’s Church in Cologne and the western gallery in the Castle Church of Malbork, although the reliquary function of the latter is merely hypothetical. It shows the originality of the conception executed at Brodnica, in which the spatial program of the church was clearly dependanton the needs of expression of the cult of the relic.

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