Use
In the 14th century, the Church of the Holy Spirit took over as parish church from St. Peter's Church, which became the university church for the University of Heidelberg.
Originally, the Church of the Holy Spirit contained the tombs of the Palatinate electors but they were destroyed by fire during the War of the Palatinian Succession. Today only the tomb of Prince-Elector Rupert III, the founder of the church, is still preserved.
The famous Palatine Library, the Bibliotheca Palatina, was founded and at first kept in the gallery of the Church of the Holy Spirit, where good light for reading was available. During the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648, this collection of manuscripts and early printed books was taken as a booty by Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria and presented to the Pope. Of the approximately 5,000 books and 3,524 manuscripts taken, in 1816 a mere 885 were returned. The rest form the Bibliotheca Palatina section of the Vatican Library. For the University Jubilee, many of these books were briefly brought back and displayed in Heidelberg.
In the course of its history, the Church of the Holy Spirit was used by both Catholics and Protestants, even simultaneously. Starting in 1706, a partition was used so that both congregations could hold their services without any mutual disturbance. In 1720, Karl III Philip, Elector Palatine came into conflict with the town's Protestants as a result of fully handing over the Church of the Holy Spirit to the Catholics. Prince Karl III Philip gave way, due to pressure for Prussia, Holland, and Sweden and repartitioned the wall. In 1936 the separating wall was removed and the church is now exclusively Protestant.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the steps at the rear of the Church of the Holy Spirit were popular with the Hippies and the Flower Power movement and became a tourist attraction during this time. In 1972 a rock concert by Werner Pieper and the English band Quintessence was organised in the church and attended with great enthusiasm by students and Hippies alike. In conservative church circles this performance was viewed more critically.
Read more about this topic: Church Of The Holy Spirit, Heidelberg
Famous quotes containing the word use:
“... it is use, and use alone, which leads one of us, tolerably trained to recognize any criterion of grace or any sense of the fitness of things, to tolerate ... the styles of dress to which we are more or less conforming every day of our lives. Fifty years hence they will seem to us as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentot seem today.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)