St. Salvator, Medieval church in Pellworm, Germany
St. Salvator is a brick church on the island of Pellworm in northern Germany, built in a mix of Romanesque and Gothic styles, with white exterior walls and a small turret on the nave roof. Inside, it holds a late Gothic winged altar from the 15th century, a bronze baptismal font, and an early 18th-century organ.
The church was built around the year 1200 on the western edge of the island, close to the sea dike, replacing an earlier wooden structure that had worn down over time. A tower from that early period collapsed in the early 17th century because the soft ground beneath it could no longer support its weight.
The church is dedicated to Christ the Savior, and the name survives in the local nickname for the broken tower: Finger Gottes, or Finger of God, visible from the Wadden Sea. The late Gothic winged altar, made around 1460 in a Hamburg or Lübeck workshop, shows seven carved oak scenes of the Passion; its inner wings carry sixteen paintings of the life of Mary.
The church stands on a raised mound (Warft) by the old sea dike, not in the village itself; paths lead there on foot or by bicycle. The west tower is a 26-metre ruin, while the bells hang in a separate wooden bell tower east of the church. The interior is entered through the south portal, whose late Gothic pointed arch incorporates two Romanesque columns.
The tower ruin, called "Finger Gottes" (Finger of God) by islanders, kept serving as a sea mark for shipping in the Heverstrom until the 41.5-metre lighthouse was finished in 1907. Inside the ruin stand gravestones from the 16th and 17th centuries, and beside it lies the cemetery for unknown drowned sailors.
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