parament

In this time the presbytery (board of the congregation) discerned the value of its parament collection and prompted its inventarisation.

Until today the bell is used by the congregation, hanging in its Lutheran St. Mary's Church, and the parament treasure is shown to the public.

By the end of the Second World War many parishioners of St. Mary's fled westwards, and also the parament treasure was rescued in the west.

The remaining pieces of the garment collection, the so-called Danziger Paramentenschatz (Danzig Parament Treasure), mostly originate from the 150 years between 1350 and 1500.

A Parament or Parement; (from Late Latin paramentum, adornment, parare, to prepare, equip), a term applied by ancient writers to the hangings or ornaments of a room of state.

The Lutheran congregation of St. Mary's Church could relocate its valuable parament collection and the presbytery granted it on loan to St. Annen Museum in Lübeck after the war.

The other surviving bell from Lutheran times, the Dominicalis (1719), renamed as Osanna and the parament treasure were united in Lübeck, given on loan to Lübeck's St. Mary's congregation as of 1955.

Surely another area worth noting is the chamber of paraments, which exhibits old liturgical clothes of some of Lübeck's churches and the main part of the parament treasure of St. Mary's Church in Gdańsk.

So when Chaplain Franz Johann Joseph Bock, the known parament expert, art historian and curator of the then Cologne Archdiocesan Museum collecting, restoring, conserving and exhibiting liturgic garments and paraments, reviewed the discovered collection he acquired a number of the best pieces from the congregation.