Reformierte Kirche Rüti (native German name, literally: Rüti Reformed Church) is an Evangelical Reformed church in the Swiss municipality of Rüti in the Canton of Zürich. It was built between 1214 and 1219 AD as the Romanesque style church of the then Premonstratensian Kloster Rüti, an abbey that was founded in 1206 by the House of Regensberg and suppressed in 1525 as part of the Reformation in Zürich.
Location
The church is situated in the center of the municipality of Rüti on a small rocky plateau near the Jona River at the site of the former abbey which is called Amthof respectively Klosterhof. Northwest of the parish church there is the rectory called Spitzer-Liegenschaft and to the west the Amthaus building which was rebuilt in 1706 when a fire partially destroyed the church and most of the remaining buildings of the abbey.
Architecture In 1214 AD the canons of Premonstratensian abbey laid the foundation stone, and they first built the presbytery and two apses. The monastery church was connected to the cloister. The tower of the present church dates back to the first construction phase to 1219, together with the choir and the northern side chapel which were rebuilt respectively expanded from 1250 to 1283. The construction works of the church must have been largely completed when in 1250 an indulgence was granted on the occasion of the fair festival year, and again, "to the promotion and maintenance of the precious building of St Mary's Church" when the construction was completed probably in 1283. In the subsequent 200 years, especially the aisles with tombs and monuments from lower and higher nobility in the area of the present north-eastern Switzerland crowded. To 1439 - 1442 the Toggenburg chapel was added, and the abbots Markus Wiler and Felix Klauser (the abbey's last abbot) let renew fundamentally the church building, documented by the engraving 1499 on the portal of the church. The church was then a Romanesque three-nave system of stately proportions. On 3 December 1706 a large fire on resulted in severe damage to the buildings and damaged the choir stalls. The clock tower was destroyed, the bells melted and then fell through the burnt-out tower. The Baroque reconstruction of the church after the fire of 1706 took over the late Romanesque choir, but was modest in dimensions. The church was repaired again in 1710, and new bells and a new movement were added. The separation wall between the former lay church and the monk church was demolished and the church services held in the Gothic nave and choir, because the population of the parish had doubled to 700 people. In 1770, when the three-aisled basilica was damaged again, it was rebuilt as a hall church in late Baroque respectively early Classicism style. The longitudinal walls of the side aisles were added by a new western wall and the nave simultaneously shortened by 12 metres (39 ft). The outer walls of the aisles were raised to roof level, the mainstays have been removed, as well as all the old elements of the building outside that wall including the Toggenburgerkapelle of 1439. In 1903, Rüti had filed an application for the construction of a new church, but instead the canton of Zürich allowed to build a new cemetery. As early as 1930, the old cemetery at the church was demolished down to the original level, and then a staircase from the main street was built, however, not one new church access was added. Minor renovations were carried out in 1935 and 1936, archaeological investigations in 1962 and 1971 and 1972, and in particularly in 1982. In the ground between the church and the Amthaus building, the former monastery's church dimensions are highlighted.
Interior
Abbot Markus Wyler initiated the Last Judgement fresco on the chancel arch, donated by Baron Bernhard Gradner and Veronika von Starckenberg. The work on the pillars of the choir arch were re-executed in 1492 by the Swiss artist Hans Haggenberg. The gothic windows and the wall tabernacle and the coat of arms in the choir (1490) are also works donated by abbot Wyler who is buried nearby in the choir's ground floor. It is decorated with Israelite kings, prophets, priests, and the parable of the ten virgins which adorn the chancel arch, and eight women from the early days of Christianity, represented with their symbols: Dorothea with the basket of roses, Mary Magdalene with the ointments bush, Appolonia with forceps and tooth, Ursula with arrow, Catherine with wheel and sword, Barbora tower, chalice and host, Margareta with cross and dragons and Helena in search of the cross of Christ. On the east wall two coats of arms memorized the founder family, the House of Regensberg and the Counts of Toggenburg.
The Episcopal collection of the Gallen Abbey includes the main altar of the monastery church, likely a late work by Hans Leu der Ältere around 1500. During the Reformation in Zürich the altar was moved to the Wurmsbach nunnery on Obersee lake shore where it remained until 1798. In 1872, the western gallery was built, one year later the Speich organ from Rapperswil was added. In 1903, Erich Honegger donated a Gothic baptismal font made of white sandstone. On occasion of the renewal work, the choir paintings from 1492 reappeared and restored in 1962 and 1963. The conservators assigned to relocate the remaining six medieval grave slabs from the longitudinal walls of the nave to the choir. The seating, wainscot and wooden floor and well-preserved interior parts were dispelled in the choir and are exhibited in the abbey's museum in the Amthaus building. Between 1980 and 1982, a comprehensive restoration of the nave was conducted which preserved the original three-aisled building, but the premises also allowed to make the nave more accessible. The five-month archaeological excavations covered the entire nave and the tombs of the noble families, bailiffs and their women and children in the nave and choir, as well as the foundations of the massive columns and the walls of the chancel screen. The nave was lowered to the ground level of the original monastery church in order to improve the view of the liturgical center with the communion table and the Gothic choir arch.
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