All Saints Church (Lehr)

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All Saints Church in Ulm-Lehr

The All Saints Church is a Roman Catholic church in Ulm - Lehr , built from 1972 to 1975 . It is a branch church of the parish of St. Maria Suso in the Eselsberg district of Ulm . Their patronage is the solemn festival of All Saints on November 1st.

history

Only after the Second World War , after the Second World War , did a Catholic population group in Lehr emerge after the influx of people who had been expelled from their homeland . From 1946 the pastor of Bollingen , Hermann Hentschel, was responsible for these Catholics . From 1960, church services took place irregularly in the Evangelical Marienkirche.

The Catholic community grew until 1970 so that the small Marienkirche became too small. In addition, the Catholics wanted their own meeting place and their own rooms for community life. Shortly before his death in 1970, Pastor Hentschel therefore started negotiations with local farmers in order to acquire land for a church with a community center. Initially, a plot of land on the edge of the industrial area on Ringstrasse, which was created at that time, was planned as the construction site, which was, however, developed elsewhere. Instead, on October 19, 1971, under Pastor Nikolaus Stark, with the support of Mayor Walter Leypoldt and the local council, three owners' associations were able to acquire several properties near the town center on Mariusweg. These were united by a voluntary reallocation of building land to the new building site. The present church was built on this.

According to plans by the architects Gerold, Albrecht and Wilhelm Reutter from Wernau am Neckar, the shell of the All Saints Church began on September 26, 1972. On May 11, 1973, a provisional first church service was celebrated in the completed shell with the then Ulm dean Ferdinand Bamberger.

From 1973 to 1975 the interior was decorated by the pastor and artist Nikolaus Stark (born May 28, 1931), who created all stone sculptures (altar, ambo, tabernacle, statue of the Virgin Mary), the cross and all the frescoes. Its theological and content-related conception was discussed with the parishioners at several parish meetings.

The outside facilities of the church were created by the parishioners themselves. Planning and coordination of this work was the responsibility of the teacher, Mayor Walter Leypoldt, who was a Protestant himself, but as a close friend of Pastor Stark saw the construction of the Catholic Church as an affair of the heart and supported it significantly.

On May 4th 1975 the All Saints Church was consecrated by Bishop Georg Moser . At the consecration of the church he gave one of the two vestments that he had been given for his episcopal ordination.

In 1986, Nikolaus Stark retrofitted the church with a cycle of stained glass windows. He also donated a painted Stations of the Cross to the church in 1996.

In 2000 the church was extensively renovated after hail and water damage and the building structure was secured. In addition, the original carpet was removed and replaced with parquet. Nikolaus Stark's pictures were renovated or repainted by him and, where the frescoes had been destroyed, repainted on wooden panels and placed in the same place. In addition, the chancel was optically expanded by removing a row of benches and a new color concept was implemented.

Building description

In terms of construction and planning, the church is part of a series of church buildings designed by the architect Gerold Reutter as series churches made of concrete slabs. It is therefore largely identical in its external design to numerous churches in southern Germany such. B. St. Andreas in Stuttgart-Gehenbühl, St. Paulus in Beuren, St. Katharina in Sulzgries near Esslingen and St. Elisabeth in Sondelfingen near Reutlingen. With regard to the interior decoration, it differs greatly from these "sister churches" both structurally and visually.

The floor plan of the church is square and measures 16.55 by 16.55 meters. The building consists of prefabricated, double-shell concrete wall panels. The inside of the walls are smoothed, the outside with the exception of the equally smooth window slats are made of exposed aggregate concrete. Outside, the church is surrounded by a strip of anthracite-colored Eternit / cardboard clapboard in the entire roof area.

The axis of the room and the altar lie in the diagonal. The stalls are turned towards the axis. The chancel is closed off by an individually inserted cone , which makes the entire room appear very wide while at the same time focusing on the altar itself.

The windows are built into the side of building-high column structures. The light is directed to the front indirectly and without glare through slats. This enables very bright illumination with daylight.

The ceiling rises along the diagonal axis over the entire length of the church. Inside, it is designed as a suspended wooden ceiling, initially in nature, and since 2000 in light gray.

Since the renovation in 2000, the floor has consisted of reddish-brown hardwood parquet, previously a gray industrial carpet was installed.

On the edge of the building opposite the altar there is an organ gallery on two simple pillars. For the visitor entering the church from the entrance gate below, it creates a step-by-step spatial experience from the dark and low entrance area into the high expanse of the nave.

Furnishing

Plaque

Only the furnishings make the All Saints Church, inconspicuous as a simple concrete series church, at all relevant from an art-historical point of view. The entire interior was designed and executed without exception by the painter-priest Nikolaus Stark . It consists of the stone sculptures, frescoes, murals, glass windows and bronze sculptures. All the motifs presented were discussed and selected by Pastor Stark between 1973 and 1974 in several parish meetings theologically and artistically with parishioners. The then Tübingen professor Walter Kasper was also involved in the conception as a course colleague of Nikolaus Stark, as was Prof. Rudolf Kilian.

Due to this decoration situation, the All Saints Church is an art-historical and theologically remarkable testimony to church architecture in the 1970s. Because it was only decorated by the painter-pastor Nikolaus Stark, inside it forms a coherent, theologically and artistically unique work of art that clearly sets it apart from other churches. Among the works of Nikolaus Stark, the All Saints Church is likely to be his main creative work.

Sanctuary

Two steps lead up to the sanctuary, which is rounded off by the conche in the northeast. They are made of blue, smoothly cut stone. The altar, ambo and tabernacle stand out from the dark floor as light natural stone blocks.

In the center is the altar made of gray-brown alluvial limestone. It is roughly hewn over a large area between two smooth bands at the top and bottom of the front without any motif, otherwise sanded smooth.

On the altar are two heavy bronze candlesticks cast by the Ellwang artist and teacher Starks Helmut Esdar. One of the candlesticks shows the priest Zacharias , to whom the angel Gabriel approaches. On the other candlestick, an angel announces the birth of Christ to the shepherds .

On the left side of the altar is the ambo , made of the same material as the altar . On the right of the relief carved deeply on the front, the seated Christ is depicted, who with a defensive hand gesture rejects Satan , the tempter . He is shown standing holding a stone that Christ is to transform into bread.

On the wall to the left of the ambo hangs the large bronze altar cross, which replaces the original wooden cross that was stolen in the 1980s. A simple stone sideboard made of limestone is attached below.

On the right side of the altar stands the tabernacle made of white Greek marble as a pillar . In these the actual bronze tabernacle box is set in protruding front and side. The front and right side are decorated with the scene of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob's fountain above the tabernacle cabinet. Plants grow up below.

On a pillar to the right of the tabernacle is the large statue of Our Lady made of the same stone as the ambo and altar.


The chancel is dominated by the altarpiece, a building-high wall fresco, which fills the entire conche in very clear, bright colors. It shows the apparition of the risen Christ at Lake Tiberias. In the background, under the reddish-black sky, the disciples can be seen fishing. One of them ( Peter ) has plunged into the deep blue water and swims to the shore. There on an ocher-colored beach, in a white halo, stands Christ by the fire, on which fish are roasting. The disciples to his left on the bank keep a respectful distance, while to the right of Christ you can see Peter again, who answers his question “Do you love me?”. Next to Peter (like a symbol for him) protrudes a strong red-brown rock, next to which a strong, slender tree (symbol for the growing Christian community) grows.

Murals

Only on the left side of the nave are six large paintings on wooden panels attached to the window pillars. They show six scenes from the Old and New Testament.

  • First of all, the Fall of Man: Adam and Eve stand, both eating a forbidden fruit, naked under the tree on which the giant snake is winding its way up.
  • Then Abraham, who looks up to the starry night sky.
  • Then Moses kneeling in front of the burning bush.
  • Then King David , who kneels in front of the prophet Nathan and is promised God's forgiveness.
  • The following picture shows the Israelites deported to Babylon . According to the psalm, they sit lamenting by the water, their harps hanging in the trees.
  • Finally, the tax collector Zacchaeus, who stands in the tree and is called down by the passing Christ.

Stained glass cycle

The south and west sides of the church are decorated with a narrow stained glass frieze directly under the ceiling. He shows the creation account in 15 scenes. The six days of creation are each represented by two windows between dark ornamental surfaces. Before the first day of creation, as well as after the seventh day, the perversion of creation and human self-realization is depicted in one picture each.

The windows are designed in clear structures. The colors are just as clear and pure as in the altarpiece. They come from the workshop of the Ulm art glass maker Hubert Deininger . The windows were retrofitted in 1986.

Way of the Cross

On the west side of the church - in the back of the left community banks - hangs a manufactured in the 1990s by Nicholas Stark for the church crossroads of 16 square painted wooden panels.

organ

A two-manual organ from the company Späth, Giengen with five registers stands in the organ gallery . She has the following disposition :

I. Manual C-g 3
1. Principal (metal) 8th'
2. Gedackt (wood) 4 ′
II. Manual C-g 3
3. Gedackt (wood) 8th'
4th Principal (metal) 2 ′
Pedal C – f 1
5. Sub-bass (wood) 16 ′

Outbuildings

In addition to the sacristy, the church building complex includes a parish hall with a small kitchen and toilet facilities and two small parish and youth rooms in the basement. These extensions are made of exposed concrete with planed board cladding and a flat pressed gravel roof.

The construction of a rectory, which was originally planned next to it, was refrained from for cost reasons. The same applies to a bell tower that was actually planned. Instead, a high, Latin cross made of aluminum was attached to the south side of the church as a clearly visible church attribute, which towers over the church roof and, with a total height of around 16.5 meters, characterizes the townscape.

Others

  • The All Saints Church is also left to the Evangelical Parish, whose medieval Church of St. Mary is very small, on occasions with a larger number of worshipers in ecumenical union.

literature

  • Nikolaus Stark: All Saints Church Lehr near Ulm. 2nd edition, Ellwangen 1977.
  • Nikolaus Stark: The stained glass windows in the All Saints Church in Ulm-Lehr. Aalen 1986.

Web links

Commons : All Saints Church Teaching  Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b N. Stark in: All Saints Church Lehr-Ulm (cf. literature)
  2. ↑ G. Moser in: All Saints Church Lehr-Ulm (see literature)
  3. ↑ cf. Catalog raisonné by the architects Gerold and Wilhelm Reutter (series churches made of concrete slabs) with numerous other references.
  4. ↑ cf. Mt 4,1-11  EU , Mk 1,12-13  EU and Lk 4,1-13  EU .
  5. ↑ cf. Joh 4  EU .
  6. ↑ cf. Joh 21  EU .
  7. ↑ cf. Gen 3  EU .
  8. ↑ cf. Gen 15.5  EU .
  9. ↑ cf. Ex 3.1-6  EU .
  10. ↑ cf. 2 Sam 12.1-14  EU .
  11. ↑ cf. Ps 137  EU .
  12. ↑ cf. Luke 9.1-10  EU .
  13. ↑ cf. Gen 1.1-2.3  EU .

Coordinates: 48 ° 25 ′ 57 ″  N , 9 ° 58 ′ 17.1 ″  E