Old St. Catherine
The former parish church of Sankt Katharina in Alt-Hürth is considered to be the oldest preserved church building in the city of Hürth . The church was first mentioned in the Liber valoris at the end of the 13th century . Since the inauguration of the neo-Romanesque new parish church, "Alt Sankt Katharina" has no longer been used appropriately.
history
The exact founding time of the church cannot be proven. It is questionable whether a chapel already existed in Carolingian times. The church noted in the “Liber valoris” was a separate church of the Hürth lords of the castle.
middle Ages
The lords of the castle there probably built the first church in Hürth as a small castle chapel . In 1695 only dilapidated remains of a later built church were left. The lower half of the tower was made of tuff , the rest of the tower was made of adobe bricks . The inside of the tower allowed conclusions to be drawn about the time the structure was built. The beginnings of a vault and a Gothic window suggest that the church was built at the beginning of the Gothic period. The substructure of the tower is considered to be even older .
Early modern age
St. Katharina was built by the community in 1695 and consecrated by the Cologne abbot of Groß-Martin Abbey on the feast day of his patron saint , St. Catherine, on November 25, 1696.
The substructure of the church tower was apparently still stable and was preserved so that the tower could be rebuilt as a stone structure on top of it. In 1691 it was roofed in the form of a baroque hood . The new church was built as a single-nave church, the west side of which was given sturdy buttresses . The builders originally intended to draw in a vault at a later date , but this was never realized. The nave was given a flat, plastered beam ceiling. The new building, laid out in a north-south orientation, ends on the north side with a semicircular (3/8) choir. Rosellen emphasizes in this context: “ When the church was rebuilt, the tower was preserved and was given its place on the eastern side (...) where the choir and nave meet. “From this it can be concluded that the previous building was probably in the traditional east-west direction. Including an extension carried out in the 1780s, the building has a length of 25.5 meters, 8 meters of which are attributable to the choir. The width of the structure is 7 meters.
South side
West side with buttress
South-east side
Tower from the north side
In 1802 a small sacristy was added in the corner gusset of the choir and tower on the north-west side. An organ stage was installed in the 1830s. The belfry in the tower carried three bells that had been cast by the bell founders G. Claren zu Sieglar and Andreas Rodenkirchen zu Deutz . The church, which is still located on “Weierstrasse”, had direct access to the former Hürth Castle to the west until 1830. A small bridge over the pond there, fed by the Duffesbach, connected the church and castle grounds.
Interior
When furnishing the church, "Rosellen" described the inventory of the church in his time, and he also researched the circumstances of their origin. Many pieces therefore came from destroyed or repealed monastery churches in Cologne, as well as from those in the vicinity of Hürth.
Saint Catherine was furnished with three altars . The high altar was consecrated to the Holy Trinity from ancient times . The side altar on the epistle side was dedicated to the patroness of the church, the martyr and saint Kathrina. The second side altar stood to the left of the high altar on the Gospel side . It was dedicated to Saint Benedictus and Saint Barbara . In the Rococo style made altarpieces came from monastic churches (not specified), the confessionals from the Franciscan -Klosterkirche to Lechenich . A baroque crucifixion group came to Hürth from the neighboring former Cistercian monastery in Burbach due to the events of secularization . According to Clemen, a baroque statue “Maria with child” is also said to come from the Marienborn monastery . Most of these objects are located in today's parish church of St. Katharina on Brabanter Platz / corner of Lindenstrasse, which is located beyond the large churchyard and is also dedicated to the same saint.
Rectory
Until 1866, the rectory stood pretty much in the middle of the village between Schmidtstrasse and Weiherstrasse in what is now Pastoratsstrasse. The dilapidated house was not enough for the last pastor, Peter Klinkhammer (1830–1883), who lived there, and he moved into a courtyard building on Lindenstrasse that had been built with his brother-in-law Löhrer. In 1865 the civil parish then bought the castle grounds with a new residential building built there on the foundations of the old manor house of the former castle. A year later, the parish exchanged part of the area - according to "Rosellen", the area had a size of 2 acres , 6 rods and 40 feet - for the property in Pastoratsstraße and has since used the house as a rectory. The former castle garden serves as a parish garden. The remainder of the church premises then became the property of the Catholic parish due to a Prussian law of March 1880.
End as a parish church
Due to the steady growth of the population, which as in the surrounding area also consisted mainly of Catholics in Hürth , St. Katharina no longer offered enough space for the faithful. As an extension was ruled out due to its age, it was decided to build a new larger church. After its establishment in 1894/95, Saint Catherine was profaned . The building stood empty for a long time and was becoming increasingly dilapidated. From 1905 onwards, proposals for the partial demolition of the old building were dealt with, until 1914 the so-called "Hiltrup Sisters" established the old church as a monastery branch of the Order of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . According to their needs, a mezzanine was drawn into the nave so that the choir and nave were now separated by a staircase. The previously existing high windows of the nave were removed and replaced by much lower ones in the now two storeys. In addition to the renewal of the roof structure, modifications and additions were made on the north side.
Todays use
After the Sisters of the Catholic Order of Women , the old church served a variety of purposes. It served as a kindergarten and sewing school, for a long time it was the seat of the Hürth City Archives , but also a medical center and dialysis center . Since 2007 it has housed the private music school "Auftakt". The operators of the music school, in cooperation with the registry office of the city of Hürth, have been enabling interested bridal couples to have civil weddings on their premises since 2008. Either the concert hall or the monastery chapel serve this purpose. Concerts of a wide variety of music styles from jazz to baroque take place regularly in the concert hall, mostly with free admission.
Former monastery chapel, choir
Former monastery chapel, choir window
Former monastery chapel, choir window
Part of the former nave
Despite its other use, the old building is still called "Alt Sankt Katharina" today. As an ensemble with the adjoining old parish house and the garden house, the old church marks a focal point of the place. If you look down on the district from the vantage point at the Hochkreuz of the Hürtherberg , you will see the striking old parish church. The building, which was renovated in 1954 with lime plaster , shines in a brilliant white, with the sturdy, square tower particularly standing out. It is equipped with a baroque curved roof over the paired arches , the upper floor windows of the former bell chamber, which is crowned by a lantern with a weathercock .
literature
- Robert Wilhelm Rosellen: History of the parishes of the deanery Brühl , JP Bachem Verlag Cologne 1887
- Frank Kretzschmar: Churches, monasteries and chapels in the Erftkreis , Erftkreis publication No. 94, Rheinland-Verlag 1983, pp. 88f., ISBN 3-7927-0821-3
- Clemens Klug: Hürth - Art Treasures and Monuments , Hürth 1978
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Frank Kretzschmar, p. 78
- ↑ a b Robert Wilhelm Rosellen, p. 346 f
- ↑ a b Clemens Klug, p. 88
- ^ Robert Wilhelm Rosellen, p. 350 f
- ↑ Prelude to the Hürth Music School | Private music school Alt-Hürth. In: www.auftakt-musikschule.de. Retrieved April 28, 2016 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 12 " N , 6 ° 52 ′ 6.7" E