Old St. Thomas (Houverath)
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The former parish church of St. Thomas is a listed church building in Houverath , a district of Bad Münstereifel in the Euskirchen district ( North Rhine-Westphalia ).
location
The church is located about 375 meters east of today's parish church of St. Thomas, outside the actual town center and south of the road connecting to the neighboring village of Eichen . It is surrounded by the parish's old cemetery, which has now been abandoned, and is only slightly higher than the Houverather Bach that flows around the area . This location repeatedly caused water damage and greater moisture in the masonry until the 1860s.
The total church property is 20.10 acres , the church has a room area of 160 square meters and the room for the believers is 143 square meters.
history
As early as the beginning of the 14th century, a Houverath parish church is mentioned in the liber valoris . Originally, the church is said to have been a Church of Our Lady, which was called the "Visitation of Mary". In 1613, however, it was consecrated to the Apostle Thomas . The veneration of the apostle must go back to the time the church was built in its present form, as evidenced by the Thomas Bell from 1495. The essentially Romanesque building was converted into a three-aisled complex during this time. However, little money seems to have been spent on maintaining the house as early as 1688 Count Salentin Ernst von Manderscheid-Blankenheim declared that the family had patronage of the parish until 1794 and that the church was dilapidated. In 1764 the first restoration and extension to the west took place, in the 1860s the flooring was renewed and raised to prevent water ingress. With the consecration of the new St. Thomas Church, built according to a design by the Bonn architect Jakob Stumpf , the building lost its importance as a parish church in 1913. Damage occurred during the First World War , which was not fundamentally repaired until 1935. At the same time, the cemetery was expanded again and a new wall was added. The last work was carried out between 1969 and 1971 when the interior was given a new coat of paint.
Parish history
The parish of St. Thomas, which became independent by the 15th century at the latest, previously belonged partly to Kirchsahr and partly to Mutscheid . The surrounding towns of Limbach , Wald , Scheuren , Maulbach , Eichen, Lanzerath and the forester's house Scheuerheck also belonged to it. Scheuren and Wald still have their own chapels . In 1966 the parish had 1,051 members. Since January 1, 2008, it has been part of the “Catholic pastoral care area Bad Münstereifel”, which includes today's urban area.
Bells
The original three bells were moved into the new parish church in 1913 when it was completed. Of these, the two younger ones, cast in 1859 (Marien and Michaelsblocke), were melted down in 1917 to procure raw materials during the First World War . The bell cast in 1495 with the inscription: “+ IHESUS. MARIA . JOHN. SANCTUS. THOMAS . HEISCEN. I CLAIS. RICHAR. GOUS. ME. ANNO. DOMINI. M CCCCXCV. "
architecture
The essentially Romanesque hall building with a retracted rectangular choir was expanded in the 15th century to form a three-aisled complex with transverse gables above the ribbed south nave. During the renovation in 1764, the slated roof turret was put on, a vestibule with a round arched portal was built and the segmented arched windows were broken in.
literature
- Handbook of the Archdiocese of Cologne. 26th edition, Bachem Verlag, Cologne 1966, p. 466.
- Johannes Becker: History of the parishes of the Münstereifel deanery (= history of the parishes of the Archdiocese of Cologne, XXXXIV. Münstereifel deanery), P. Hanstein, Bonn 1900, pp. 131-133, 141f.
- Claudia Euskirchen, Olaf Gisbertz, Ulrich Schäfer (edit.): Handbook of German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia I Rhineland . ( Dehio manual ) Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich / Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-422-03093-X
- Ernst Polaczek (arrangement): The art monuments of the Rheinbach district. (= Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz , Volume 4, Section II.) L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1898 (Unchanged reprint: Schwann-Bagel, Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-590-32119-9 , pp. 45f).
- Jakob Schaeben (arr.): Bells. Chimes. Towers. In the former district of Euskirchen. Rheinland Verlag, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-7927-0363-7 .
- Ruth Schmitz-Ehmke : The architectural and art monuments of the district of Euskirchen. City of Bad Münstereifel. (= The architectural and art monuments of North Rhine-Westphalia I. Rhineland 9.1) Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-7861-1403-X . Pp. 141-143, fig. 464f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jakob Schaeben (arr.): Bells. Chimes. Towers. In the former district of Euskirchen. Rheinland Verlag, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-7927-0363-7 . P. 107f.
Coordinates: 50 ° 32 ′ 30.5 ″ N , 6 ° 54 ′ 36.5 ″ E