Antonius Chapel (Oberbolheim)

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The Antonius Chapel
The Antony Cross on the church tower

The Antonius Chapel Oberbolheim is the last building in the former village of Alt-Oberbolheim in the Düren district , North Rhine-Westphalia . The village was demolished in 1969 because of the aircraft noise from the Nörvenich air base .

history

The St. Antonius the Hermit , the Oberbolheim Chapel was in earlier centuries under the patronage of St. Pankratius , the "Ice Saint", who has his feast day on May 12th. The exact year the chapel was built cannot be determined, but the core of the tower and nave are Romanesque structures, which suggest a smaller previous building.

At an unknown time, the Antonites probably changed the patronage and transferred it to their patron saint. In 1390 at the latest, the Antoniterkloster in Cologne came into the possession of the large court estate with chapel in Oberbolheim, later called Antoniterhof . The court chapel was incorporated into the Antoniterkloster in Cologne with the parish church of St. Termelines in Ollesheim until its abolition in 1802. After that St. Antonius belonged to the parish of Nörvenich. The chapel was given its present shape by the Antonites after 1500.

The entire masonry is very heavily interspersed with Roman bricks, numerous round panes of Roman underfloor heating ( hypocausts ) and sandstone blocks have been walled up. In August 1990, the entire building, tower, nave and choir were given a plaster of calcium carbonate on the outside so that the historic walls are protected from the effects of the weather, but are no longer visible.

The three-storey tower has an eight-sided, slate-roofed helmet , which is crowned by an Antonius cross. The upper floor with the belfry has a round arched window on the north-west and south side, in the middle floor there are two high round arched panels on the south side, opposite on the north wall there are two approx. 20 cm wide and 80 cm high slots. The west wall of the first floor has a small rectangular window, in the south wall there is a high arched window. The nave has a steep pitched roof with slabs and a dormer on the north side . A relatively large, narrow choir faces east, on the south side of which a sacristy is built, the access door of which was walled up in 1980 because of the risk of burglary.

In the light, the chapel measures around 6.5 × 12 m. The nave and choir have Gothic arched windows with plain, untreated glass . There are two windows in the north wall of the nave and three windows in the south. A total of five such windows are built into the choir.

At the western end of the north wall, next to the tower, there is the late Gothic basket arch portal with a simple profile. The house border of the portal had a stonemason's mark in the middle on the left, about four feet high, and a second one on the right, about eye level. During the work on the chapel in 1993/94, the portal was also restored; u. a. the lower right sandstone was replaced and a new wooden door was inserted a little later.

In the nave, the plastered ceiling beams are decorated with simple, flat stucco work , which was painted in color in 1936. The choir has a flat vaulted concrete barrel , in which a medallion shows a Christ monogram and a house brand. One of the inscriptions reads RENOVATUM 1748. The medallion was also set in 1936.

The simple altar had a Renaissance structure, the columns of which had carved capitals . It was probably made around 1600. In a cartouche in the gable of the high altar stood the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, in between a miter under an oversized St. Anthony's Cross. In a niche delimited by two narrow columns, which had a putti's head in the gable , stood the tabernacle with the carved wood statue of the chapel's patron, St. Anthony from 1480.

Antonius is shown in his monk's robe. He is holding a book in his left hand and the staff with the St. Anthony's Cross in his right. A devil's face stands at the feet of the approximately 70 cm high figure.

In July 1960 the statue was shown in the series of artworks of the month in the Leopold Hoesch Museum . It dates from the late Gothic period around 1480.

A special work of art for the small village is the choir stalls , which have been converted into a three-seater bench, in the end not in the choir but under the tower. It was exhibited in June 1957 as the work of art of the month in the Düren Museum.

The chapel had two side altars. The two altars, which look the same, have oval oil paintings: on the left the Mother of God, on the right: St. Mauritius , to which the chapel community has no connection. The two paintings are framed by carved plant ornaments, above the Antonius Cross, below a putti's head. The essays were created around 1700.

The Oberbolheim choir stalls have grotesques carved on the armrests as knobs: a crouching satyr over a volute , and a fox-like animal with a bushy tail lying over its back, bent over a basket of fruit. On the outside of one cheek there is a relief of an owl with a large pince-nez in front of his eyes. She holds a spindle , next to her is a distaff and a high candelabra with candle. The choir was closed to the nave by a very simple communion bench , which was probably built in the 19th century.

On the north wall of the nave there is a small, simple wooden pulpit with the Merode - Vlatten coat of arms as the only decoration on a panel . The origin of the pulpit is just as unknown as that of the other furnishings.

The chapel has had two bells since ancient times. According to the inscription, the “big bell” was donated in 1868 by Count Metternich zu Gymnich, owner of the Oberbolheim Antoniterhof, and Peter Joseph Heuser, owner of the Ollesheim Heuserhof. She weighed 330 kg and was 82 cm in diameter. The second bell had to be delivered for armaments purposes during the First World War , in 1917. On January 6, 1926, Dechant Hochscheid from Golzheim consecrated a new bell that had been cast by the Franz Schilling company in Apolda / Thuringia. The 280 kg bell bears a Latin inscription.

The last mass, at which the two bells rang for the last time, was celebrated on Antoniustag, January 17, 1970, in Oberbolheim. At that time only about 15 people lived in Oberbolheim. Burglars soon seized the opportunity and forced their way into the chapel. After two break-ins in the first half of 1970, in which a holy water kettle and a valuable candlestick were stolen, all furnishings were first brought to safety in the depot of the Aachen diocese in Wenau . Only a few worthless wooden parts from the altar structure and the harmonium, which has since become unusable, remained in the chapel . Since it was feared that the two bells might fall victim to robbers, they too were detached and taken to safety.

At the end of the 1970s, Dietrich G. Paeffgen, together with some interested people from Oberbolheim, founded a chapel association, which has set itself the task of maintaining the chapel together with the owner, the Catholic parish of Nörvenich. The first important measure was the renovation of the outer skin in 1980 in cooperation with the Rhenish Office for Monument Preservation . The slate roofs of the tower, nave and choir, the eaves and the windows were repaired. In addition, the entire masonry was plastered with calcium carbonate, so that it is protected from weather damage. In 1980, the entire measure cost around DM 100,000. In 1993/94 further restoration and renovation work was carried out at the instigation of the chapel association. The numerous break-ins had severely damaged the oak door. It has been replaced by a new door. A stonemason has replaced the lower left sandstone on the portal. The windows were fitted with protective grilles, and inside the beam ceiling, sagging in several places, was securely hung in the nave. The roof structure in the tower had to be permanently repaired. The costs of around 100,000 DM were raised through a donation and a loan from the Kapellenverein, for which a guarantee had to be raised.

The chapel association has become a current (2019) foundation.

present

After further small renovation and maintenance work, a company from Aachen carried out the interior painting in summer and autumn 2002, for which approx. 23,000 euros had to be applied.

After more than 30 years, the old church was in a worthy condition again, and it is relatively burglar-proof. The furnishings that had to be secured in 1970 have been returned to the chapel. On October 2nd, 2002, the chapel could be used again as part of a Vespers led by Auxiliary Bishop Karl Reger from Aachen to conclude the renovation work. For the first time in 32 years the bells rang again.

On Friday, January 17, 2003, after an interruption of 33 years, another holy mass was celebrated on Antoniustag in Oberbolheim.

The church was entered on March 20, 1985 in the list of monuments of the Nörvenich community under no.

literature

  • Paul Hartmann / Edmund Renard: The art monuments of the Düren district . Düsseldorf 1910, pp. 276f. u. 286.
  • Karl Heinz Türk: Churches and castles in the municipality of Nörvenich near Düren . Cologne 1983, pp. 24-27.

Web links

Commons : Antoniuskapelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 19 ″  N , 6 ° 38 ′ 17 ″  E