Antonius Church (Wipperfürth)
The Antoniuskirche on the Klosterberg is a former Franciscan church and stands on the highest elevation of Wipperfürth on the site of the former medieval Krakenburg . It is consecrated to Saint Anthony of Padua and was the monastery church of a Franciscan monastery until 1818 .
History of the structure
In 1639 Franciscans came to Wipperfürth. After they first moved into the "house on the market" that was given to them by the ducal councilor Dr. Düssel was made available, they were later given a plot of land near the Siegburg Gate from the city council and built a monastery in 1657. The construction of the early baroque monastery church, which was structurally connected to the monastery building, began in 1670 and was completed in 1674. The garden with the cemetery was located on the site of today's car park.
After the monastery was dissolved in the course of secularization in 1804, the monastery continued to exist as a central or extinction monastery until 1812 . In 1812 the central monastery was relocated to Neviges . Three Franciscans stayed in Wipperfürth until 1818 and worked as teachers at the monastery school. In 1818 they moved to the parish church of St. Nicholas as pastor and vicar . The last Franciscan pastor there was Father Adrian Burgmer until his death on May 1st, 1838. The church and monastery building had fallen to the Prussian state, and the Prussian king donated them to the city of Wipperfürth in 1826.
The city opened a so-called Progymnasium in the former monastery in 1830 , which later became the Engelbert-von-Berg-Gymnasium Wipperfürth . The high school used the building until April 1931 and expanded it further.
In 1967 the city of Wipperfürth transferred the monastery and the church to the parish in exchange and received land on which the vocational school was built.
The church has been preserved in its shape to this day, although there was a roof fire in 1795 and it was initially closed in 1822 due to dilapidation. The baroque main altar dates from 1720.
During the renovation of the monastery church from 1953 to 1954, the builders discovered some graves from the time of the Krakenburg in the northern cloister of the old monastery . In 1953 a choir window was bricked up for structural reasons.
Furnishing
The church facilities include a. the high altar as well as the pulpit and four confessionals from the end of the 17th century, sculptures from the 17th to the 19th centuries, a monstrance from around 1700, two goblets from the 17th century. Two bells were made by the foundry Georg Claren (* 1782, † 1852) zu Sieglar and date to the year 1821. A third bell was purchased in 1928.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Franz Jansen: Directory of monasteries of the Franciscan order in the Rhine province. In: Franziskanische Studien 13 (1926), pp. 5–32, here p. 30; Patricius Schlager : History of the Franciscan Monastery. In: Festschrift for the Seven Centenary of the City of Wipperfürth, Wipperfürth o. J. (1917), pp. 21–26, here p. 27
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ 59.6 " N , 7 ° 23 ′ 56.7" E