Church of the Redeemer (Niederaussem)
The Erlöserkirche ( ) is the Protestant church in the villages of Niederaußem , Oberaußem , Auenheim and Rheidt-Hüchelhoven . It is located in Bergheim -Niederaußem in North Rhine-Westphalia and belongs to the Protestant parish Bedburg -Niederaußem- Glessen .
history
local community
The evangelical parish in Niederaußem goes back to its mother parish in Zieverich . In Niederaussem itself there were no Protestants or at times only a few Protestants before 1945. After the Second World War , many Protestant Christians came to the Catholic community of Niederaussem. In the early days, the believers gathered in the prayer room in the Fortuna colony .
Since July 2009, the pastors in Niederaussem and Glessen have been jointly looked after by a pastor.
church
In 1953 the first considerations were made about building an own Protestant church in Niederaussem. Construction began on a plot of land on Oberaußemer Strasse in autumn 1955 , and the church was consecrated on November 25, 1956 . It consisted of a simple sacred space in the form of a single-nave hall church , with a gallery on the east side and an event space below, which can be separated from the main room by a folding wall, for young people and church associations, as well as a church tower with church access from the outside and the sacristy .
On October 1, 1959, the previously unnamed church was given its name. The ever growing number of parishioners made an expansion of the church necessary after just a few years; This project was realized in 1963/1964, with which the development of the community from a prayer hall to a church with community rooms was also structurally completed. The number of seats in the sacred space was increased from 170 to 280.
An extension with a ground floor and a basement was built on the south side of the church, in which several rooms for community and youth work with ancillary rooms such as storage rooms and toilets as well as a new sacristy room were accommodated. The nave was extended by approx. 4.5 meters towards the altar area and equipped with a gallery on the south side. In addition to the five large windows in the north wall, two windows were added in the extension area. The earlier plastered facade was clad in yellow clinker . The previously approx. 23 meter high church tower was raised by approx. 2.5 meters and equipped with a gently sloping gable roof and acoustic hatches made of concrete honeycomb parts. In the area of the newly created gable wall, an artistically designed construction made of colored glass and concrete parts was created. The typical architectural language of the sixties was also reflected in the other choice of materials and furnishings.
In 1978 it was decided to renew the seven large windows on the north side of the church. The artistically designed church windows were installed in early 1980.
From 2001 to 2004 an overall concept for the renovation of the sacred space and an extension with a larger community room, foyer and kitchen was drawn up. In 2006 the entire lighting in the church was renewed.
architecture
Church exterior
The design by the architect Karl Sander from Bedburg, who was responsible for both the new building from 1955/1956 and the structural expansion in 1963/1964, is based on a clearly structured rectangular structure with a gable roof . The building cube is only interrupted by the church tower, which is now around 25.5 meters high, on the north side. Above the annex on the south side with the sacristy and parish rooms, the main roof is lowered as a towing roof .
inner space
The most impressive elements of the church interior today are the artistically designed windows, which were not included in the original sacred building from 1956.
The dominant feature is the large altar window wall, which extends from the floor to the gable and is designed as a concrete-glass wall. It was designed in 1963 by the artist Johanna L'Hoest (* 1937) from Düsseldorf. She used rising red flames as motifs and a cross in the upper part , which is surrounded by a ring of light. L'Hoest also designed the box-shaped concrete and glass elements in the east gable wall opposite, which replaced the previous round window in the gallery area in 1963 and were installed in the gallery from the floor to under the sloping roof. Here she created an abstract design of the glass surfaces with predominantly violet colors. The execution was carried out by the glass painting workshop Gassen from Düsseldorf.
In the north wall of the Church of the Redeemer there are seven towering windows, each of the same size, which initially only had almost transparent, colorless glazing and was referred to in the community as "factory window". When these windows were renewed in 1980, the glass surfaces were designed as lead glass by the Oberaussem artist Heinz Klein-Arendt (1916–2005) . The sculptor Klein-Arendt, who also worked a lot with artistic font designs, divided the first two windows near the altar into an upper and lower half and designed a design for the four equally large glass surfaces with the names of the four evangelists , Matthew and Marcus and Luke and Johannes . For the remaining five windows he created a continuous, light grain motif , using the grain as a "symbol of transience".
The organ of the Erlöserkirche is located on a gallery on the south side , which was built in 1970 by the organ building workshop Willi Peter from Cologne-Mülheim. It has 11 registers, divided into main work, reverse positive and pedal work.
Altar , pulpit and baptismal font are made of wood and are raised on an altar pedestal.
Bells
The Erlöserkirche received its two bells in June 1959 , the purchase of which was made possible by donations and which were cast in the Rincker bell foundry in Sinn (Hesse). The larger bell bears the inscription “ O land; Land, land, hear the word of the Lord ”. The smaller prayer bell bears the inscription “ In memory of Peter von Fliesteden 1529–1959 ”; in memory and in memory of the evangelical martyr Peter Fliesteden , who was executed in Melaten near Cologne in 1529 for his work as a Protestant Christian.
literature
- Evangelical Church Community Bedburg-Niederaußem-Glessen (Ed.): All around. 50 years of the Church of the Redeemer in Niederaussem. 1956-2006 . Bedburg 2006, without ISBN. (Published in the anniversary year 2006)
See also
Web links
- Ev. Parish Bedburg-Niederaußem-Glessen. Evangelical Church Association Cologne and Region, accessed on November 14, 2009 .
- Homepage of the Protestant parish Bedburg-Niederaußem-Glessen. Retrieved October 16, 2009 .
- Engelbert Broich: Big anniversary year: 50 years of the Erlöserkirche in Bergheim-Niederaußem. Evangelical Church Association Cologne and Region, accessed on October 16, 2009 (with information on the building history of the church).
- Interactive 360 ° panorama photo of the interior of the Erlöserkirche. 360Cities, accessed November 14, 2009 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 51.6 " N , 6 ° 40 ′ 34.4" E