Holy Spirit (Salzgitter)

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Holy Spirit Church

The Heilig Geist Church is the Catholic church in Hallendorf , a district of Salzgitter in Lower Saxony . It belongs to the parish of St. Bernward , based in Steterburg , in the Goslar-Salzgitter deanery of the Hildesheim diocese . The church named after the Holy Spirit is located on the property at Maangarten 8 .

history

Due to the influx of workers as part of the development of the Reichswerke AG for ore mining and ironworks "Hermann Göring" , which was founded in July 1937 , the number of Catholics in the area of ​​Salzgitter, which has been evangelical since the Reformation , rose sharply. On the Catholic side, Hallendorf was then part of the St. Petrus community in Wolfenbüttel . Attempts by the diocese of Hildesheim and the parish of Wolfenbüttel to build new churches in the area where the Reichswerke were being developed failed because of the anti-church attitude of the National Socialist rulers. The census in the German Reich in 1939 showed that 1,846 Catholics were already registered in Hallendorf. In the summer of 1939 even an application by the pastor from Wolfenbüttel to convert a barn in Hallendorf into an emergency church was rejected by the Nazi rulers.

In 1940 a Catholic parish was formed in Hallendorf, Walter Behrens from Thiede was its first parish vicar. From that year on, Catholic church registers were kept in Hallendorf . The parish vicarie was initially called Reichswerke Hermann Göring-Ost , and its parish vicar took up residence in Barum . Initially, the services took place in the Watenstedter church, later in the local inn Lochte.

In April 1941, the Secret State Police prevented the church from reusing a barrack that the AEG was supposed to give up. When the Battle of Stalingrad began to turn into a turning point for Germany in World War II , official approval was granted to hold church services at Christmas 1942 in a Hallendorf joinery that was no longer in operation. On October 9, 1943, Parish Vicar Behrens was arrested by the Secret State Police on suspicion of listening to enemy broadcasts . He was only released on May 11, 1945.

After the end of the war, an empty barrack in Hallendorf could be used for church services. In 1945 the parish vicarie was also renamed Wolfenbüttel-Land I , and in 1946 its seat was moved from Barum to Watenstedt. On June 13, 1948 after prolonged efforts as a wooden hut built on a leased land Notkapelle was in Hallendorf Bishop Joseph Godehard making benediziert . The chapel was named Mary Queen of St. Rosary .

In 1950 the number of Catholics in Hallendorf began to decline as the warehouses emptied and the facilities of the Reichswerke were dismantled. Only in the course of the 1950s, triggered by the reconstruction of the steelworks and the construction of new apartments, did the parish stabilize. On April 1, 1955, Watenstedt-Hallendorf became an independent parish. In 1955 the parsonage in Hallendorf was also built, as the clergyman's apartment in Barum had been terminated and no new residential construction was permitted in the village of Watenstedt, which has now been declared an industrial area.

In October 1960 the emergency chapel was demolished and construction of the Holy Spirit Church began. During the construction period, the Catholic services were initially held in the Protestant church, and later in the newly built youth home, today's community hall. On June 11, 1961 the foundation stone of the church was laid by dean Josef Schreiber from Lebenstedt . At that time, Pastor Georg Strecker was pastor of the Salzgitter-Watenstedt-Hallendorf parish curate, and 991 of the 3,236 residents of Hallendorf were Catholic. On Pentecost Saturday, June 9, 1962, the church was consecrated by Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen .

On November 1st, 1967 the new bells rang for the first time and on October 1st, 1970 the parish of the Holy Spirit was raised to a parish. In 1974 the baptistery was converted into a sacrament chapel. The Wolfsburg master goldsmith Raimund Lange (1928–2006) made the feet for the altar stone and the tabernacle door.

Since November 1, 1985, the Holy Spirit Church has no local pastor. In 1989 the St. Anna branch church in Watenstedt was closed and has since been torn down. On September 1, 1994, a pastoral care unit was founded with the St. Bernward Congregation , which merged into a parish on November 1, 2006. Since July 1, 2007, the church has belonged to the then newly established Deanery Goslar – Salzgitter, previously it belonged to the Deanery Salzgitter, founded in 1952. Due to declining financial resources, but also the decreasing number of priests and church members, all churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim were classified according to their future needs. At that time, the Holy Spirit Church was seen as “not absolutely necessary for pastoral development” and was scheduled to be closed. As a result, the support group Hl. Geist Kirche Hallendorf eV was founded in 2010 , which supports the maintenance of the church financially to this day.

Architecture and equipment

inner space
organ

The church, built according to plans by the Braunschweig architect Alfred Geismar , is around 102 meters above sea level and seats 148 people. Its tower contains three bells , which were consecrated on October 15, 1967 with the names Maria, Hl. Geist and Michael and are coordinated with the bells of the Protestant church.

The stained glass windows designed by Franz Pauli in 1962 were installed in 1970. The chancel is dominated by a hanging cross. The letters alpha and omega (Α and Ω) are shown on the ambo , the first and the last letter of the classical Greek alphabet. They are a symbol for the beginning and the end, thus for the comprehensive, for God . The tabernacle is decorated with ears of wheat and grapes . There are 14 stations of the cross on the west side . The organ was built by G. Kisselbach from Baunatal and inaugurated on February 24, 1985 by Pastor Rudolf Marek, it has 5 pipe registers and 35 electrical registers. Before that, a harmonium , and from 1970 an electronic organ, was used for church music. There is a statue of the Virgin Mary under the organ gallery, in front of which sacrificial candles can be placed. The interior also includes a confessional and a baptismal font . The weekday chapel to the east of the church but only accessible from inside the church is lit from above.

The parish hall attached to the church is number 12, the former free-standing rectory is number 14.

See also

literature

  • Chronicle of the Holy Spirit.
  • Willi Stoffers: Diocese of Hildesheim today. Hildesheim 1987, ISBN 3-87065-418-X , p. 62

Web links

Commons : Heilig Geist (Salzgitter)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas Flammer: National Socialism and the Catholic Church in the Free State of Braunschweig 1931–1945. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2013, p. 147
  2. ^ Church registers in the diocese archive in Hildesheim
  3. ^ Thomas Flammer: National Socialism and the Catholic Church in the Free State of Braunschweig 1931–1945. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2013, p. 172
  4. ^ Thomas Flammer: National Socialism and the Catholic Church in the Free State of Braunschweig 1931–1945. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2013, p. 185
  5. ↑ Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Kirchlicher Anzeiger. No. 6/2007, Hildesheim 2007, pp. 142-143
  6. ^ Diocese of Hildesheim (ed.): Classification of the parish churches and branch churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim. Hildesheim 2009.

Coordinates: 52 ° 9 ′ 16.7 ″  N , 10 ° 22 ′ 40.3 ″  E