Holy Family (Winterbach (St. Wendel))

The Catholic parish church of the Holy Family in Winterbach

View inside the church

View to the organ gallery

The Church of the Holy Family is a Catholic parish church in Winterbach , a district of St. Wendel , St. Wendel district , Saarland . She bears the patronage of the Holy Family . In the list of monuments of the Saarland, the church is a single monument listed.

history

Until today's church was built, the Catholics of Winterbach had to attend the service in the neighboring village of Alsweiler to the west . Alsweiler had become an independent parish in 1800 , to which Winterbach belonged as a branch . Before 1800, Winterbach and Alsweiler belonged to the Tholey Monastery , so that the Winterbach Catholics had to go even further to Tholey in order to take part in the church service. When plans arose in 1826 to build a larger parish church in Alsweiler, the parishioners from Winterbach tried to submit repeated petitions to the government authorities at the time that this new parish church should be built on the eastern edge of the village in the direction of Winterbach, in order to avoid the "Kirchweg" To shorten. Since the Alsweiler parishioners wanted to leave the church in the center of the village in any case, the submissions failed. Opposite the current church, the Winterbachers had their own chapel , which was used for certain services.

At the end of the 19th century, Winterbach had grown into a village with more than 800 inhabitants, so that the Trier Vicariate General gave the impetus in a letter dated May 15, 1895 to form an Alsweiler branch community with its own asset management . This then happened the following year. At the first meeting of the new church council on January 19, 1897, chaired by the Alsweiler pastor Theis, the construction of a separate church in Winterbach was discussed, for the location of which there were three suggestions. After the current location had been agreed and the building site had been purchased for 5,400 marks , construction of the church began in 1899.

After the shell of the church had already been built , a wall and later the tower , which was already 16 meters high , collapsed overnight in January 1900 due to significant structural and planning deficiencies . This was followed by a lawsuit that lasted around four years for compensation between the chapel community of Winterbach, the architect , the building contractor Georg Rau ( St. Johann ) and the guarantor who was won by the chapel community.

When enough funds were available again to rebuild the church, the current church building was built between 1905 and 1906 according to plans by the architect Wilhelm Hector (Saarbrücken-St.Johann) and inaugurated on September 8, 1906.

On the site of the old chapel, which was demolished in 1904, a rectory was built in 1911/1912 . Before that, Winterbach had got his own pastor after the church was built. From November 1, 1924, Winterbach was an independent parish.

The tower had to be replaced in 1955 due to the longhorn beetle infestation . In 2015 the ceiling of the main nave was renovated.

Architecture and equipment

The church building was erected as a basilica in the neo-Gothic style and has a traditional orientation in east-west direction. It is divided from west to east into the 45 meter high tower with a pointed helmet , a three-aisled nave followed by a transept with side choirs, and ends with a five-sided polygonal choir .

The furnishings from the time of construction are almost completely preserved. These include the altars and the windows with their Gothic images. In 1924 the vault in the crossing was painted with a representation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and the angels . Other parts of the furnishings are the crucifixion group in the choir and the two large-format pictures by the painter Cullmann, which have flanked the main altar since 1949 .

In the course of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council , renovations took place in the interior, in which parts of the communion bench were removed or converted into a celebration altar . The pulpit was also given its current location.

organ

The organ of the church was built in 1934 by the company Späth Orgelbau ( Mengen ). The pocket store instrument has 15 (17) registers , divided into two manuals and pedal . The game and stop action is electro-pneumatic. The disposition is as follows:

I Hauptwerk C – g ³
1.	Principal	8th'
2.	Concert flute	8th'
3.	Salicional	8th'
4th	Octave	4 ′
5.	Reed flute	4 ′
6th	Mixture II-V	2 ′

II Swell C – g ³
7th	Violin principal	8th'
8th.	Flute	8th'
9.	Aeoline	8th'
10.	Vox coelestis	8th'
11.	Dolkan	4 ′
12.	Monastery flute	2 ′
13.	French horn	8th'

Pedal C – f ¹
14th	Sub bass	16 ′
	Subtle bass	16 ′ (weakened wind)
15th	Octavbass	8th'
	Dacked bass	8 ′ (Ext. Subbass 16 ′)
	Choral bass	4 ′ (Ext.Octavbass 8 ′)

Pairing :
- Normal coupling: II / I, I / P, II / P
- Sub-octave coupling: II / I, II / II
- Super octave coupling: II / I, II / II
Playing aids : 2 free combinations, 1 free pedal combination, tutti, tongue down, crescendo kick, tremulant (whole organ)