Chapel wagon
Chapel wagons are motor vehicles or trailers that have been converted into mobile chapels for the purpose of pastoral care .
Mostly they were chapel wagons of the Catholic East Priests Aid (today Church in Need ). They were used in places where Catholic refugees and displaced persons had settled as a result of the Second World War , but where there was no Catholic place of worship.
history
In 1949, Werenfried van Straaten , the founder of Ostiesterhilfe, wrote in a newspaper article, referring to the plight of the scattered refugees and displaced persons: "We have to man trucks with priests ...". In 1950, the Ostiesterhilfe aid organization began using two buses that had been converted into chapel wagons . The attempt was successful, so that more chapel wagons were used. They were donated from the Netherlands or Belgium . The majority of these were semitrailers with tractors from the Dutch railway company Crossley Motors , but converted Opel Blitz or omnibuses were also used. They were each occupied by a driver and two priests . During church services, the participants sat outside and had a view of the built-in altar through the open doors of the chapel wagon . In the chapel wagons there was also a confessional and overnight accommodation for the people traveling with them. In the early days, aid was also brought along for distribution to the needy believers. This chapel wagon mission had its climax in 1954/55 with 35 vehicles. In 1970 the mobile use of chapel wagons by the Ostpriesthilfe ended. After their mobile use, some chapel wagons were also set up stationary and served a local parish until a massive church was built for worship.
The last remaining chapel wagon , a semitrailer with a MAN tractor from the 1960s (pontoon short-nosed truck) and a semitrailer made from a former railway wagon , was transferred in 2007 by the aid organization Kirche in Not to the Foundation Center Against Expulsion . In 2015 it was given to the Foundation for Flight, Displacement, Reconciliation . In the future it is to be exhibited in the planned “Exhibition, Documentation and Information Center on Flight and Displacement” in Berlin-Kreuzberg .
Chapel wagon in Altendorf (2019)
literature
- Church in Need (ed.): Leaflet vehicles for God . Munich 2013
- Werenfried van Straaten: They call me bacon pater. Georg Bitter Verlag, Recklinghausen 1961, pp. 42–45
- Eva-Maria Kolmann: Thank you, Father Werenfried !. Königstein im Taunus 2005, p. 17
- Linus Hauser, Amelie-Theresia Kiel: Father van Straaten - the bacon father. A Limburg local hero . In: Eulenfisch , Vol. 6 (2013), Issue 1, pp. 86–91.
- Linus Hauser: Chapel wagons and vehicles of God. Milieu Catholic experiences . In: Franz-Josef Bäumer, Adolf Hampel, Linus Hauser, Ferdinand Prostmeier (eds.): Europassion. Church - Conflicts - Human Rights. Rudolf Grulich on his 60th birthday . Hess, Bad Schussenried 2006, ISBN 3-87336-350-X , pp. 195-221.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ new picture post . No. 10/2015 from 7./8. March 2015, p. 18