Maria-Hilf-Church (Mannheim)
The Maria-Hilf-Kirche is a Roman Catholic church in the Mannheim district of Almenhof . It was built in 1954 according to plans by Albert Boßlet and Erwin van Aaken .
history
The Almenhofsiedlung was laid out as planned from 1921 according to the ideas of the garden city movement. Ecclesiastically it belonged partly to the Neckarau St. Jakobus Church and partly to the Lindenhöfer St. Josef Church . In 1929 a parish hall with an attached chapel was built, which was consecrated to St. Paul on November 3rd . The name was chosen in honor of the theologian of Evangelical Freedom , because the streets in Almenhof had been named after freedom fighters. The pastoral care was carried out by chaplains from the St. Jakobus parish in Neckarau. Archbishop Conrad Gröber established the St. Paul parish curate as early as 1932 .
In 1935 a church building association was founded. Three years later an application was made to build the church. An architectural competition was planned for 1939. However, this did not happen again with the outbreak of the Second World War , in which the St. Paul Chapel was damaged. After the war, Mayor Josef Braun visited the Benediktbeuern monastery , where he came into contact with the Salesians of Don Bosco . As a result of the discussions, they took over the Caritas youth organization Almenhof in 1948 and the following year they were also given the pastorate of the parish curate.
In 1954, on April 20, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new church, which is under the patronage of Mary, Help of Christians , took place. The plans came from the architects Albert Boßlet and Erwin van Aaken , the construction management was carried out by Josef Freienstein from Mannheim . After only nine months of construction, the church was given an appointment on December 22nd of the same year, and the following year, on September 24th, 1955, it was consecrated by Bishop Augustin Olbert . Emil Sutor and Hans Baumhauer were involved in the artistic design .
On July 1, 1959, Archbishop Hermann Schäufele established the independent parish of Maria-Hilf. In 1974 the church was renovated and rebuilt according to the requirements of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council . The pulpit was removed and the altar moved away from the choir wall into the room. In addition, the church was given a wooden ceiling to improve the acoustics. After several decades, the Salesians had to give up their branch in Mannheim. The communities Maria-Hilf, St. Jakobus and St. Josef merged in 2002 to form the pastoral care unit Mannheim-Südwest.
description
The Maria-Hilf-Kirche is located in the center of Almenhof. The three- aisled plastered building, covered by gable roofs , has a transept with a crossing tower , which is crowned by a cross. The representative main front is decorated with a larger than life Maria figure. On the long side there are narrow ceilings windows while the large windows of the transept are drawn down to the floor. The floor plan with the central altar was very modern at the time of construction, even before the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council , and the Maria-Hilf-Kirche was recognized as the most impressive Catholic new building of the Mannheim post-war period.
The crossing in the church is painted with square colored fields. The mosaics are works by the artist GP Leonhard (Gertrud Leonhard nee Püttmann). They represent the main patroness and the three secondary patrons: behind the altar Mary, as well as Paulus, Konrad von Parzham and Johannes Bosco with his pupil Dominikus Savio . In 1974 another place of worship was designed on the front right column, a Pietà , which is a faithful replica of a work from the 15th century from Fulda. The organ was built in 1983 by Hartwig Späth . It has 28 registers on three manuals .
A loan bell rang in the bell tower until 1970, before the bell “Maria Helferin der Christisten” was procured. Four more bells followed in 1990, which were cast by the Karlsruhe bell and art foundry . The tone sequence of the bells follows the Salve-Regina motif and is coordinated with the bells of the two Protestant churches on the Almenhof, the Markuskirche and the Lukaskirche .
| Surname | Casting year | kg | volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Most Holy Trinity | 1990 | 1,618 | d '+1 |
| Mary Helper of Christians | 1970 | 1,200 | e '+1 |
| Paul | 1990 | 939 | f sharp +1 |
| Holy Cross | 1990 | 637 | a '+2 |
| Don Bosco | 1990 | 452 | h '+1 |
literature
- Rudi Fischer: Anniversary of consecration of the Maria-Hilf-Kirche 1955–1995 . Mannheim 1995.
- Rudi Fischer, Norbert Fritz, Herbert Hermle, Rolf Weirether: 50 years of the Catholic parish Mannheim-Almenhof 1932–1982 . Mannheim 1982.
- Andreas Schenk: Architectural Guide Mannheim . Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-496-01201-3 .
- Werner Wolf-Holzäpfel: Catholic church building in Mannheim from 1874 to today: On the history of sacred buildings in North Baden in the 19th and 20th centuries . Mannheim 1999, ISBN 3-926260-45-9 .
- Hansjörg Probst : Neckarau Volume 2: From absolutism to the present . Mannheim 1989, no. 4.8, p. 368 ff., ISBN 3-87804-197-7 ( available online from Heidelberg historical holdings - digital, Heidelberg University Library)
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 27 '52.1 " N , 8 ° 28' 59.1" E