Maria Rosary Queen (Demmin)
The church "Maria Rosenkranzkönigin" is a Catholic church building in the Hanseatic city of Demmin in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It has the highest tower of all Catholic churches in Western Pomerania .
history
After the introduction of the Reformation in Pomerania in the 16th century, the majority of the population belonged to the Evangelical Church . Only in the first half of the 19th century a Catholic community was formed again. Their request for regular worship in 1839 to the Stralsund pastor Wendelin Zink could not be fulfilled because the community could not pay for the travel expenses. It was not until his successor that the first mass was read in Demmin's town hall in 1842. In 1843 the city council made a classroom available to the community. The St. Bartholomew Church was allowed to be used by the Catholic community on special occasions.
From the middle of the 19th century, the parish, which set up a Catholic school in 1853, was looked after by the Greifswald priest. In 1865 he acquired a mission house on Kahldenstrasse. On June 19, 1869, the parish Demmin was established, which stretched from Tribsees and Grimmen to Jarmen and Altentreptow . The pastor's salary was initially raised by the clergy of the Loevenich deanery near Cologne .
During the vacancy of the pastor's office from 1889 to 1897, lay services were held by the teachers of the Catholic school. The mission house on Kahldenstrasse was replaced in 1903 by a new building with a chapel and school. However, this soon turned out to be too small for the congregation, which in 1901 had 294 believers.
The present church was built in 1914 and 1915 by the Demmin construction company Ernst Bauckmeier according to plans by the Berlin architect Josef Welz . The benediction took place on January 17, 1915. The founding deed stated a number of 471 parishioners, but the church was designed to be significantly larger, as several hundred Polish migrant workers were expected annually to work as seasonal workers in agriculture.
In 1940 Pastor Adolf Nolewaika came to the Dachau concentration camp because of forbidden Polish pastoral care , from which he returned ill after its liberation in 1945. He was represented by chaplain Heinrich Wessels, who succeeded him as pastor in 1952. After the Second World War , the community grew to 7,700 members as a result of war refugees and displaced persons . From 1958, Pastor Wessels was a member of the cathedral chapter of St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin and was involved in the election of two bishops . In 1963 he had the church redesigned according to the liturgical reform, so that the main altar became a popular altar . In 1977 the church received a new Sauer organ . It was not until 1986 that Cathedral Chapter Pastor Wessels retired at the age of eighty. He was made an honorary citizen of Demmin after reunification (1991) . His successor from 1986 to 1994 was Pastor Matthias Mücke, who died in Berlin in 2017 and, like Wessels, had previously also been a chaplain in Demmin.
Between 1994 and 1996 the church was extensively renovated. In 2000 the winged altar was restored. In 2000 there were 1500 Catholics in the parish. The parish merged on January 1, 2020 with the parishes of Hl. Trinity (Stralsund) and St. Bonifatius (Bergen) to form the parish of St. Bernhard Stralsund / Rügen / Demmin in the Deanery of Western Pomerania of the Diocese of Berlin .
Buildings and equipment
The neo-Gothic church building has a 45 meter high church tower and is connected to the rectory to form an ensemble. The church tower has an open belfry and a so-called bishop's cap as the tower roof . The winged altar from the workshop of Josef Rifesser from St. Ulrich in Tyrol with the figures of the 12 apostles and Mary with the baby Jesus has been preserved from the original furnishings . The pulpit sound cover was added later.
The entire wooden furnishings of the sacristy were carved by parishioner Bruno Höch. In the 1930s the church was with 15 frescoes equipped, the Rosenkranzgesätze showed. These wall paintings are no longer preserved.
As organ a used instrument of the Berlin organ builder was initially Dinse used. In 1978 a new organ was installed by the Sauer company . In 2013, the Mecklenburg Orgelbau company installed an additional 8 'principal register in place of the Scharff 3/4'.
literature
- Wolfgang Fuhrmann: The Hanseatic City of Demmin in old and new views . GEROS Verlag, Neubrandenburg 1998, ISBN 3-935721-00-5 .
Web links
- Images of the restored winged altar
- Texts ( RTF ; 164 kB) on the history of the parishes in the Deanery of Western Pomerania
Individual evidence
- ^ Parish of St. Bernhard Stralsund / Rügen / Demmin. Archdiocese of Berlin , accessed on August 15, 2020 .
Coordinates: 53 ° 54 ′ 13.8 " N , 13 ° 2 ′ 49.2" E