St. Bonifatius Church (Mannheim-Wohlhotels)

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St. Boniface Church

The St. Bonifatius Church is a Catholic church in the Mannheim district of Neckarstadt-Ost / Wohlhotels . It was built between 1912 and 1914 according to plans by Ludwig Maier . Since 1925 the parish has been cared for by the Franciscans who built a monastery at the church . The parish of St. Bonifatius and the parishes of St. Bernhard , St. Nikolaus and Herz-Jesu form the Catholic parish of Mannheim-Neckarstadt in the Archdiocese of Freiburg .

history

Towards the middle of the 19th century, due to the growing population, the old urban area of ​​Mannheim became too small, so that the residential development gradually encroached on the right side of the Neckar , today's Neckarstadt, where the Neckar gardens were. In 1872 the district council officially approved the city expansion and in 1878 an emergency church was built, the three-aisled St. Laurentius Church, and in 1889 a curate was established. Due to the industrialization of Mannheim, numerous workers moved to the Neckarstadt and in 1900, 9,402 Catholics were already living here. The Herz-Jesu-Kirche was therefore built in the west between 1901 and 1904 . Even after that, the population rose rapidly, in 1906 there were already 14,000 Catholics, and residential development continued to develop eastwards. At Christmas 1906, the pastor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus held a service for the people living here for the first time in a waiting hall at the Weinheim train station .

Boniface statue by Gisela Baer
A stumbling stone laid in 2010 commemorates Father Thaddäus

In 1909 a parish curacy was set up and planning for the construction of a church under the patronage of St. Boniface began. For this purpose, the property of the old St. Laurentius Church was exchanged for a building site on Kronprinzenstrasse, today's Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse. The head of the archiepiscopal building authority in Heidelberg, Ludwig Maier , was responsible for the planning. He had previously been involved in eight church buildings in Mannheim. He was given the task of designing a building that should not be inferior in “beauty and dignity” to the magnificent Protestant Christ Church, completed in 1911 . Maier chose what was then called the “modern style”, that is, Art Nouveau , because he had previously “used all historical architectural styles” for church projects in Mannheim . The outside of the St. Boniface Church should be plastered . The Board of Trustees objected to this, however, because it was feared that the church would be polluted too quickly due to the heavy soot development in Mannheim's industry. That is why sandstone cladding was preferred. The groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1912 and two years later, despite the beginning of the First World War , the building of the church was completed without any significant delays. On 6 December 1914, the St. Boniface church was built by city Dean Joseph Bauer benediziert and by Archbishop on June 20, 1915 Thomas Nörber consecrated .

The artistic design of the interior was not done during the war, the small altar of the Laurentiuskirche served as the high altar. A rectory was not built either, so that in 1921 the application to establish a parish was rejected.

In 1925 the Franciscans of the Thuringian Order Province of Thuringia took over the pastoral care of the Curate. From 1929 to 1930 they built a parish monastery next to the church. The interior of the church was then completed between 1931 and 1934. A high and two side altars were acquired and a new organ was installed.

The era of National Socialism was decisive . In 1940, Father Thaddäus (Wilhelm) Brunke , who had been chaplain to St. Boniface from 1930 to 1939, was deported to the Breitenau concentration camp and the following year to Dachau , where he died in 1942. In 1940 the Frauenberg Monastery was confiscated, which is why the Provincialate of the Thuringian Province was moved to Mannheim, where it remained until the end of the Second World War . In the spring of 1943, St. Boniface's Church was bombed and the dome collapsed. In the autumn of the same year almost all the windows were broken by fire mines dropped nearby. Shortly before the end of the war, finally in December 1944, St. Boniface was elevated to a parish .

After the war, the dome was rebuilt and the church renovated until 1954. The number of parishioners rose to 11,000 by 1958, so that in the following year the St. Bernhard Curate was set up, which was elevated to an independent parish in 1970. In 1974/75 the interior of the St. Boniface Church was renovated and the choir room redesigned. In 1985 the exterior facade followed, which was cleaned of dirt. Another renovation was necessary in 2006/07. In 2002 the parishes of St. Bonifatius and St. Bernhard merged to form the Neckarstadt-Ost pastoral care unit.

Since the merger of the four German Franciscan provinces in 2010, Mannheim has been part of the German Franciscan Province of Germania . Four Franciscans live in the monastery today. At the provincial chapter of the German Franciscan Province from March 18 to 21, 2019, it was decided that Mannheim should be one of the locations of the order in Germany, which should be maintained in the long term despite a lack of staff.

description

Layout

The St. Bonifatius Church is in a prominent location on Bundesstrasse 38 , which connects Mannheim city center with the 6 and 659 motorways. The east-facing building is of the type of a three-aisled basilica with a transept, dome over the crossing , elongated choir and choir flank tower. The church is 54 meters long, 31.50 meters wide in the transept and 23 meters high at the dome. With a built-up area of ​​1,282 square meters, the St. Bonifatius Church is one of the largest churches in the city ​​dean's office . The tower is 52 meters high.

The external appearance of the yellow sandstone clad church is characterized by concave protruding walls and curved roofs. The facade is only sparsely decorated. On the main viewing side in the west there are three protruding entrance portals with curved triangular gables at the ends and - from left to right - the gold lettering:

  • "In every place there will be an offering to my name and a pure food offering." ( Mal 1,11  EU )
  • "See the tent of God among the people he will dwell with them and they will be his people." ( Rev 21  : 3 EU )
  • "You will draw water with joy from the wells of the Savior" ( Isa 12,3  EU )

  • Main portal

  • Angel over it

  • its right counterpart

inner space

In 1960, a statue of Boniface by Gisela Bär was placed on the right corner . There is a large triplet window above the main portal, flanked by two angels and crowned by the tree of life . Above that, the facade ends with a representation of the Eye of God and a stone cross.

The interior is divided into three naves with coffered arcades . The high altar made of black artificial marble with the crucifixion group , which is surrounded by a canopy with six columns, was created in 1931 by the sculptor Emil Sutor . He also created the figures of Mary and Francis on the side altars, the Way of the Cross and the Antonius group from 1932. Gisela Bär created the granite celebration altar, the ambo and the Apostles' crosses in 1975 . During the renovation of the church in 2006/07, the benches in the side aisles were removed and those in the central nave were refurbished. The pulpit was stripped of its white paint.

organ
Bell for Sunday service

After the Mönch (Überlingen) company had created an interim organ in 1914, Carl Hess from Karlsruhe-Durlach built a new instrument with 51 stops on three manuals in 1934 . In 1936 and 1962 it was expanded to 60 registers, making the St. Bonifatius Church the largest organ of all Catholic churches in Mannheim. Because it was created during the organ movement , it was particularly suitable for modern church music. In the course of time it became more and more prone to failure, so that in 1993 Orgelbau Link built a new organ. It has 51 registers and 3,650 pipes .

The first ring from 1914 consisted of five bells . Only three years later, four of them had to be delivered during the First World War. In 1928 five new bells were ordered from the Edelbrock foundry . They were named Boniface, Franziskus, Antonius, Mother of God and Guardian Angel. In 1941, all but one were picked up again during World War II. Today's bell was cast by the Schilling foundry in 1958 . The as 0 bell weighs 5,037 kilograms and is the third largest bell in Mannheim. The bells have the following inscriptions:

  1. Holy Boniface, give power of faith!
  2. Saint Francis, fill us with seraphic love!
  3. Saint Anthony of Padua, help us in every need!
  4. Holy Mary, dear patroness, help us in our agony!
  5. Angels of God, pray for us!
  6. Blessed Bernhard von Baden, protect our home!

Due to the given space conditions and an upcoming renovation of the bell system in the near future, there would be an opportunity to add a further, seventh, 1st bell .

literature

  • Parish of St. Bonifatius (Ed.): 75 years of St. Bonifatius Church Mannheim-Neckarstadt 1915–1990 . Mannheim 1990.
  • Sabine Bruss: The work of the architect Ludwig Maier (1848–1915). Kiel 1999, ISBN 3-933598-04-4 .
  • Hans Huth: The art monuments of the city district Mannheim II. Munich 1982, ISBN 3-422-00556-0 .
  • Werner Wolf-Holzäpfel: Catholic Churches . In: Mannheim and its buildings 1907–2007. Volume 3: Buildings for education, cult, art and culture . Mannheim 2002, ISBN 3-923003-85-4 .
  • Andreas Schenk: Architectural Guide Mannheim . Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-496-01201-3 .

Web links

Commons : St. Boniface Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franziskaner.net : Mannheim: Franciscan monastery and parish
  2. ↑ franziskaner.net: Provincial Chapter 2019, March 22, 2019.
  3. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen November 30, 2007  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.morgenweb.de  
  4. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen October 9, 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.morgenweb.de  
  5. ↑ List of the largest bells in Germany ( Memento of the original dated November 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cottage7.de
  6. ↑ Simulation of the septet with a new Eb 1 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 53.6 "  N , 8 ° 29 ′ 23.3"  E