St. Heribert Church (Hallenberg)
The St. Heribert Church in Hallenberg in the Hochsauerland district is a Catholic parish church whose origins go back to the 13th century. Despite numerous fires, some of which have seriously affected the building, the church essentially exists in its original form.
History and Development
In the 12th century, the Deutz Abbey built a chapel dedicated to St. Heribert , the founder of the abbey, on its Merklinghausen farm east of today's town center . This received parish rights in the 13th century. Around the middle of the 13th century, this farm became the property of the Archbishop of Cologne, who then built the city of Hallenberg as a border fortress against Hesse and Wittgenstein. The town chapel Sankt Nicolai and Katharina, which was built soon after the town was founded, became a parish church in the 14th century when the parish rights and the patronage of the Merklinghausen Church were transferred to it. That is why the right of patronage lay with the Abbot von Deutz, who still owned it in 1800. At the end of the 16th century, during the Counter-Reformation , the monastery had difficulties in finding a pastor, so that at times the Glindfeld Lords of the Cross sent one of their confreres to Hallenberg as pastor.
Among the city fires, by which the church was badly damaged, the worst was that of 1519. Independently of this, the square tower in the west of the church was rebuilt on an old base in 1708/09. It is rounded off by a three-tiered, eight-sided baroque hood, a work by the Hallenberg master Konrad Hesse, who also carried out work in Eversberg , Wormbach and Hesborn . Above the two corners of the choir there are smaller counterparts of the main tower on the church roof. The base of the tower is only slightly smaller than the base of the choir, about 6 meters by 6 meters square.
The church has an extensive historical parish library with works from the 16th century with an emphasis on works from the 18th century.
Church building
The church is a hall church as it occurs several times in South Westphalia. It consists of three bays , a central nave and two side aisles. To the east is the square choir. It is inclined a little to the north and is supposed to embody the death of Christ in its symbolism ("He bowed his head and died"). Next to the choir there was a sacristy that served as a school building until 1860. It was replaced by an extension as an extension of the choir. The two entrances to the north and south of the church date from the 19th century (the north portal is dated 1857). The material of the wall is made of rubble stone with applied white plaster. The roof is covered with slate. The church is open to visitors from the tower, but the main nave is closed by a wrought iron grille (built in 1983). The wall paintings of the churches were monument of the month in Westphalia-Lippe in July 2010 .
Church interior
Room layout and wall painting
In relation to the size of the central nave (18.50 meters by 15 meters), four mighty round pillars are supported by groin vaults in Gothic pointed arch style . The circumference of the pillars is about 4.50 meters. The floor slopes slightly from west to east. In the middle in the east is the choir (6.20 meters by 6.20 meters) with the main altar, surrounded by semicircular wall niches in the two side aisles, each with a side altar.
A rarity in Westphalia is the almost completely preserved painting of the walls, stylistically attributable to the Renaissance period, carried out using Secco technology. It dates from 1558 and was whitewashed for a long time. Rediscovered and described in 1880, it was only technically possible in 1962 to uncover and permanently restore it. An excellent place to be mentioned is a figure of Goliath over 3 meters tall on the north-eastern pillar, opposite of which on the north-western pillar is a David over 3 meters tall . In addition, apostles with creed verses can be seen.
Altars
Saint Heribert is the church saint . Parish fair is March 16. There is evidence of a cross altar for the year 1474, a Heribert altar in 1520 and a Nicholas altar in 1539. In 1666 the painter Antonius Windrack from Hildesheim was commissioned to repaint the three altars.
Today there is a wooden baroque high altar in the choir. The renaissance altar that was previously there was dismantled and put back in the Merklinghauser Chapel, where it can still be seen today. The first one represents the Holy Trinity worshiped by angels. In the center you can see a picture of the Assumption of Mary. In front of it are arranged figures of St. Peter as the town's patron, St. Heribert von Deutz as the church patron and St. Barbara as the protector of fires.
There are four wooden sculptures at the entrance to the choir. One is two saints from the 16th century (Nicholas and Boniface). The two figures of St. Joseph and St. Anthony of Padua date from 1744.
In the north aisle there is a Marian altar in the wall niche. It was made between 1785 and 1788 by the sculptor A. Destadt and the carpenter Th. Grobell. Both came from Schmallenberg . The altar was painted by the Arnsberg painter K. J. Hahn.
Other figures in this side aisle are a late Gothic oak sculpture, the "Man of Sorrows" (around 1500) and St. Agnes.
The cross altar is built in the south aisle. It was made by the same artists as the Marien Altar. In the center one finds Christ on the cross, next to him the other two crucified. There is also a representation of St. Veronica with the handkerchief of Christ. Under the crucifixion group you can see a Gothic Pietà from 1420, made of lime wood. Another wooden sculpture depicts St. John Nepomuk, the patron saint of the confessional secret. Above the southern door portal there is a bust of a bishop, presumably St. Heribert, and towards the west is saint Aloysius, patron saint of the students.
In the central nave, a double Madonna is hung in a halo, a donation from the Hallenberg pastor J. B. Pöllmann from 1666.
Bells
In the fire of 1519, all the bells had melted. In 1522 replacement bells were cast by Master Curd von Homberg. For 1544 these have been handed down as a Nona bell, a Vesper bell and a large bell. This was used as a storm and fire bell from around 1600. At this time a special clock bell was poured into casting . This was initially behind the main altar in the choir, but was soon moved to the tower as “propter strepitum” (because of the noise). Two more bells were purchased in 1742 and 1757.
There were two bells on the bell tower around 1950, which were cast by the bell founder Gottfried Lapaix in 1726. They weighed 800 kilograms and 500 kilograms. Two other, smaller bells, the larger of which weighed 300 kilograms and the smaller one that was cast by Josef Greve from Meschede in 1821 , were melted down during World War II.
organ
The existence of an organ is first recorded for the year 1601. The current organ was built around 1635 and probably comes from the workshop of the Westphalian family of organ builders, Arnold Bader. In 1974 it was restored by the A. Tombusch company from Ascheberg . Below the pipework is the inscription “Laudate Dominum chordis et organo” (Psalm 150, 4) (German: Praise the Lord with strings and with organ). The organ consists of 18 registers and contains 1480 pipes, 110 of which are made of wood.
Others
A picture of the Virgin Mary was gilded in 1666, probably the one that was handed down in 1771 as the picture of the gracious Mother of God on the St. Nicholas altar.
A wooden pulpit from 1785 is attached to the south-eastern main pillar. The four evangelists with their symbols are attached to the outside. Confessionals and communion bench date from 1850.
The sandstone baptismal font is dated around 1670. It has the shape of a chalice, is eight-sided, and stands next to the cross altar.
Closer environment
The parish cemetery can be verified in 1615. Apparently, the dead were also buried in a cemetery next to the nearby Merklinghausen chapel, as a message from 1744 shows. There is still a cemetery with old tombstones there today.
To the east of the parish church is the so-called Petrusbrunnen, as you can see on the cadastral sheet from 1831.
On the east wall of the sacristy there was a sandstone plaque for Mayor Anton Schnorbusch, who died in 1692, and for his father of the same name, who died in 1665, until around 1960. It had a height of 2.12 meters and a width of 95 centimeters. It was removed from there and is now broken by the Merklinghausen chapel. A second cast-iron grave slab for the Hallenberg judge Johannes Synesius, who died in 1686, and his wife Anna Maria Bange stands upright at the eastern end of the parish church. It has a height of two meters and a width of one meter.
Literature and Sources
- Alfred Bruns: Hallenberger sources and archive directories , Münster 1991.
- Albert Hömberg : Ecclesiastical and secular state organization , Münster 1938.
- Wilhelm Rave (editor): Architectural and art monuments of Westphalia. Volume 45: Brilon district. Edited by Paul Michels, Münster 1952, pp. 242–257.
- Klaus Saeger: Catholic parish church St. Heribert Hallenberg (= Schnell art guide No. 1783). 2nd edition 1996, ISBN 3-7954-4041-6 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ 37.2 ″ N , 8 ° 37 ′ 16.5 ″ E
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bruns No. 233 for 1566,
- ↑ Bruns No. 350 for 1585
- ↑ St. Heribert Parish Library in Hallenberg
- ↑ Monument of the month of July in: LWL - Archive 2010 page of the LWL , 2010
- ↑ Bruns No. 57
- ↑ Bruns No. 108
- ↑ Bruns No. 133
- ↑ Bruns No. 151
- ↑ Bruns No. 238
- ↑ Bruns No. 2286
- ↑ Bruns No. 2703
- ↑ Bruns No. 1137
- ↑ Michels, p. 244
- ^ Bruns p. XVIII
- ↑ Bruns S. XIV
- ↑ Bruns p. XXII
