St. Altfrid (Gifhorn)

St. Altfrid Church

The Sankt Altfrid Church is the Catholic parish church in Gifhorn , a district town in Lower Saxony . It is named after the holy Hildesheim bishop and dome builder Altfrid and is located in Pommernring 2. The parish of the same name belongs to the dean's office Wolfsburg-Helmstedt of the diocese of Hildesheim . The parish also includes the churches of St. Bernward in Gifhorn and St. Andreas in Meine . The St. Altfrid daycare center located next to the church is also part of the community.

history

In 1970 a pastor came to Gifhorn to found a second Catholic parish in the south of the city in addition to the already existing St. Bernward congregation. Initially, the services took place in the Evangelical Martin Luther Church. In 1971 the foundation stone for the St. Altfrid Church was laid, and on April 30, 1972 it was consecrated by Auxiliary Bishop Heinrich Pachowiak . From 1973 St. Altfrid was an independent parish, before the church belonged to the St. Bernward parish. In 1974/75 the neighboring day care center was built. In 1993 the parish of St. Altfrid was raised to a parish. In 1996 the pastoral care unit Gifhorn-Meine was formed, to which the churches St. Altfrid and St. Bernward in Gifhorn as well as St. Andreas in Meine and St. Maria Goretti in Meinersen belonged . In 2001 a new community center was inaugurated because the community rooms had become too small. On August 1, 2004, the pastoral care unit became the parish of St. Altfrid Gifhorn / Meine , comprising the four churches of the former pastoral care unit. Since November 1, 2006, the church has belonged to the then newly founded dean's office in Wolfsburg-Helmstedt, previously it belonged to the dean's office in Wolfsburg. In 2014 the St. Maria Goretti Church in Meinersen was profaned . On July 26, 2018, the day care center for Abrahams Kinder was opened, which is run jointly by the Catholic St. Altfrid Congregation, the Muslim DİTİB Mosque Congregation in Gifhorn and the Evangelical Lutheran Diakonie . According to the company, this is the first facility of its kind in Germany.

Architecture and equipment

Interior

The hall church with a high pitched roof and free-standing bell tower was built as a prefabricated church by the diocesan building department, it is around 54 meters above sea level and offers over 180 seats.

A number of other churches of this type were built in the Diocese of Hildesheim, for example in 1969 in Altenwalde and Sudmerberg , 1970 in Dungelbeck , Meckelfeld and Poggenhagen , 1971 in Afferde , Hohegeiß , Luthe , Meine , Schwanewede and Winsen (Aller) , 1972 in Ronnenberg , Stederdorf and Wittingen , 1974 in Vorwerk , 1975 in Dransfeld , Münchehof and Rodenberg , and 1976 in Rhüden .

The furnishings of the St. Altfrid Church include statues of St. Mary (mother of Jesus) and Antonius of Padua . The Way of the Cross was created by Siegfried Haas in 1978, the 15th station shows Jesus breaking bread with the Emmaus disciples. On April 30, 2013, today's electronic organ was inaugurated, it replaced the previous instrument.