St. Bernhard (Friesenrath)

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St. Bernard Chapel

The St. Bernhard Chapel is a Catholic church building in Friesenrath , a town in the Aachen district of Kornelimünster / Walheim . It was built in 1938/1939 according to plans by the Aachen architect Karl Schmitz and consecrated to Bernhard von Clairvaux and has been a listed building since 2003 . The chapel community St. Bernhard Friesenrath is affiliated with the parish St. Anna in Walheim and belongs to the parish association of the GdG Aachen-Kornelimünster / Roetgen .

history

Since Friesenrath did not have its own church and the residents there always had to commute to the Anna Church in Walheim, they decided at the beginning of the 1930s to build a chapel together with the local Marienverein. For this purpose, a building commission was founded on January 22, 1935, which took over the necessary organizational tasks. The architect Karl Schmitz was also hired, who made the plans for the construction of the chapel. The lord of the castle at the neighboring Friesenrath Castle and owner of a quarry, Eugen Graf Beissel von Gymnich , gave the commission a suitable plot of land on the edge of the forest and also donated the stone material from his factory required for the construction.

In 1938 and 1939, the building project was finally implemented with the residents' own contribution. Nevertheless, the costs rose from 9,000 to 11,500  Reichsmarks , which were acquired through donations. The chapel was consecrated on June 25, 1939 and has served as a place of worship ever since, where services are held on various occasions to this day.

Building description

The chapel is a single-nave , rectangular hall church built with quarry stones with a steep gable roof . For reasons of space, the two-axis square church tower was installed slightly protruding in the middle of the six-axis front long side, with the sacristy on the ground floor. In the upper floor reserved for the bell, semicircular sound hatches are let into the three visible wall sides . The tower is covered by a pointed, clad with slate spire .

Six arched windows on the front long side and four on the rear side as well as one arched window above the entrance ensure the necessary brightness in the interior. They are equipped with colorful window panes made of antique glass , which were made in the workshop of the glass artist Wilhelm de Graaff from Essen and depict various Christian motifs. The entrance portal is on the street-side gable side and is framed with ashlar stones. In the lintel a wedge stone engraved with the symbol for alpha and omega and a cross is embedded. On the right side of the wall of the entrance is the inscription stone with the engraving: “AD 1938 K. Schmitz”.

The walls of the interior are plastered white and the nave is closed off with a flat wooden ceiling. The chairs were taken over by the former chapel on Bergdriesch in Aachen, which was attached to the Ursuline High School. The altar with the miraculous image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is a foundation of the architect Karl Schmitz. The wooden entrance door and the wooden door to the sacristy with their elaborate carvings depicting the four apostles and the crucified also date from the construction time of the chapel.

In the 1970s, the chapel was completely renovated and rebuilt according to the rules of the Second Vatican Council . The chancel was laid out with dark marble and the choir room with Solnhofen slabs and the wooden pedestal was replaced by a ceramic floor.

literature

  • Heinz Josef Oellers: The altarpiece of the Friesenrather Bernhard Chapel , in: Leaves on the history of Hahn and Friesenrath , No. 9/2000, pp. 73–83
  • Josefine Schiffer: The glass windows in the St. Bernhard Chapel Friesenrath , in: Blätter zur Geschichte Hahn und Friesenrath , No. 11/2005, pp. 23–33

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ GdG Aachen-Kornelimünster / Roetgen
  2. ↑ Aachen-Friesenrath, St. Bernhard Chapel , portrait on the pages of the Research Center for Glass Painting of the 20th Century e. V.

Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 52.8 "  N , 6 ° 11 ′ 7.7"  E