St. Bernward (Wolfsburg)

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St. Bernward Church

The St. Bernward Church is a Catholic church named after Bernward von Hildesheim in the Wolfsburg district of Alt-Wolfsburg and was built in 1963-65. The church at Schulenburgallee 3 is a branch church of the parish of St. Christophorus , in the Wolfsburg-Helmstedt deanery of the Hildesheim diocese .

history

Extensive construction work began in 1958 in the north of Wolfsburg, which had been sparsely populated until then, with the Tiergartenbreite and Teichbreite districts being built first, and Kreuzheide a few years later . As early as January 1961, a nun settled in an apartment in the Bartenslebenring, and began her pastoral work with home visits to Catholic families. Just four weeks later, the pastor of St. Christophorus Church, Antonius Holling , read the first Holy Mass in a classroom of the old Wolfsburg elementary school . Various chaplains later held services there. In 1962, around 1,000 Catholics lived in the northern districts of Wolfsburg, and a year later their number had risen to around 1,600.

In 1964 the first church-owned building was completed, the parish hall. Services were held here from Holy Week 1964 to February 7, 1965.

Cornerstone

The then General Director of the Volkswagen factory, Heinrich Nordhoff , was personally involved in the design of the church . He took in 1960 at the rededication of the war-torn Hildesheim Cathedral in part, so he had the wish that a Catholic church in Wolfsburg Romanesque should get style, in contrast to the then usual modern church architecture. The building site for the church was a gift from the local Volkswagenwerk AG , the design and construction management were taken over by the construction department of Volkswagenwerk AG under the direction of Robert Otto (1902–1986). On August 23, 1963 the foundation stone was laid by the Hildesheim Vicar General Adalbert Sendker, and on February 13, 1965 it was consecrated by Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen .

The rectory was built in 1971/72. On December 25, 1982 the parish of St. Bernward was established. From 1984 the pastor of St. Bernward Church also looked after the Immaculate Conception Church in Velpke, about 11 kilometers away . During the time of reunification , contacts arose with the parish St. Anna (Stendal) in the GDR . In 1993 the community hall was renovated and the entrance area with cloakroom , kitchen and toilets rebuilt after the previous building was demolished.

On July 15, 2005, Peter Herbst, the church's last local pastor, retired and left Wolfsburg. Since then, the pastor of the St. Christophorus Church has also been responsible for the St. Bernward Church, and the Velpker Church is looked after by the pastor of the Church of St. Michael in Vorsfeld . From November 1, 2006, the St. Bernward Church will be part of the Wolfsburg-Helmstedt deanery; previously it belonged to the dean's office in Wolfsburg, which at that time was renamed and enlarged to include the Helmstedt part of the then-dissolved dean's office in Helmstedt-Wolfenbüttel. Since September 1st, 2010 the church belongs to the parish of St. Christophorus .

Furnishing

Rose bush

The church is around 64 meters above sea level . A rose bush was planted on the west side of the church to commemorate the millennial rose bush in Hildesheim. The two steel bells Johannes and Anna have been ringing since the inauguration of the church, the two bells Josef and Gabriel followed in 1966 and 1969.

Today's church windows in strong colors were designed by Claus Kilian and used from 1967, in 1971 the windows were complete. The first altar cross, created by Wolfsburg master goldsmith Raimund Lange (1928–2006), was consecrated on Palm Sunday 1971. The first Way of the Cross was designed by pupils at the Wolfsburg Eichendorff School as early as 1965.

The church stalls offer 312 seats. To the left and right of the sanctuary are the tabernacle created by Raimund Lange and a statue of St. Bernward. Are among the organ loft confessional and also as a holy water font used font .

In 1979 the first extensive redesign took place, the initially white interior was designed in color. The altar cross was hung above the organ gallery and replaced by a large three-winged altarpiece, an enlarged reproduction of an illumination from a gospel book of St. Bernward. Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen consecrated a new main altar. The Italian community donated a figure of Saint Anthony of Padua for the side altar , and the St. Martin's Chapel was created for weekday services.

In 1997 a cross with a gold-plated tip designed by Gerd Winner and donated by a parishioner was placed on the church tower. It was inaugurated on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in 1997. Deviating from the usual shape, it does not have two cross bars as usual, but three. A cross bar should point in every direction, and from every direction it should be recognizable as a cross.

In 2001, Gerd Winner carried out the second and so far last extensive renovation and redesign of the interior, adding the 4 × 4 meter altarpiece, the Apostle candlesticks and the Way of the Cross, which was completed in 1999. The Way of the Cross was started by Ingemar Reuter, Mrs. Gerd Winners, who died in 1998, and was completed posthumously by her husband. The altarpiece and the 14 Stations of the Cross show a section from the Passion painting Ecce homo by the Italian painter Jacopo Tintoretto from the 16th century, which is now in the hostel room in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice . The first altarpiece was placed on the wall above the organ gallery.

In the center of the Marienkapelle, which was redesigned in 1994, there is a replica of a statue of Mary from 1490. On the back wall another twelve images of the Virgin Mary in icon-like representation are visible, they are screen prints on polished stainless steel plates, also by Gerd Winner.

The Martinskapelle received its present shape during the renovation in 2009. The small wooden altar and the ambo were created by a parishioner at the time, the image of the Last Supper was already there and was only restored.

A statue of Christ on a sandstone plinth has stood in front of the church since 2018 . The approximately 1.30 meter high bronze sculpture was created by the artist Helma Kölblinger from Flechtorf in 2006 and donated it to the parish in 2018.

organ

organ

The organ was built by the Westphalian organ builder Siegfried Sauer (Höxter) and was inaugurated on November 20, 1988. The slider chest instrument has 19 stops on two manual works and a pedal . The game actions are mechanical, the stop actions are electric.

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
1. Principal 8th'
2. Reed flute 8th'
3. octave 4 ′
4th Coupling flute 4 ′
5. Fifth 2 23
6th Forest flute 2 ′
7th Mixture IV-V 1 13
8th. Trumpet 8th'
II Swell C – g 3
9. Dumped 8th'
10. recorder 4 ′
11. Nasat 2 23
12. Principal 2 ′
13. third 1 35
14th Scharff III 1'
15th Hautbois 8th'
Tremulant
Pedals C – f 1
16. Sub bass 16 ′
17th Open bass 8th'
18th Choral bass 4 ′
19th bassoon 16 ′

day care center

The kindergarten, which opened in 1965, was built parallel to the community hall at Schulenburgallee 7 . In 2013 a day nursery group was set up in the former rectory . Today (2015) almost 120 children between the ages of zero and six are looked after in this daycare center.

Catchment area

The catchment area of ​​the St. Bernward Church includes the Wolfsburg districts of Alt-Wolfsburg, Brackstedt , Kästorf , Kreuzheide , Teichbreite , Tiergartenbreite and Warmenau as well as the communities of Barwedel , Bokensdorf , Ehra-Lessien , Jembke and Tappenbeck in the Gifhorn district .

See also

literature

  • St. Bernward; Memories. Wolfsburg 2001.
  • PEDA art guide No. 173/2001: The Catholic Churches in Wolfsburg. Passau 2001, pp. 21-24.
  • Horst Petermann: St. Bernward. Management team St. Bernward (Ed.), Wolfsburg 2016. (leaflet)
  • Hannelore Heinrich: 25th anniversary of the St. Bernward Church and the day care center. Wolfsburg 1990.
  • Hannelore Heinrich: 50 years of the parish of St. Bernward. In: Catholic Parish St. Christophorus Wolfsburg (Ed.): Chris. Christmas 2014 edition, p. 17.
  • The Way of the Cross of St. Bernward Church. Wolfsburg around 2000.
  • The Marienkapelle of the St. Bernward Church. 2nd edition, Wolfsburg 2000.
  • Rüdiger Wala: A tower cross with three bars. In: KirchenZeitung No. 6/2015 of February 8, 2015, p. 13. (Article on the 50th Kirchweihfest)
  • Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , p. 103.
  • Ernst Pauer: Church history and church art. In: Historical-regional excursion map of Lower Saxony, sheet Wolfsburg. Erhard Kühlhorn, Hildesheim 1977, ISBN 3-7848-3626-7 , explanatory booklet p. 116.

Web links

Commons : St. Bernward  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. From Salza carpenter to architect . nnz-online.de. January 5, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2014.
  2. Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Kirchlicher Anzeiger. No. 11/2005, Hildesheim 2005, p. 243.
  3. Peter Herbst: Look up to the cross. In: Parish of St. Bernward, Wolfsburg (ed.): Parish letter. Fall 1997, pp. 1-3
  4. A statue of Christ for the St. Bernward Church. waz-online.de, September 22, 2018, accessed on September 24, 2018
  5. More information about the organ on the website of the organ builder

Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 31.3 "  N , 10 ° 48 ′ 22.1"  E