St. Christophorus (Braunschweig-Rühme)

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St. Christophorus Church

Sankt Christophorus is the Roman Catholic Church in Rühme , a district of Braunschweig . It belongs to the parish of St. Aegidien in the Braunschweig deanery of the Hildesheim diocese . The church named after St. Christopher is located at 7A Hesterkamp .

history

In 1946, as a result of the Second World War, Catholic expellees , especially from the County of Glatz , settled in the north of Braunschweig. Catholic services were held in the Protestant church in Wenden by Archpriest Heinrich Döring. In 1948 there was already a pastoral care district in Wenden, which Pastor Wilhelm Titz took over from that year.

In 1953 a house in Rühme was purchased as a rectory. As early as this year, Catholic church registers were kept in Rühme . In 1954 a house chapel was set up in the rectory, in which, in addition to the services in the Protestant church, other services were held. In 1956 , Johannes Kollmann (1915–2014) , who came from Rybnik in Upper Silesia , became the pastor of the St. Christophorus congregation, which was being set up and which at that time comprised around 2,800 Catholics. After his chaplaincy at the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Bremerhaven-Lehe, this was his first parish position, where he remained until he retired in 1990.

Since 1960 the municipality has officially been called “St. Christophorus ”. The Volkswagen factory in Braunschweig is located in the municipality , so the municipality was named after the patron saint of motorists, St. Christopher . St. Christophorus also became the patron saint of the Catholic churches in the vicinity of the Volkswagen plant in Hanover and the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg , St. Christophorus (Hanover) and St. Christophorus (Wolfsburg) .

The foundation stone of the church was laid on July 30, 1961, and on October 1 of the same year the independent parish “St. Christophorus ”. On May 13, 1962, followed the consecration of the church by Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen . On March 1, 1982, the parish was raised to a parish. In 1990 Pastor Peter Pichlmeier († 2005) took over the community. In 1992/93 a new parish hall was built, and from 1994 Reinhard Düring was the last local pastor to work.

Since December 1, 2003, the parish of St. Christophorus has formed a pastoral care unit with the Braunschweig parishes of St. Aegidien, St. Godehard , St. Joseph and St. Laurentius , from which on November 1, 2006 today's parish “St. Aegidien ”was formed.

Architecture and equipment

The church, located around 70 meters above sea level , was built according to plans by the Braunschweig architect Bernhard Schneemann, designed as a tower-free hall church with brown-red clinker facing. The simple church, including the aisle , has 297 seats. On the doors of the main entrance there are the letters Alpha and Omega (letzte and Ω), the first and the last letter of the classical Greek alphabet. They are a symbol for the beginning and the end, thus for the comprehensive, for God .

The interior is dominated by a mosaic on the back wall of the chancel, it shows St. Christopher with the baby Jesus on his shoulder. The Way of the Cross comprises 15 stations, of which the 15th, larger station represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ . The baptismal font is located in a lower area of ​​the church, where a wall mosaic shows the baptism . A confessional is set into the east wall of the church, a second confessional is under the organ gallery. The statue of the Virgin Mary comes from the profaned St. Godehard Church and was installed in the St. Christophorus Church in 2011. The pipe organ was designed by GF Steinmeyer & Co. built.

See also

literature

  • Volker Röpke: 50 years of solidarity in St. Christophorus. In: PFARRBRIEF Pfingsten 2012. Katholische Pfarrgemeinde St. Aegidien (Ed.), Braunschweig 2012, pp. 19–22
  • Willi Stoffers: Diocese of Hildesheim today. Hildesheim 1987, ISBN 3-87065-418-X , pp. 52-53

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Church registers in the diocese archive in Hildesheim
  2. Obituaries in the KirchenZeitung No. 21/2014 of May 25, 2014, p. 16

Coordinates: 52 ° 18 ′ 32.5 ″  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 3.2 ″  E