St. Cyriacus (Weyer)

St. Cyriacus in Weyer

The Catholic parish church of St. Cyriacus in Weyer , a district of the municipality of Mechernich in the Euskirchen district in the south of North Rhine-Westphalia , was first mentioned around 1187 as a church incorporated into the Steinfeld monastery .

The St. Cyriacus consecrated church is a protected monument and was located above a Frankish burial ground. It is located on a hill on the outskirts of the village in the middle of a walled cemetery.

Building history

The parish church was originally a small high Romanesque basilica from the 12th century . The Catholic parish church of St. Cyriakus is located on a hill on the edge of today's village Weyer, whose place name can be found as Wiere in the early medieval inventory of the Prüm Abbey . So-called stone slab graves, which have been found repeatedly in the vicinity of the church, also go back to the early Middle Ages. When exactly the first church was built here is in the dark. The patronage was owned by the Duke of Arenberg. This high medieval church was a three-aisled Romanesque pillar basilica with a transept and a western tower in front. The west tower made of plastered quarry stone without structure, with groin vault on angular corner pillars in the tower hall has been preserved; The structure was changed in 1788. Around 1500, in two construction phases, it was converted into a low, late Gothic hall church with a three-sided choir. Gothic features include, for example, the pointed arched windows and the star and net vaults in the main nave and the ribbed vaults in the aisles. In today's church building, the walled-in arched windows in the upper storey, some of which are overlapped by late Gothic vaults, and the unevenly designed pillars are still visible references to the Romanesque basilica. Remnants of this building were also found in the course of renovation work in 1991.

From 1788 to 1794 the quarry stone tower , which was probably still from the small Romanesque church and crowned by a pointed helmet, was renewed . There are coupled arched windows on all sides .

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  View from the northeast of the aisle and west tower

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  View from the southwest of the church tower

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  Crucifixion group on the south wall

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  Church wall with an old cross

Furnishing

Baptismal font (16th century)

Matronenstein

The interior decoration deserves special mention: wooden emblems of the Five Wounds of Christ in rococo cartouches (18th century, created by the Five Wounds Brotherhood introduced in Weyer in 1650; today torn from their original context), 16th century baptismal fonts made of bluestone in a wide cup shape, the base with a late Gothic corner transition, organ front (allegedly from the 17th century and from the Steinfeld monastery), wooden tabernacle altar (18th century, surrounded by six high, free-standing columns that carry a large volute-supported crown as a canopy), the two side altars with free columns (18th century), communion bench, pulpit, seating and two confessionals in neo-Gothic shapes. Several wooden figures from the 18th century have been preserved in the church and in the sacristy (Francis, Rochus in shepherd's costume, Matthias, Antonius and Sebastian as well as Cäcilia). In the aisle wall is the gravestone of Hermann von Hambroich (died 1614) made of red sandstone. Since 2002 the parish church has had a new celebration altar made from travertine blocks.

During the renovation work in 1991, a surprising find in the brick block of the main altar caused a stir. A well-preserved matron stone from the 2nd century was found as a so-called Spolie . The inscription below the representation of the three matrons says that Lucius Caldinius Firminius placed this consecration stone for the Vaccalineh matrons. For the use of the stone in a Christian context, five crosses and a recess for holding a relic were hammered into its back. A sanctuary of these matrons is only about 4 kilometers away in the forest between Nöthen and Pesch; maybe the stone came from there. The Matronenstein is now in the anteroom of the church.

literature

• Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia I. Rhineland. Edited by Claudia Euskirchen, Olaf Gisbertz, Ulrich Schäfer . Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich / Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-422-03093-X , p. 1181-1182 .
• Anton Könen: 1125 years of Weyer (871-1996) . Publisher: Mechernich-Weyer Association Cartel. 1996, p. 70 ff.
• Elke Lehmann-Brauns: The old village churches of the Eifel - times, quarrels and magic. 1st edition. JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-7616-1143-9 , p. 152 ff.
• Hans Peter Schiffer: Churches and chapels in the Mechernich deanery. History, design, equipment. Kall 2003, p. 213 ff.
• Ernst Wackenroder : The art monuments of the Schleiden district (= Paul Clemen [Hrsg]: The art monuments of the Rhine Province , Volume 11, Section II). Published by C. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1932, p. 447 ff.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

1. ^ LVR: Church of St. Cyriakus in Weyer. In: Kuladig. Retrieved May 19, 2020 . 

Coordinates: 50 ° 32 ′ 32.9 ″  N , 6 ° 39 ′ 1.7 ″  E