St. Gregorius (Aachen-Burtscheid)

St. Gregorius, south side

The Church of St. Gregorius in Aachen - Burtscheid is a church of the Catholic parish of St. Gregor von Burtscheid (GdG Aachen Burtscheid). It was built in the 1960s according to plans by the Cologne architect Stefan Leuer and was inaugurated on June 16, 1967 in honor of the canonized Pope Gregory the Great . In 2018 it was placed under monument protection and its crypt was converted into the Holy Sepulcher , the third of its kind in Aachen.

history

Today's church building is the third in the history of the parish. This was founded in 1934 as a result of the spin-off of St. Marien in Aachen and St. Johann in Burtscheid, initially as a rectorate . At that time, the three-aisled church in neo-Romanesque style in Eynattener Strasse, which was inaugurated in 1897, was used as a place of worship, not far from Aachen Central Station . This church had to be taken over by the new parish with the church music school “St. Gregorius House ” , which had its training center there. The naming of today's church goes back to this time. During the Second World War , the first Gregorius Church was destroyed in the heavy air raid on April 11, 1944 and only the font could be saved from the rubble.

Christ and John

After the end of the war, on the initiative of the rector Josef Espagne, in the area of the intersection of Eupener Straße-Jahnplatz-Luxemburger Ring in the district of Aachen-Steinebrück, premises in an empty and largely preserved factory were set up as an emergency church and by the incumbent Bishop Johannes Joseph van der Velden inaugurated on the 4th Advent 1946. Several valuable pieces of equipment that were purchased for this purpose could later be transferred to today's St. Gregorius church after the new building, including a crucifix and the wooden sculpture Christ and Johannes by Josef Zeller , an enamel picture by Egino Weinert , the host and the monstrance as well as the three cast steel bells that were hanging in a free bell cage at the time of their use in the emergency church.

After the population in the parishes grew again in the post-war years and the makeshift emergency church in the old factory was no longer in keeping with the times, planning began in the early 1960s for the construction of a modern church building. This was started on August 15, 1965 by the Aachen construction company Nesseler Grünzig Gruppe and concluded with the inauguration on June 16, 1967 as the official parish church by the Aachen Bishop Johannes Pohlschneider . The result was a church in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council , in which the church visitors can be more intensively involved in the liturgy thanks to the open, almost semicircular spatial design.

On August 28, 2009, the Bishop of Aachen Heinrich Mussinghoff decided to close the parish of St. Gregorius with the Burtscheider parishes of St. Michael , Herz Jesu , St. Aposteln and St. Johann Baptist with effect from January 1, 2010 for economic and pastoral reasons the entire parish "St. Gregor von Burtscheid ”. The name of the new parish goes back to Gregory of Calabria , the first abbot of the imperial abbey of Burtscheid . The church of St. Michael became a parish church.

Ice mill

In the immediate vicinity of the church, the youth home of the parish of St. Gregorius was set up in the early 1970s in the listed building of the "Eismühle", an old water mill from the 18th century. In addition to the parish, the diocese of Aachen and the Rhineland Regional Association as well as young people from the parish and private sponsors participated in the costs . The converted and expanded ice mill was opened on April 30, 1974 and is now part of the entire GdG “St. Gregor von Burtscheid ”for leisure events.

In autumn 2018, renovation work began on the crypt of the church building to a columbarium with around 780 urn graves , which means that St. Gregorius as a parish church should also function as a church of the Holy Sepulcher. The basis of this planning is a new financing model of the diocese with the aim of economic viability. A design by Aachen architect Eva von der Stein provides for a circular urn and mourning room built up in three segments while preserving the identity of the lower church. A meeting room, a room for flower care and a new toilet facility are also planned. The lower church square will be given a new face by the construction of a wall in front of the church wall with access and will lose some parking spaces as well as its traditional weekly market.

Building

St. Gregorius, north side

The church was built on a hillside and the longitudinal axis was oriented from west to east. This means that the main entrance is on the upper church square in the west and is to the rear of the main traffic axis, Eupener Straße, and cannot be seen. In contrast, the east-facing choir forms the massive visible side that towers like a ship's bow, on the highest point of which a cross, designed by Ludwig Schaffrath , is placed. In addition, the hillside location made it possible to plan two church rooms one above the other, so that, similar to a basement , space for the crypt and a common room with ancillary rooms was made possible under the upper church . While the common room, which corresponds to the dimensions of the parish room of the upper church, fulfills its purpose for lectures, celebrations and meetings, the crypt, the size of the chancel above, serves as a weekday church for smaller liturgical events. Both rooms are accessible from the lower church square and the crypt is also accessible from the choir room via side stairs. On the south side of the church there is the mighty bell tower and on the north side the low sacristy . The walls and ceilings of the church are made of reinforced concrete and the outer walls are faced with exposed aggregate concrete . Inside, the walls are plastered white, the floor is lined with gray-veined marble and the ceiling is furnished in a warm tone using laminated wood beams made from red cedar wood.

East view of St. Gregorius

The unusual thing about the church is the floor plan. This consists of a segment of a parabola running from the south over the east to the north side , which is closed on the open west side by a concave curved wall, the entrance wall. In the imaginary focal point of the parabola is the altar, through which the longitudinal axis of the church runs. This shape of the choir and the course of the ceiling, which rises steeply from 5.40 m to 13.70 m from the entrance in the direction of the chancel, which is raised by four steps and in which eight light domes are embedded, give the nave with its four bench blocks an open and bright and rounded room. Other light sources are the three-part glass entrance area and 160 hatch-like windows in the entrance facade, also designed according to plans by Ludwig Schaffrath, as well as smaller square windows in the area of the stairs leading from the choir to the crypt. Six of these windows were designed in 1999 according to plans by Michael Scheu as windows of creation, whose color-glazed image statements are intended to have a deliberately abstract and meditative effect and which are furnished on the inside with texts in Braille .

A floor plan similar to that of the church can be found in the bell tower and the sacristy annex, this time in the opposite direction to the church floor plan. The three bells from the emergency church were reused in the bell tower with its weathercock by Ludwig Schaffrath. In the lower area of the tower, on the level of the church, a room is currently used as a one-world shop .

Furnishing

Above the bluestone altar , which was designed by the church architect Stefan Leuer, hangs a contemporary cross created by Ewald Mataré in 1954, which the parish received on loan from the family in 1973. It provides a silver on wood core driven represents Christ body, the disc-like shape with its head, the parallel ribs in the semi-circular arches and the prone upper body acts more graphically-ornamental. The cross corresponds to the figure of Mary that is placed on the left edge of the chancel. This of Thomas Duttenhoefer 1988 created semi-plastic made of cast bronze with from white gold produced gold leaf to check out Maria sketchy as a pregnant person. To the left of the altar is the pulpit , the work of Albert Sous from the year 1981. The external structure is modeled on a Baumflechtwerk which in itself Area of the desk surface compacted. Behind the altar is the Easter candlestick, which was designed in 1990 by Hubertus Förster (* 1929), a former employee of Fritz Schwerdt . It is 1.20 m high, octagonal and goblet-shaped and decorated with 40 rock crystals. The number of rock crystals refers to the 40 years of the Israelites in the desert and the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert and which symbolize today's Lent .

A special feature is the tabernacle , created in 1971 by Albert Sous, which consists of two parts that are connected to each other by a column. The actual tabernacle is located in the crypt in the basement, where the lockable compartment for the chalice is located. It is octagonal and its exterior surfaces and doors are fused with bronze and gilded on the inside. The tabernacle is built into a copper-sheathed round column made of steel profiles, which is extended above the housing and pierces the ceiling of the upper church. In the above-ground column area there is a small open tabernacle in which the hosts are deposited during the Eucharist.

On the right wall of the choir room there are five large-format pictures of Herbert Falken , who worked as a chaplain in the parish of St. Gregorius from 1968 to 1977. These panels with dimensions of 200 × 150 cm were created as a cycle in 1971 and painted with oil on canvas and partly mixed with sand. From left to right, they depict the story of Noah from the Old Testament in imaginative form and with intense colors.

Finally, the baptismal font was erected on the longitudinal axis in the direction of the entrance area, which was saved from the rubble of the first church in 1944. It is a round stone holy water font that is attached to an octagonal marble column.

Koch-Lorenz organ

An organ from the “Orgelbauanstalt St. Willibrord” in Merkstein, based on plans by Hans Koch, was purchased for the musical accompaniment of the mass celebrations . It was inaugurated on February 27, 1972. It has three cases with 1640 organ pipes , which are adapted to the architecture of the room. The organ with its 23 sounding stops , divided into two manuals and a pedal , has an electric play and stop action mechanism and a movable console. It was by the then organist Herbert Voss scheduled for the scale and intonation drew Hans Lorenz responsible.

I Hauptwerk C – g ³
01.	Principal	8th'
02.	Coupling flute	8th'
03.	octave	4 '
04th	Night horn	4 '
05.	Sesquialtera II	2 ² ⁄ ₃  '
06th	Forest flute	2 '
07th	Mixture V	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  '
08th.	French trumpet	8th'

II upper structure C – g ³
09.	Covered	8th'
10.	Willow pipe	8th'
11.	Quintad	8th'
12.	Reed flute	4 '
13.	Principal	2 '
14th	Pointed fifth	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  '
15th	Zimbel IV	² ⁄ ₃ '
16.	oboe	8th'
	Tremulant

Pedals C – f ¹
17th	Sub-bass	16 '
18th	Covered pommer	08th'
19th	Octave bass	08th'
20th	Choral bass	04 '
21st	Back set IV	02 ² ⁄ ₃  '
22nd	bassoon	16 '
23.	Schalmey	08th'

Coupling : Coupling: II / I (also as sub-octave coupling), II / II (sub-octave coupling), I / P, II / P
Playing aids: 2 free combinations, roller

St. Gregorius' crypt

For the weekday church, Albert Sous created, in addition to the previously mentioned two-storey tabernacle, an altar welded from copper and overcast with bronze, a matching ambo made from copper-coated steel profiles and a priest's seat using steel-copper welding technology. In addition, the weekday church with the bronze sculpture "Maria mit Kind" by Lore Friedrich-Gronau , a Good Friday cross from the 18th century as well as the two objects taken over from the emergency church, the wooden sculpture "Christ and Johannes" by Josef Zeller and the enamel picture " St. Antonius ”by Egino Weinert.

The back wall of the crypt is decorated with a “ Passion Cycle ”, again created by Herbert Falken in 1995, which consists of 15 large-format drawings measuring 80 × 110 cm. These are graphic illustrations drawn with graphite and ink on paper and hung up in groups according to contexts in a prescribed rhythm. The drawings serve as metaphors for suffering and pain and are intended to stimulate a meditation on the hardship of suffering, dying and - in the last picture - the vision of resurrection.

The entrance area to the common room is adorned with a cross created by Margot Jolanthe Hemberger in 2002, which consists of several layers of colored, baked glass, giving the cross a relief-like, plastic effect.

In the basement of the tower, the monumental 4.00 m high and 2.50 m wide crucifix made of wooden sculpture by Josef Zeller from 1945 found a new home, which had previously been placed behind the altar of the emergency church.

Several other small exhibits, which were donated by parishioners on the occasion of special anniversaries and other festivities of the parish, are located in the main and weekday church as well as in the area of the upper church square.