St. James the Elder (Kalefeld)

Church (2011)

The Church of St. James the Elder was the Catholic church in Kalefeld , a municipality in the Northeim district in Lower Saxony . Most recently it belonged to the parish of the Visitation of Mary , based in Northeim , in the Nörten-Osterode deanery of the Hildesheim diocese . The church named after the holy apostle James the Elder was located at Auetalstraße 90.

history

From 1945, as a result of the Second World War , Catholic refugees and displaced persons also settled in the area around Kalefeld, which has been evangelical since the Reformation . First a parish vicarie was founded in Echte in 1946 , to which Kalefeld also belonged, and the pastor Heinrich Ludwig, who had been displaced himself, took over the pastoral care. The parish vicarie was affiliated to the parish of St. Michael in Bilderlahe , the Sunday services of the parish vicarie took place in Protestant churches. Because of the death of pastor Ludwig on September 17, 1958, the parish vicarie Echte was dissolved and Kalefeld came to the parish vicarie Hohnstedt .

In 1958/59 a church building site was acquired in Kalefeld. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on August 15, 1960, and the foundation stone was laid on October 23 of the same year. On 7./8. October 1961 the consecration took place by auxiliary bishop Heinrich Pachowiak . The youth home and rectory were built at the same time as the church.

Already on October 1st, 1961, the Kalefeld parish (Kuratiegemeinde) St. Jakobus the Elder was founded, to which around 1,500 Catholics belonged at the time. The St. Augustine Church in Hohnstedt, about seven kilometers away, was also part of it from then on. In addition to Kalefeld, the catchment area of the parish also included the villages of Denkershausen , Dögerode , Düderode , Eboldshausen , Echte, Edesheim , Hohnstedt, Imbshausen , Lagershausen , Oldenrode , Oldershausen , Sebexen , Vogelbeck , Westerhof , Wiershausen and Willershausen .

In 1994 the last local pastor was retired, and a pastoral care unit was founded to include the Visitation of the Virgin Mary (Northeim) and St. Jakobus the Elder (Kalefeld) . Since then the clergy from Northeim exercised pastoral care in Kalefeld. In August 1995 the last service took place in the subsidiary church of St. Augustine , the church was profaned and sold. Since March 1, 2004, the church of St. Jakobus the Elder has belonged to the then newly founded dean's office in Nörten-Osterode, previously it belonged to the dean's office in Nörten. Since July 1st, 2004 the Church of St. James the Elder has belonged to the parish of the Visitation of Mary in Northeim.

Due to declining financial resources, but also the decreasing number of priests and church members, all churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim were classified according to their future needs. At that time, the St. James Church was seen as “not absolutely necessary for pastoral development” and it was scheduled to close in 2014. In May 2015, the church property with the church, parsonage and parsonage was sold to private customers for 73,000 euros , and on June 19, 2015 it was profaned by Auxiliary Bishop Nikolaus Schwerdtfeger . At last only around 650 Catholics belonged to the catchment area of the church. Since the closure, “St. Assumption of Mary "in Bad Gandersheim and" St. Josef ”in Kreiensen , each about 10 kilometers away, the nearest Catholic churches. In the future exhibitions and concerts will take place in the former church building, the former parsonage is to be used as a photo studio and the former parsonage as a residential building.

Architecture and equipment

The church, located around 132 meters above sea level , was built according to plans by the architect Hanns D. Rumpf from Neuenbeken . Your chancel was dominated by the image of a crucifixion group . Statues showed the Madonna in the protective mantle and St. James the Elder, the patron saint of the church.

After the profanation, the bells in India and the organ in Bavaria will find a new use. Part of the inventory is to be given to a hermit living near Berlin .

literature

Festschrift 125 years of the St. Marien parish fair. Northeim 2012, pp. 61-66
Ulfrid Müller: The churches and chapels in the municipality of Kalefeld. Garbsen 2011.
Willi Stoffers: Diocese of Hildesheim today. Hildesheim 1987, ISBN 3-87065-418-X , p. 139
KirchenZeitung No. 25/2015 of June 21, 2015, p. 1 (article on profanation)

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Kirchlicher Anzeiger . No. 2/2004. Hildesheim 2004, p. 35
^ Diocese of Hildesheim (ed.): Classification of the parish churches and branch churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim. Hildesheim 2009.

51.800816 10.033177Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 2.9 ″ N , 10 ° 1 ′ 59.4 ″ E

[1] Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Kirchlicher Anzeiger . No. 2/2004. Hildesheim 2004, p. 35

[2] Diocese of Hildesheim (ed.): Classification of the parish churches and branch churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim. Hildesheim 2009.