St. Johann Baptist (Mülheim)

St. Johann Baptist in Mülheim

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St. Johann Baptist is the Roman Catholic parish church of the Blankenheim district of Mülheim in the Euskirchen district in North Rhine-Westphalia .

The church is consecrated to John the Baptist and entered as a monument under number 110 in the list of architectural monuments in Blankenheim (Ahr) .

location

The parish church is in an elevated position in the center of Mülheim on the corner of Pützgasse and Ortsgasse. The church building is surrounded by a green area, the old cemetery, which is bordered by a stone wall.

history

A separate church in Mülheim has existed since at least the middle of the 16th century and originally belonged to the Rohr parish . In 1568, Countess Margarete von Aremberg, who owned Mülheim at the time, submitted a petition to the Archbishop of Cologne with the request to make Mülheim an independent parish. The archbishop accepted the request and elevated Mülheim to a parish on October 17, 1571 . At the same time, the chapel in Reetz , previously also part of the Rohr parish, was subordinated to the new parish. This led to a dispute between the people of Reetz and the people of Mülheim, who also wanted to become a parish and no longer wanted to be dependent on Mülheim. However, the dispute could only be resolved 301 years later, when Reetz was finally separated from Mülheim on January 17, 1872 and also raised to a parish. The collator of the parish church of Mülheim was the house of Aremberg until 1802, the collation rights ended with the French period .

Belonging to the diocese also changed more frequently. Originally, Mülheim was a parish in the Archdiocese of Cologne . However, this was dissolved by the French on the left bank of the Rhine at the beginning of the 19th century, so that Mülheim came to the Trier diocese in 1802 . This change was not reversed until 1825 and Mülheim came back to the archbishopric. Around 100 years later, in 1930, the Aachen diocese was established, to which the Mülheim parish has belonged ever since.

Building history

It is not possible to say exactly when the first church was built in Mülheim. In any case, there was already a chapel in Mülheim in 1568, which then became a parish church in 1571. In the first half of the 18th century, this church no longer seems to have met the requirements, so it was decided to build the current parish church. Construction began under the pastor of the time, Johann Lambert Bach (in Mülheim since 1730), and the new church was completed in 1737. The church initially also had a bell tower , which was destroyed in a storm in 1815 and replaced with today's roof turret .

By the end of 1955, the church had become so bad that it had to be closed for security reasons. From 1955 to 1957 the parish church was comprehensively secured and repaired, as well as the construction of the sacristy . In 1981 a comprehensive restoration took place according to plans by the Andernach architects Paul and Hans Rumpf.

Building description

West side with main portal

St. Johann Baptist is a single-nave, five-bay hall church made of plastered quarry stone in the Baroque style with a five-sided closed choir in the east and a six-sided roof turret over the west gable. The windows are arched and the interior is vaulted with ribbed vaults . There are 150 seats available for the faithful.

Furnishing

Much of the original baroque furnishings have been preserved in the interior. These include the wooden high altar and two associated side altars in the choir area as well as the wooden pulpit and the baptismal font with a brass lid. All of these pieces of equipment are works from the 18th century and were acquired in the course of the rebuilding of the church.

The organ was installed in Mülheim in 1874, but it is much older and probably dates from the first half of the 17th century. The instrument has 10 stops on a mechanical action . In 1973 the instrument was restored by the company Weimbs Orgelbau from Hellenthal .

Pastor

The following priests have so far worked as pastors in the parish of St. Johann Baptist:

from ... to	Surname
1930-1939	Werner Franconia
1939-1942	Hermann Josef Fritzinger
1942-1952	Johannes Arnold
1952-1964	Franz Dombret
1964-1966	Matthias Kronen
1966-1967	Father Leo Mohr
1967-1973	Father Josef Bohnet
1977-1984	Wolfgang Bussler
1984-1992	Johannes Weber
1992-1994	Winfried Reidt
1994-1998	Heinrich Reidt
1998-2014	Hans-Peter Meuser
2014-2018	Josef Berger
Since 2018	Andreas Züll

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Episcopal General Vicariate (ed.): Handbuch des Bistums Aachen 3rd edition, Aachen 1994, p. 519.
2. ↑ Bischöfliches Generalvikariat (Ed.): Handbuch des Bistums Aachen 3rd edition, Aachen 1994, p. 519 f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 26 '58 "  N , 6 ° 41' 2.3"  E