St. John (Bislich)
St. Johannes is a Roman Catholic church in the Wesel district of Bislich . It goes back to a church building from the 12th century.
location
The church is located at the western end of the town center of Bislich, which is rural and around 12 kilometers from Wesel city center. The church building is on Pastor-Kühnen-Platz at the western end of Dorfstraße. In the west it is bounded by the Rhine dike. The Rheinaue Bislich-Vahnum nature reserve is on the other side of the dike towards the Rhine .
history
Around 800, i.e. during the Carolingian era, there was already a church at its current location, which was a simple long building. Little is known about the history of this early church. The church in its current dimensions of around 30 by 15 meters was built in the 12th century in the Romanesque style. It also included a tower. It was built as a fortified church and had thick walls made of tuff stone , which came from the former Roman town of Xanten on the opposite side of the Rhine. Certain elements suggest that the church was of some importance in the Middle Ages and that it was not only used as a simple parish church. On the one hand, it had a cloister and could have been part of a monastery complex . There was also a rood screen , i.e. a separating barrier between the chancel and the nave . However, rood screens were completely untypical for churches of this size on the Lower Rhine, so that it is an indication of the increased importance of this building.
In the middle of the 15th century, the church was structurally adapted to the Gothic style. This was done, among other things, by erecting Gothic vaults in the side aisles. According to an inscription on a brick that no longer exists, the construction work was finished in 1471. In the spring of 1688, the church, which, unlike the village further inland, was not adequately protected by the dike, was badly damaged in a flood. The pastorate and the sexton's apartment were destroyed. As a result, the church had to be largely demolished and rebuilt. Bricks instead of tuff were used as building material. Reconstruction was completed at the beginning of the 18th century. It was supplemented by adapting the course of the dike, which gave the church just as much protection as the village. In 1821 the parish , which had previously belonged to the Cologne diocese, became part of the Münster diocese .
In 1882 there was a comprehensive renovation, in which neo-Gothic elements were incorporated. In particular, the Romanesque barrel vault of the central nave was replaced by a Gothic one. In 1928 further work on the building became necessary. During the Second World War , the church was destroyed on March 15, 1945. This happened in the run-up to Operation Varsity , in which the Allies crossed the Rhine. In the following years, the reconstruction of the church was pushed ahead at the same place and the first mass was held there for Christmas 1949.
Despite the destruction in 1688 and 1945, there are many historical elements in today's church building. This includes in particular a sacrament house made of limestone, which was made in the early 16th century and depicts the resurrection of Christ on its base. As a result of a merger with other parishes, the parish of St. Johannes comprised four churches from 2004. In May 2013 the parish was incorporated into the parish of St. Nikolaus, which includes all nine Catholic churches in the Wesel city area on the right bank of the Rhine.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d St. Johannes Church Bislich (bislich.de)
- ↑ St. Marien (sanktnikolaus-wesel.de)
Coordinates: 51 ° 40 ′ 37.9 ″ N , 6 ° 29 ′ 8 ″ E