St. Josef (Kierspe)
The Roman Catholic Church and former parish church of St. Josef is a church building on Glockenweg 4 in Kierspe in the Märkisches Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia .
location
In 1957/1958, with the help of the Meinerzhagen mother community, the Kierspe administration and the courtesy of Dr. med. Hans Wernscheid concluded the exchange and purchase agreements for the acquisition of the 5000 square meter church building plot at Thingslindestraße (later rededicated in Glockenweg). Originally, a plot of land on Heerstrasse was planned, but it turned out to be too small.
During the Second World War, there was a forced labor camp on the Thingslindestraße property, the Ebenstück camp . Around 500 people living here worked for 16 Kiersper companies, 16 of whom died during their stay and are buried in the forced labor cemetery.
This remarkable building can hardly be seen when driving along the main street of the city, Friedrich-Ebert-Straße. Unfortunately it is now obscured by a faceless shopping mall.
History and architecture
The building complex stands over a rectangular floor plan, in the disposition of an atrium house . The building was constructed from 1959 to 1961 according to plans by the architect and sculptor Gottfried Böhm .
In the immediate vicinity of the church with its “spiritual” atrium, the original plans were to build a community hall with another - a “secular” - atrium. The community hall that stands there today, however, is a different design that has nothing in common with the original plans.
Since May 11, 2004, the church has been a listed building under serial number 59 on the list of monuments in the town of Kierspe (as of April 23, 2013). The circumferential eaves tape, originally cast from concrete, was encased in 2002. The walls are made of plastered brick . The choir and the soaring tower emerge from the complex . They are accentuated by ornamental ribbon windows made of tuff . There is an entrance in the western outer wall. In the niche above is a tuff figure of St. Joseph with the baby Jesus. The atrium with a fountain is flanked by the sacristy and the rectory. The entrance to the flat-roofed, low church hall is through the round tower. The raised choir with 3/8 end is set with a six-sided tent roof as an altar house. Cast iron pillars serve as choir barriers . The colored windows made to designs by Robert Rexhausen are room-high in the west and look precious on the outside thanks to a gold coating. In the southern windows the Passion and the Last Judgment are depicted, the northern window shows the apocalyptic lamb.
The overall conception of the furnishings and the building has an impressive effect like a play of positive and negative basic forms and smooth surfaces with the strongly structured window walls.
The formal language of the church comes from the Orient. The architect Gottfried Böhm took the book of the secret revelation as a template and designed the church according to his text. The interior is square and represents the four cardinal points and the earthly spaces, while the heavenly spaces are octagonal or twelve-sided . From the beginning there were no images in this church. The cross over the altar did not exist when the church was built. At that time the altar was also a little further in front and the sacred room was separated from the rest of the building by a barrier with a communion bench. The tabernacle that used to be in the sanctuary is now in the room to the right of the altar and has the shape of a house or tent and repeats the design of the sanctuary. Where it stands now, a Joseph altar was originally intended.
The new construction of the St. Josef Church cost 771,000 German marks in 1961, but the first major renovation was due for the church as early as 1977/1978. The bell chamber had to be renovated and made weatherproof with an internal wooden panel. A new roof was also required because it was raining through. Environmental pollution and weather conditions made the damage to the parish church unmistakable. In the spring of 1994 the concrete of the church tower showed cracks. On May 25, 1994 scaffolding was erected and work began. The reinforcement bars were open and the concrete above them had flaked off. The damaged areas were completely exposed, the iron chiseled out, cleaned with sandblasting and re-concreted in. During the work it turned out that the tower was rotten inside and damaged the tuff stones on the roof. They have been returned to their original state. The stones were sealed during construction so that damage could occur in the substance. In 1994 they were sharpened, that is, pruned down to the basic substance. It was backbreaking work as everything had to be done by hand. The renovation in 1994 cost 200,000 German marks.
Renovation work is due again in 2012/13, so far it has been estimated at around 460,000 euros. The first thing to do is to repair the facade in the courtyard, as horizontal cracks have formed in it. On this occasion, the roof edge, the so-called parapet, is renewed. It now consists of asbestos-containing cement panels. The new plaster will come closer to the original plaster than the old plaster. The current scratch coat is very coarse, the first coat was much finer. Once the facade of the church has been put back in order, the lead glazing in the chancel is repaired. It will have protective glazing on the outside, as well as a demarcation fence that will also protect the windows. The tracery in the choir itself, however, shows only minimal damage, which is also removed in this context. A ramp for wheelchair users at the main entrance, a revision of the paving in the inner courtyard and the removal of water ingress into the roof areas of the rectory and the sacristy are also on the work schedule of the craftsmen. The work should be finished by summer 2013.
Furnishing
A large part of the furnishings are works by Gottfried Böhm
Leaded glass window
Tower window
The windows in the church tower were designed by the painter Robert Rexhausen and in the Cologne workshop for glass painting Dr. Reuter painted. They are each 3.50 by 7 meters. The window on the epistle side shows the coming judgment and that on the gospel side shows the adoration of the Lamb. Both windows were designed by Robert Rexhausen based on the text of the Apocalypse of the Apostle John.
Court window
The judgment window contains a mandorla surrounded by the wings of the heavenly spirits. A royal crown can be seen on the empty court throne as a sign of His all-embracing rule, the sword as a sign of that judgment that will come out of His mouth to judge all peoples. There are many stars floating next to the throne, for the universe is subject to Him. Before the throne lies the Judgment Book as an indication of his Divine Omniscience, which no defense can withstand. The throne is still empty because the judgment has not yet begun. The empty throne warns: “Be ready, for you know neither the day nor the hour!” (Mt. 25:13). Under the mandorla five honeycomb windows with court attributes are arranged in a horizontal row: The orants (praying) Mary and John the Baptist look up to the throne and intercede for the people. In the middle you can see the court scales on which the soul, represented by the Christian symbol of the fish, is weighed and saved by the counterweight of the cross. The two remaining fields contain the passion tools of Jesus, the crown of thorns, the lance, the skirt and the five wounds. These tools will prove to be tools of power and victory in judgment, but also the signs of salvation and election of all those who have not contradicted them (Luke 2:34).
Worship Window
Also in the worship window is a mandorla with the Lamb of God, who is again surrounded by the wings of the heavenly spirits. It is the Lamb of God with the seven horns, symbol of abundance of power, dotted with eyes, the symbol of omniscience. It is on the book with the seven seals, which can only be opened by the Lamb (Revelation 5: 1-7). Under the mandorla there are again five honeycomb fields with additional attributes. In the middle of the is the sacrificial altar on which the flame of adoration burns. Incense rises from a censer, these are the prayers of the saints (Revelation 8: 3f.). The two outer honeycombs show musical instruments as they are called in the Apocalypse as attributes of the heavenly liturgy. The two fields on the side of the central honeycomb contain seven candlesticks. Each of them represents one of the seven churches of Asia Minor to which the seven letters of the Apocalypse are addressed. One of them wobbles and threatens to lose its light. All Christian communities around the world are symbolically represented in the burning candlesticks in front of the heavenly altar. This means that God knows every church. He knows about their fate, their faith, and knows about their loyalty, which he does not overlook.
The two windows also want to express a warning: unbelief and unfaithfulness can lead to God “moving a lampstand from its place” (Rev. 2,5). The specialty of both windows in terms of glass technology lies in the nature of the fund. While the fields described can be seen on colorless, wiped antique glass, the entire remaining area consists of line glass into which pure gold has been burned. The gold was applied to the windows in varying amounts with a brush, giving it a changing transparency with soft transitions between purple, blue and wine red. From the inner courtyard, the window appears during the day as a gold wall on which the sunlight falls. They are reminiscent of the gold background of the icons, which mean the eternal divine, the unchanging splendor of God. The appearance of the windows changes towards the evening. The windows get their charm from the evaporated gold, which is supposed to represent the heavenly atmosphere. In the dark, the impressions are reversed, then they appear inside the church as a gold wall.
Rose window
The rose window in the apse: When entering the church, the three 8.50 meter high and 4.65 meter wide tracery window walls in the apse, which are angled to each other, are striking. Five vertical light strips alternate with the equally wide tufa strips and form a jagged, calm contour. The light is moderated by the 65 centimeter deep reveals and the whitish, in the backlit shade of ocher of the stone bands and does not dazzle. The glass painter Robert Rexhausen chose the rose as a motif, which he drew in nine variations, filled with a touch of different shades and burned in the enamel color black solder. The rose is considered the queen of flowers, stands for Mary, the queen of heaven and earth but also for Christ himself, as for example in the German Christmas carol "Es ist ein Ros sprung." A mandorla surrounds the upper third of the central apse wall a symbolic sign of the Divine Trinity. The reference of the mandorla to the altar is deliberate and unmistakable. The rose can be found 182 times in the apse and anyone who has taken a close look at the church service will have discovered that five roses are upside down. A carelessness of the craftsman who installed the windows back then.
Cabinet window
The cabinet panels in the north and south walls are not immediately visible to the visitor. They are 30 by 60 cm in size, but of outstanding artistic value and on par with the large windows. The windows of the north wall contain symbols of the Old Covenant, the tablets of the law with the Sinai, the altar and the pillar of fire and cloud. The windows of the south wall show motifs of the New Covenant, the symbols for the seven sacraments.
crucifix
The cross over the altar did not exist when the church was built. The wooden crucifix hanging in the chancel is from the 16th century. It was acquired in the art trade in 1975. Its origin and the name of the artist who created it are unknown. However, some stylistic features point to the 16th century as the time of origin. The longitudinal beam measures 2.45 m, the cross beam 1.30 m. Both are black. The white body is 1.26 m long and the distance between the hands is one meter. The head without a crown of thorns shows no traces of distant thorns, the feet are pierced with a single nail, the arms angled a little upwards. The right hand of the crucified one seems to have tried with painful effort to bring the fingers into the position of the gesture of blessing that occurs in Western Roman iconography. In 2010 the crucifix was handed over to the qualified restorer Hanna Barbara Hölling for restoration. The restoration was urgently needed in order to preserve the sculpture for the church. The sculpture was attacked by wood pests, especially the rear parts of the upper arms were badly affected. Because of this damage, the sculpture was subjected to nitrogen chamber gassing, which lasted eight weeks. The restorer found that the cross is of a later date and did not originally belong to the corpus.
Way of the Cross
The Way of the Cross with shell limestone reliefs was made by Fritz Müller in 1965. The church was planned by the architect Gottfried Böhm without a way of the cross. The Kiersper Ernst Walther soon made simple, small wooden crosses that formed the Way of the Cross. In 1965 the sculptor Fritz Müller from Belecke married in the church of St. Josef and revealed to Pastor Bernhard Schmidt that he was a sculptor. Pastor Bernhard Schmidt immediately thought of the way of the cross that was still missing in the church. Both agreed. Fritz Müller received the order to build the present way of the cross. Until the renovation of the church in 2001, both ways of the cross hung side by side, after which the wooden crosses were removed at the request of Pastor Ulrich Schmalenbach. The extraordinary thing about the Way of the Cross by Fritz Müller with its 14 pictures is that it is not based on the traditional sequence of stations, but solely on the passion reports of the evangelists, which depict the suffering of Jesus. The Way of the Cross begins with prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and ends with the resurrection from the rock tomb. Instead of the non-biblical stations 4 - 6 - 7 - 9 and 13, conceived out of mystical piety, these have been replaced by Fritz Müller by stations 1 - 2 - 10 - 12 and 14: The prayer in Gethsemane (1), the flagellation and the crowning of thorns ( 2), the word of Jesus from the cross to his mother and to John (10), the Lord's Supper liturgy as the proclamation of the death of Jesus until he comes again (12), the resurrection of Jesus (14). The pictures of the Stations of the Cross made of shell limestone are distributed on the southern and northern walls of the church and thus enable the congregation to follow the "path" of Jesus contemplating.
Madonna
The crescent moon Madonna from the late Gothic period was carved from rosewood . Their origin and age could not be determined. Maria wears a leaf crown on her head, is exquisitely dressed, holds the bare child in her right arm and a scepter in her left hand . She stands on the crescent moon, one head under her feet, somewhat hidden by the hem of the coat. All these artistic forms are symbols of the medieval symbolic language. The fruit in the child's hand identifies him as the “second Adam” who brings about salvation through “obedience to death on the cross”. Nudity describes this type of death, for which the convicts were usually stripped. The baby Jesus is covered with a shawl and was originally, but not necessarily original, provided with a crown that no longer exists. The child's crown and Mary's scepter are later, disfiguring additions. In the case of the Madonna, the scepter is a qualitatively questionable addition from the last century and is bronzed, not gold-plated.
Image of everlasting help
The picture of the everlasting help is in the south wall in a wall niche. This picture is a replica of the Roman original, but has an artistic value. It is painted in bright colors on twelve tiles (azulejos) and burned in. It was made by a Spanish artist and was awarded a prize at an exhibition in Gerona in 1965.
Easter candlesticks
The Easter candlestick is a round wooden stele 1.35 m high and 35 cm in diameter in the base and in the "head", while the shaft has a diameter of 23 to 28 cm due to the changing relief thickness. The sculptor Liesel Bellmann from Dortmund-Brackel has artistically worked on the entire curve of the stele. She depicted creation in almost cubist, abstract forms and in the midst of the creatures Eve and Adam, who raise their arms, their faces and their voices pleadingly to heaven. The artist has put her work in three pastel-like shades, thereby increasing the clarity of the composition and subject matter, in blue, yellow and white.
organ
The organ goes back to an instrument that was built in 1948 by the Fabritius company (Düsseldorf) for the emergency church at the time, and that was installed in 1961 with a new console in St. Josef in Kierspe. The instrument had 16 sounding registers on registers, the action was electro-pneumatic.
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From 1974 to 1976 the instrument was extensively renovated by the organ builder Kleuker (Brackwede) and the bassoon register added to the pedal. In the mid-1990s, the instrument was in need of overhaul and its location in the church was unfavorable.
In 1998 the community founded a conveyor system, and in 2000 it was decided to build a new building using existing pipe material. At the end of 2001 the new organ, built by Orgelbau Wolfgang Eisenbarth (Passau), was inaugurated by Auxiliary Bishop Franz Vorrath . The disposition of the instrument is based on that of the previous organ, with a less sharp, more fundamental sound image being sought. Some registers were newly built (hollow flute 8 ′, Basson-Hautbois 8 ′), other registers were revised or obtained from existing registers (e.g. Unda maris from the old Salizional). The instrument has 21 registers (1,259 pipes) on two manual works and a pedal. The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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Bells
The bell of the church consists of four bronze bells and the old angelus bell, which comes from the emergency church on Butterberg. It was cast in 1947. The other four bells come from Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock , Gescher 1960.
| No. | Surname | Weight (kg) |
Chime | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Joseph Bell | Watchful keeper of the sanctuary | 750 | g 1 |
| 2. | Bernhard bell | Herald of the king and his mother calling for battle | 400 | b 1 |
| 3. | Angelus bell | Lauda Sion Salvatorem | 270 | c 2 |
| 4th | Barbara's Bell | Light of Christ in the dark of the world | 200 | d 2 |
| 5. | Elizabeth Bell | Misery and unbelief burn up in the fire of love | 160 | it 2 |
Sacrament House
The sacrament house comes from the emergency church on Butterberg and was already there when it was inaugurated on December 15, 1946. The tabernacle is a wooden tabernacle with bronze fittings, which was painted over with white paint in later years. The motif on it is the awakening of Lazarus. Jesus is at the side of Lazarus, who is wrapped in funeral robes. The tabernacle was inserted into the east wall of the Church of St. Joseph and is now used as an oil tabernacle. In it the oil for the anointing of the sick, for the catechumens and the krisam is kept.
Views
Holy water font in the tower
Sculpture of Saint Joseph
literature
- Report on forced labor in Kierspe from the year 2000 by the archivist of the city of Kierspe Martin Witscher
- Number of forced laborers in industry as census on April 10, 1944, StA Kierspe, file B-310
- Georg Dehio , under the scientific direction of Ursula Quednau: Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler. North Rhine-Westphalia II Westphalia . Deutscher Kunstverlag , Berlin / Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-422-03114-2
- Festschrift on the occasion of the consecration of the new parish church St. Josef Kierspe by Bernhard Schmidt, pastor to St. Josef zu Kierspe 1961. Publisher: Catholic parish office St. Josef, Kierspe / Westphalia
- Westfälische Kunststätten, issue 23: St. Josef Kierspe by Bernhard Schmidt. Publisher: Westfälischer Heimatbund, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring 3, 4400 Münster, in connection with the Westphalian Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the Märkisches Kreis. Münster 1983.
- Hanna Hölling, restorer and conservator, Restoration Studio Bochum, Am Feldbrand 16, 44879 Bochum
- 50 years of St. Josef Kierspe 1961–2011. Editor of the Catholic parish of St. Josef Kierspe
Individual evidence
- ↑ To the disposition of the old organ on the website of the municipality
- ↑ Information about the organ on the municipality's website
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 7 '36.4 " N , 7 ° 36' 4.6" E