St. Josef Church (Mannheim)

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St. Joseph Church
Mosaic above the main portal depicting Joseph
Main portal

The St. Josef Church is the Catholic parish church in Mannheim 's Lindenhof district . It was built between 1904 and 1907 according to plans by Ludwig Maier in the neo-Romanesque style.

history

From 1890 the population in Lindenhof grew rapidly, so the number of inhabitants of the district rose between 1890 and 1900 from 2,360 to 10,120. The Catholics were looked after by the Upper Parish of the Jesuit Church in the city ​​center , but the first application to build their own church was made as early as November 1896. From 1902, church services were celebrated in the sister house of the Niederbronn sisters and a curate was established two years later . In 1904 the construction of the St. Josef Church began according to the plans of Ludwig Maier under the direction of the Mannheim architect Josef Kuld . In December 1907, she was dean of city Joseph Bauer benediziert and by Archbishop on May 31, 1908 Thomas Nörber ordained . With the election of the patron saint of the church, St. Josef , the character of the district as a working-class district was built on. But he was also the patron saint of the Electoral Palatinate .

In 1918 the parish of St. Josef was spun off from the upper parish and raised to its own parish. Before that, four of the five bells delivered by the Grüninger bell foundry in 1911 had been withdrawn during the First World War in 1917 . The bells were not completed until 1927 - again by Grüninger - but in 1942 it was again to fall victim to the metal deliveries carried out for the war economy. In 1928/29 the church was artistically painted by Franz Schilling , an organ was purchased and new altars were built by the Marmon art workshop in place of the previously existing emergency altars.

During the Second World War , the Lindenhof was particularly hard hit by air raids. During an air raid on May 9, 1941, the first direct hit was in St. Joseph's Church. The church was made usable again by November 1942, but on Sunday night from September 5th to 6th, 1943, a major attack on Mannheim destroyed the church and rectory. Very little church inventory could be saved.

In September 1950, the simplified reconstruction of the St. Joseph Church began under the direction of Anton Ohnmacht . The new benediction took place on October 19, 1951. Between 1970 and 1972 the church was renovated. Damaged figures on the sides had to be chopped off and the interior was redesigned in accordance with the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council , with the pulpit and communion pews being removed. Anton Kunz designed the ambo and baptismal grille . In 2002 the parishes St. Josef, Maria-Hilf ( Almenhof ) and St. Jakobus ( Neckarau ) merged to form the pastoral care unit Mannheim-Südwest. In 2003, the interior of the St. Josef Church was renovated and lightened in color by the Archbishop's Building Office in Heidelberg . However, the damage to the granite columns, which originated from the Second World War, was overlooked, which is why the church was closed shortly before Pentecost 2006 as a precaution. A static check of the pillars did not reveal any major complaints, so that service has been celebrated again in the church since the 1st of Advent 2006.

description

Layout
inner space
organ
Bell for Sunday service

The St. Josef Church is in the eastern Lindenhof on Bellenstrasse. Its church tower, together with the church tower of the Protestant St. John's Church and the water tower on the John Deere site, show the district from afar. The three-aisled basilica was built in the Italian Romanesque style from red Main sandstone and light sandstone from the Palatinate. It is 53 meters long, 20.30 meters wide and 9.70 meters high in the central nave. The choir flank tower was originally 51 meters high. The pointed roof was not reconstructed, but replaced by a flat pyramid roof. The choir ends with a semicircular vaulted apse . Twelve granite columns with ornamented capitals support the round arches supporting the nave walls.

According to the circumstances of the time, the church presented itself after the reconstruction without decoration except for the mosaic pictures created by Willy Oeser in 1951/52 : In the choir "Christ the Ruler", flanked by two angels, in the side aisles "Maria - Himmelskönigin" and "St. Joseph - patron of the church ”. In 1954 a new organ with three manuals and 36 stops was installed by the Johannes Klais company . The Way of the Cross made of shell limestone was created by Siegfried Fricker in 1957/1958 .

The altar area was designed in 2003 by the glass painter and sculptor Michael Münzer . A multi-tiered altar island, made of red sandstone from the Neckar Valley , was built into the first yoke of the nave . The ensemble includes the ambo , altar , sedile , tabernacle and baptismal font . Most of the windows from 2004 onwards were designed by Münzer, only the three choir windows by Willy Oeser remained.

Six bronze bells from the foundry Hermann Hamm (Frankenthal) from 1959 hang in the tower . They were consecrated on May 31 by Mission Bishop Augustin Olbert . The striking range of the chimes extends over an octave ; It is based on the rarely found sixth fourth chord and is also one of the largest and most melodious in Mannheim. It is also coordinated with the bells of the neighboring St. John's Church (strike tone sequence: h 0 –d 1 –e 1 –g 1 –a 1 ).

No. Surname Casting year Caster Ø (mm) kg volume
1 Joseph 1959 Hermann Hamm 1796 3000 a 0
2 Konrad 1959 Hermann Hamm 1412 2530 d 1
3 Maria (angelus bell) 1959 Hermann Hamm 1102 780 f sharp 1
4th Antony 1959 Hermann Hamm 929 450 a 1
5 John the Baptist 1959 Hermann Hamm 830 310 h 1
6th Smallest bell 1959 Hermann Hamm 722 230 d 2

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.siegfried-fricker.de
  2. ↑ The artificial glasses
  3. ^ Volker Müller: Bells in Mannheim . 2007.

Web links

Commons : St. Joseph Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 28 ′ 24.6 ″  N , 8 ° 28 ′ 13.9 ″  E