St. Joseph (Ludwigshafen-Rheingönheim)

St. Joseph Church

The St. Joseph Church is a Catholic church in the Rheingönheim district of Ludwigshafen . It was built between 1914 and 1915 according to plans by Albert Boßlet .

history

Rheingönheim was first mentioned in 831 in the Golden Book of the Prüm Abbey. The church, consecrated to St. Sixtus, was first mentioned in 1204, when Rheingönheim was separated from the mother parish Altrip. In 1556 the Lords of Hirschhorn introduced the Reformation , with which the first Catholic parish died out. After Rheingönheim became part of the Electoral Palatinate , the local church was used simultaneously from 1699 . The Rheingönheim Catholics again received their own parish, the St. Gallus Parish. In 1793 French revolutionary troops occupied the Palatinate, which ended the history of the second parish. From 1821 onwards, the Catholics were looked after by the pastor of the St. Sebastian Church in Mundenheim . The Rheingönheim church continued to be used simultaneously until the Evangelicals paid out the Catholics in 1890. In the following year, a piece of land was bought and an emergency church was built by 1893, in which chaplains from Mundenheim held services.

In 1893 the St. Joseph Parish was established. In May 1914, construction of the St. Joseph Church began according to the plans of Albert Boßlet, in November of the same year the topping-out ceremony was celebrated and on December 6, 1915 the church was consecrated by the Speyer bishop Michael von Faulhaber . The church was damaged by the explosion of the Oppau nitrogen works in 1921. During the Second World War , the church vault collapsed after an air raid in 1944. The tower was destroyed shortly afterwards. The church was rebuilt by 1952; Albert Boßlet was again the lead architect. The interior renovation followed until 1955. In 1968, the St. Joseph Church was renovated outside and a tower clock was installed. In 1986 the interior was restored. Today the St. Joseph Congregation forms a parish community with the Maudacher St. Michael Congregation .

description

High altar
Mary Altar
Madonna portrait

Left the church, right the rectory

inner space

The St. Joseph Church is in the northwest of Rheingönheim. The staggered exterior is kept in the home style. Inside there is Art Nouveau with neo-Romanesque echoes. The three-aisled hall church is 18 meters wide and 44 meters long. The hood-topped facade flank tower is 34 meters high. The rectory, which is structurally connected to the church tower via an archway, is part of the ensemble of buildings. The Caroli Chapel is on the first floor of the tower. It reminds of Pastor Wilhelm Caroli, who was a pastor in Rheingönheim. He was persecuted by the National Socialists and died in the Dachau concentration camp . A plaque commemorates those who fell in the First World War . It was made from the altar stone that was in the former simultaneous church . The figures (Maria, Joseph and Cäcilia) and the knee benches come from the emergency church from 1893.

The nave is spanned by a barrel vault that is painted in a coffered manner. The sandstone high altar, influenced by Byzantine art , is the work of Jakob Stolz . The figures on the outer columns of the altar symbolize the four cardinal virtues . Symbols of the Trinity are attached to the triumphal arch . In the center of the altar is the tabernacle . The side altars are dedicated to Mary (left) and Joseph (right). The celebration altar and the ambo were created by Leopold Hafner in 1986 .

The side windows from 1954 depict the Ten Commandments . At the front, two windows show the patron saint of the church and that of the previous church, Joseph and Gallus. Like all other windows after the church was damaged, they were designed by Gustav van Treeck's Royal Bavarian Court Glass Painting . Only two original windows have survived. One in the Caroli Chapel, which shows the Archangel Michael, and one above the organ gallery, which shows an angel making music.

The organ was built by Klais in 1941 for St. Mary's Church . Since this church was taken over by the Greek Orthodox community in 2007 and the organ music does not play a role in their liturgy, the instrument was rebuilt and renewed in 2011 and moved to the St. Joseph Church. It replaced the Kämmerer organ from 1923.

Bells
year	kg	volume
1956	1,834	of the ^1st
1956	980	f ¹
1956	531	as ¹
1956	462	b ¹

The ringing consists of four bells from the Schilling foundry . The bells in terms of weight and size are as follows: "Christ the King" with 1834 kilos, "St. Michael "with 980 kilos," St. Maria "with 531 kilos and" St. Joseph and St. Gallus ”at 462 kilos.

literature

Friedrich Schmitt: Ludwigshafen church building . Ludwigshafen / Rhine 1985.
Hans Caspary (edit.), Georg Dehio (start.): Handbook of German art monuments : Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland . Munich 1984, ISBN 3-422-00382-7 .
City archive of the city of Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Stefan Mörz , Klaus Jürgen Becker (eds.): History of the city of Ludwigshafen am Rhein: Vol. 1. From the beginnings to the end of the First World War . Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2003, ISBN 3-924667-35-7 .