St. Joseph (Speyer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Church of St. Joseph from the southeast
West choir of St. Joseph from the parish garden, right the Protestant Memorial Church

The Sankt-Josephs-Kirche in Speyer is a Catholic church and the center of an entire complex of buildings belonging to the parish of St. Joseph. In the cathedral parish of Pax Christi, which encompasses the entire city area, it serves as a place for joint parish services, while the cathedral is the seat of the parish. The church in its extraordinary size and splendid furnishings was built as a reaction to the construction of the neighboring Evangelical Memorial Church of the Protestation .

history

Memorial Church and Joseph church from the old gate of
Interior view with a view of the high altar
View of the neo-Gothic pointed arch over the east side entrance with organ
View into the main nave to the south side altar

Immediately after the Protestants began collecting for the Memorial Church, a Catholic church building association was founded in 1887. When the Association for the Building of the Memorial Church acquired its building site on what was then the outskirts of the city, the Catholics tried to find a building site in the immediate vicinity. The original building site was opposite today's church, but was later exchanged. A large part of the site was made available by the St. Magdalena monastery . The original plan was for the church to be completed by the turn of the century; however, the start of construction had to be postponed again and again due to lack of money.

The laying of the foundation stone on June 9, 1912 in the presence of the then Bishop Michael von Faulhaber was seen by cathedral pastor Josef Schwind in his sermon as a “ celebration of the Catholic religion ” and as a “ confession to the old God ”.

As early as 1914, the church was consecrated to the patron saint of the Electoral Palatinate and the patron saint of workers, Saint Joseph . According to the Chronicle of Joseph's Church, it was understood as a “symbol of love for the Bavarian homeland and loyalty to the Bavarian royal family”. Due to the approaching war, the church was not completed. The entrance stairs were not built as planned with intermediate landings right up to the street, but only provisionally designed as steep stairs with concrete steps. Even after the war, the church was not completed. Therefore, you can still see the rectangular protruding stones in some places, especially above the windows next to the front entrance, which were originally supposed to be worked on. The east side of the church, where originally a building similar to the rectory on the west side, was to be built, also remained unfinished. The Aegidienhaus stands there today, partly on the remains of the church of the St. Aegidius monastery.

The Church of St. Joseph arose out of a situation of denominational rivalry. Today there are excellent ecumenical relations between the parish of St. Joseph and the Memorial Church, culminating in the fact that Catholics were allowed to celebrate their services in the Memorial Church during several months of renovation work on the Joseph Church.

architecture

Regarding the architectural styles of St. Joseph and the Memorial Church, it says: "Catholic diversity versus Protestant austerity". The Mainz cathedral master builder Ludwig Becker designed the plan with forms of Art Nouveau , Late Gothic , Baroque and Renaissance styles . The Josephskirche was supposed to be very different from the style of the Speyer Cathedral and the Memorial Church . The design of the two spire domes of St. Joseph's Church is based on that of the distinctive spire of the Heidelberg Church of the Holy Spirit . The church of St. Joseph is 56.70 m long and 34.20 m wide. The dimensions of the choir are 12.70 m long and 9.40 m wide. The lay room measures approx. 44 m in length. The side aisles are each 5.48 m wide, the lay room has an area of ​​900 m². The pair of towers is 90 meters high and thus only 2.5 meters lower than the tower of the Marienkirche in Kaiserslautern and 10 meters lower than the tower of the neighboring Speyer Memorial Church . The two smaller east towers are about 40 m high, the roof ridge height of the church is about 34 m. Together with the Gedächtniskirche and Kaiserdom , the Josephskirche dominates the skyline of Speyer am Rhein.

Furnishing

Statues of Adolph Kolping and a craftsman

organ

The organ of the Josephskirche (45 / III + Ped.) Placed above the main entrance in the east has around 4,000 pipes. It was built in 1990 by Heinz Wilbrand . The slider drawer instrument has 44 registers , a mechanical performance and an electrical register action. The disposition is as follows:

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
1. Wooden dacked 8th'
2. Quintad 8th'
3. Principal 4 ′
4th recorder 4 ′
5. Forest flute 2 ′
6th Sif flute 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Sesquialter II
8th. Scharff III-IV
9. Cromorne 8th'
Tremulant
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
10. Gedacktpommer 16 ′
11. Principal 8th'
12. Gamba 8th'
13. Covered 8th'
14th octave 4 ′
15th Reed flute 4 ′
16. Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
17th octave 2 ′
18th Cornett IV D.
19th Mixture IV-V
20th Trumpet 8th'
Tremulant
Bells
III Swell C – g 3
21st Wooden principal 8th'
22nd Reed flute 8th'
23. Salicional 8th'
24. Beat 8th'
25th octave 4 ′
26th Wooden flute 4 ′
27. Rohrnasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
28. Night horn 2 ′
29 third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
30th Beaked flute 1'
31. Mixture IV
32. Basson 16 ′
33. oboe 8th'
34. Clairon 4 ′
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
35. Principal 16 ′
36. Sub bass 16 ′
37. Fifth 10 2 ⁄ 3  ′
38. Octave bass 8th'
39. Covered bass 8th'
40. octave 4 ′
41. flute 4 ′
42. Back set IV 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
43. trombone 16 ′
44. Trumpet 8th'
  • Coupling : I / II, III / II, III / I, I / P, II / P, III / P
  • Playing aids : 128 typesetting combinations

In the organ gallery are statues of Adolph Kolping and a journeyman craftsman. These were donated by the Kolping Family Speyer.

window

The church windows were designed by Bernhard Kraus (Mainz) and executed by the court glass painting Franz Xaver Zettler in Munich. All windows were donated by private individuals or associations.

Bells

The St. Joseph Church has a beautiful four-part bell. It sounds in the striking sequence b ° -d′-f′-g ′ and was cast in 1960 by Friedrich Wilhelm Schilling; the big bell weighs 3,890 kg.

Building complex

The Josephskirche is the center of the parish of St. Joseph. To the north of the church is the Aegidienhaus , which houses a large parish hall, meeting rooms and a parish library.

The contact point for the parish office is located in the rectory to the south. The community's kindergarten and youth rooms are also located in the south on Gilgenstrasse.

To the west there is an assembly building for the Kolping Family , a parking lot, a small parish garden with a Kneipp facility for the Speyer Kneipp Club and the St. Martha nursing home.

St. Joseph parish

The parish of St. Joseph is part of the cathedral parish Pax Christi under the leadership of cathedral pastor Matthias Bender. Until 2015 St. Joseph was its own parish, which was headed by Pastor Hubert Ehrmantraut for over 37 years. In 2009 the parish of St. Joseph was merged with the parishes of St. Hedwig and St. Otto in Speyer-West to form a parish community.

literature

  • Clemens Jöckle (author), Renate J. Deckers-Matzko (illustration / photos): St. Joseph , Kleine Kunstführer series No. 2566, Schnell & Steiner Verlag, ISBN 3-7954-6514-1
  • Karl Alois Funk: Forty Years Parish St. Joseph , Speyer 1958, Verlag Kath. Pfarramt St. Joseph, 48 pages
  • Hubert Ehrmanntraut: Festschrift of the parish of St. Joseph Speyer - on the inauguration of the parish center "Aegidienhaus", Speyer April 27, 1980 , Verlag Kath. Pfarramt St. Joseph, 96 pages, Speyer 1980

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dompfarrer driving force . In: Internet version of the Speyerer Tagespost , June 8, 2002. Accessed July 31, 2012.
  2. ↑ Dimensions according to information provided by the parish with reference to the commemorative publication for the inauguration
  3. ↑ Information on the organ

Web links

Commons : Josephskirche Speyer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 58.7 "  N , 8 ° 25 ′ 45.2"  E