St. Katharina (Wenau)

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Parish Church of St. Catherine
Look at the choir
Longhouse from the side rail

St. Katharina is the Roman Catholic parish church of the Wenau part of the municipality located in the Düren district and belonging to Langerwehe . The church dates from the 12th century and today serves both religious and social purposes.

history

Cloister courtyard

Today's parish church was founded in 1122 as a Premonstratensian monastery and followed the rules of Norbert von Xanten . It was made by Count Walram III. Paganus donated by Limburg . The mother abbey was the Abbey in Floreffe near the Belgian Namur , to which the monastery was under. In addition, the Lords of Limburg offered protection. Originally the monastery was founded as a double convent for men and women. This changed in 1340 when the male branch moved to the newly founded Kreuzbrüderkloster Schwarzenbroich .

In 1489 an extensive reform took place in the monastery, during which numerous regulations were renewed. During the Third War of the Geldr Succession , the monastery was sacked in 1542 by the troops of Emperor Charles V. During a fire on May 19, 1561, as well as numerous looting in the following years, most of the buildings were destroyed. The monastery became impoverished and could only be saved from destruction by exchanging goods. Only in the 15th / 16th In the 17th century the choir of the church with its ribbed vault was rebuilt.

Looting troops from Louis XIV of France destroyed the monastery building in 1642. It was only rebuilt in 1678. In the 18th century it received its baroque interior. The monastery was damaged during the earthquake in Lisbon on November 1st, 1755.

French troops confiscated both the Wenau monastery and the Schwarzenbroich monastery in 1794, and a year later, on March 21, 1795, France took over the administration of all the countries on the left bank of the Rhine.

In 1802 the Wenau monastery was dissolved. This is the end of a 680-year monastery history.

In 1804 the parish “St. Katharina ”, whereby the monastery church and large parts of the monastery buildings were used for charitable and church purposes as well as a village school .

During the Second World War , the buildings of the former monastery were damaged.

In 1956, apart from the cloister and a few outbuildings, the former monastery complex was restored. In 1969 St. Catherine received new bells, which were consecrated to Saint Catherine, Saint Pankratius and Saint Norbertus as well as Saint Donatus . In 1980 the east wing of the cloister was restored, followed by the restoration of the Pankratius altar in 1999.

The parish church is Wenau station in Santiago de Compostela ending Camino de Santiago .

Art treasures

One of the remarkable art treasures of the church is the wooden crucifixion group from the years 1250/1260. It shows Christ crucified in the middle, surrounded by Mary on the left and John on the right. This was originally attached to the north side of the tower, but was placed in the triumphal arch of the church in 1953/54 .

This crucifixion group is the oldest completely preserved example from the 13th century in the Meuse area.

The high altar of the church comes from plans by the Aachen baroque master builder Johann Joseph Couven . This also applies to the gallery parapet created in 1740, the organ case from 1746 and the pulpit from 1766. Only the tabernacle attachment on the altar table of the high altar is preserved after the column prospect was removed in 1860.

The numerous old grave slabs in the church are striking. These were attached to the pillars of the church and commemorate important priests and sisters from the history of the monastery. In addition, there are a large number of tombstone slabs in the crypt adjacent to the nave .

15th century wall painting

During renovation work in 1992, two wall painting fragments from the beginning of the 15th century were discovered on the south wall of the church . The painting found below the organ gallery shows the Passion of Christ . Both had been badly damaged by earlier restoration attempts. After their restoration, they were installed in the anteroom of the church.

The head relic of St. Pancras belongs to the other church treasures . This was by Heinrich III. brought from Limburg in 1198 from Rome. A tower monstrance from 1549 and a measuring chalice from the 16th century are still in use.

Bells

In the years 1897 and 1928, the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen supplied three bronze bells each for St. Katharina. Probably all six bells fell victim to the bell annihilations of the two world wars of the past century. Unless, in addition to the four bells from the bell founder Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock from 1969 (tones: h '- cis'' - dis' '- fis''), which are hanging in the church tower today, the fifth bells, one Otto bell from 1897 is, in any case, the bell book of the diocese of Aachen in the section "bell history" of St. Katharina church names an Otto bell that was not melted down due to the war. The year "1470" assigned to it can of course not be correct, because Otto bells only existed from 1874 onwards.

Web links

Commons : St. Katharina (Wenau)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Heinrich Candels: The Premonstratensian Foundation Wenau , 3rd edition, Mönchengladbach 2004.
  • Festschrift Wenau. 200 years of the parish of St. Katharina, Wenau 2004.
  • Wolfgang Schaffer: Langerwehe-Wenau, Wenau Monastery , in: Klosterführer Rheinland , Cologne 2003, pp. 346–349.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto Glocken - family and company history of the bell foundry dynasty Otto . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, here in particular pp. 509, 531 .
  2. Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, here in particular pp. 475, 492 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).

Coordinates: 50 ° 47 '23.9 "  N , 6 ° 20' 10.6"  E