St. Kilian (Lechenich)
St. Kilian is a Catholic parish church in Lechenich , a district of Erftstadt in the Rhein-Erft district . The church stands in the center of the medieval town, which hasbeen preserved in its ground plan,in the immediate vicinity of the market square. The first church at this point is documented in 1271, when the Archbishop of Cologne Engelbert II von Falkenburg confirmed to the St. Aposteln Abbeyin Cologne all rights to the new church, as the monastery had had in the old church.
history
The late medieval church
In 1254 Archbishop Konrad incorporated the parish church in Lechenich into the monastery of St. Apostles. This began the development of today's church as a successor to a parish church that was formerly west of the city walls . This had been abandoned before the city was fortified and was replaced by a small single-nave church with a rectangular choir in front .
The church was consecrated to St. Kilian in 1485 and has been named after him ever since. The patron saint of the church was the St. Aposteln monastery, which also owned large estates and tithe rights outside the city and far into the surrounding area.
According to a visitation protocol dated August 3, 1662, the side altars of the church were consecrated to the patrons of the brotherhoods. The Marien Altar was mentioned as early as 1356. A side altar was dedicated to St. Agatha , the protector from the danger of fire, and another to Anthony the Great.
St. Kilian in the early modern period
Wars and Sieges
The repeated sieges of the city by enemy troops (1583 Truchsessian War , 1642 Thirty Years War and 1673 Dutch War ) also affected St. Kilian. Although in 1642 the walls of the church had large holes due to the bombardment of the besiegers, which the enemies used as loopholes after they had penetrated the church, the damage could soon be repaired after the besiegers withdrew. The church got away with all armed conflicts without major injuries . This is also confirmed by city representations such as the Merians from 1646, they show the church in “Lechnich” during the siege of 1642 and a few years later in an intact condition. At that time the building had a single nave and was terminated on the south side with a slightly lower choir. On its west side stood a tower with a towering pointed helmet .
City fires and new buildings
The city fire of 1702 had serious effects. The church had suffered great fire damage and had to be rebuilt. The start of construction was delayed because the parties who had previously been responsible for building maintenance quarreled. According to the synodal statutes, the pastor was responsible for the maintenance of the choir, the owner of the big tithe for the maintenance of the nave, and the congregation for the tower as well as for the churchyard wall and ossuary. The St. Aposteln Abbey was not responsible for a new building. The community was the first of the parties to fulfill its obligation and began in 1706 with the construction of a new tower, completed around 1717, in which fire extinguishers for fire fighting were now housed as a precaution. At the pressure of the electors, first Archbishop Joseph Clemens and later his successor Archbishop Clemens August , the monastery was ready for a completely new building. Another fire in 1722, which destroyed almost all the houses in the village, brought further delays. The monastery and the congregation agreed that the monastery would finance a new roof and the congregation would restore the baroque style church at its own expense. After another fire in 1744, a new building was imperative, which the St. Aposteln Abbey had built from 1746 to 1749. The consecration took place in 1750.
The baroque church
In keeping with the taste of the times, a baroque brick building with four bays and a choir and a tower facing the west was built. The four-storey tower with tail gables was crowned by a distinctive onion dome . The bell cage of the tower was given a new ring by the bells cast by " Martinus Legros " from Malmedy in 1744 . The top tower floors were divided into two sound windows on each side, framed by round arches . The middle section of the tower was provided with delicate blind arches , in keeping with the traditional design of the region .
The builders of the central nave , which was subsequently attached to the tower, followed this style . It also had high arched windows that were adapted to the height of the nave, which were divided by pilasters worked into the masonry . The components of the church structure erected by different builders are said not to have been coordinated with one another. The roof of the nave, built by St. Apostles, covered the lower sound windows of the tower. The city was therefore forced to raise the tower by one more storey. The new bell storey added to the tower at a later date also stood out from the style previously used. Windows and masonry were now with horizontal of stone decorated carved bands. Frames, fighters and wedge stones under the onion dome were now visible from afar.
Gothic transformation
Like the old town hall of the city, St. Kilian was also changed by the implementation of plans by the Cologne architect Ernst Friedrich Zwirner .
The church, consecrated in 1750 and completed in Baroque style, now received eye-catching, neo-Gothic accents through renovations carried out in 1864. According to the designs still worked out by master builder Zwirner, tracery in the Gothic style was installed in the arched windows of the nave . The outer pilasters were placed in front of stepped buttresses reaching to the upper cornice . The cornice continued on the transept, which was also built in 1888, and surrounded the polygonal- shaped choir with pointed arched windows and tracery .
These last extensions to St. Kilian, the addition of a transept and the newly built choir were the result of a collaboration between the Cologne architects Carl Rüdell and Richard Odenthal.
In the interior of the church, large groin vaults spanned the main nave, the girdle arches dividing it and resting on half-columns . The transept and the choir had a ribbed vault resting on consoles .
The interior of the church shows the move away from the baroque to the neo-Gothic style even more clearly and completes the external change of the building, also with regard to the existing furnishings. To replace the baroque altars that were removed in 1888 and are now in the St. Servatius Chapel in Heddinghovener , new altars in neo-Gothic style were purchased and installed.
Nave facing east
Choir vault
Organ loft
Tower entrance
St. Kilian in the following period
Of a total of four existing entrances, the entrance on the north-west side is used as the official church entrance. This leads to a modest vestibule built under the organ gallery, which serves as a windbreak, and then enters the nave. The gallery has a flat beamed ceiling supported by wooden support beams at the front and is embedded in the wall at the rear . The supporting beams with their struts and the balustrade of the gallery are decorated with beautiful carvings. They come from the neo-Gothic era . The baroque organ on the gallery has only survived to a reduced extent. The prospectus dates from the time the church was built. Behind it is a new work by Josef Weimbs Orgelbau with 27 registers , which integrates 16 registers from the previous organ from 1880. In the middle under the gallery there is a small chapel in the basement of the tower, which is open to the nave. Next to this there is a showcase on the right-hand side, which contains a third Anna herself . To the south of it, next to wall sculptures, a staircase of the two-storey outer spiral tower opens up , via which one reaches the gallery or the bell tower. On the southern wall of this first yoke is an apparently unused entrance.
glazing
pulpit
Side altar
confessional
The central nave has high arched windows on both sides with tracery, the colored glazing of which shows various biblical motifs. The year 1902 was incorporated into the lowest section of the glass work. On the two side corridors running below the window there are two confessionals on each side in the yoke sections, starting from the west . In the fourth yoke section of the south wall is the small staircase to the pulpit erected there .
A central aisle flanked by benches leads on a black and white tiled floor to the crossing, spanned by a beautiful vault, and the adjoining choir area. The side altars are located in the rather short side wings of the transept, and a baptismal font with rich carvings was also placed in the northern wing.
In the slightly raised choir area, the neo-Gothic main altar was demolished in 1961 due to wood damage after the Second World War , which the church had tolerably survived. However, the church was able to procure an adequate replacement from the parish of Lendersdorf and, after a necessary restoration, had it installed in the choir in 1982. The new altar, the side altars, the organ gallery, the baptismal font as well as the confessional stalls and the pulpit of the church show a uniform style.
Bells
In 1926 , the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen supplied two bronze bells for the existing bells by Martin Legos from 1744 (see above), but these were melted down during World War II. The ringing was completed in 1957 with three new Otto bells. The St Kilian Church today has a five-part chime with three Otto bells (1, 2, 5) and two Legros bells (3, 4). The bells ring out: d '- e' - g '- a' - c ''. They have the following diameters: 1412 mm, 1257 mm, 1083 mm, 965 mm, 792 mm. Their weights are: 1650 kg, 1150 kg, 800 kg, 600 kg, 300 kg. .
literature
- Frank Kretzschmar: Churches, monasteries and chapels in the Erftkreis , Erftkreis publication No. 94, Rheinland-Verlag 1983; P. 88f. ISBN 3-7927-0821-3
Individual evidence
- ↑ HAStK clerical department 16 sheet 15 no. 41
- ↑ HAStK inventory of St. Apostles document No. 48.
- ^ A b c Karl Stommel: History of the Electoral Cologne city of Lechenich. Association of History and Home Friends of the District of Euskirchen eV, Euskirchen 1960; P. 72.
- ^ Sarburg / Walram, Defense and Triumph of the fortress and city of Lechenich. Cologne 1643. Translated from Latin into German by Karl Weber 1978
- ↑ a b c Frank Kretzschmar, p. 88
- ^ AEK visitation protocols 1698
- ↑ HASTK levels at St. Apostles A 7H Chapter Protocols
- ↑ JJ Merlo: Legros, Martin . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 132.
- ^ Parish archives St. Kilian Lechenich I. Part, Department 4, Volume 1 (Church)
- ↑ Frank Kretzschmar, p. 89
- ↑ According to Glockenbuch Deanery Erftstadt in the Archdiocese of Cologne ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, here in particular pp. 466, 527, 554 .
- ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen 2019, p. 556, here in particular pp. 462, 484, 510 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 3.1 ″ N , 6 ° 45 ′ 59.3 ″ E
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