St. Laurentius (Wuppertal)

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View of the church from the south
View inside the church

The St. Laurentius Basilica in Elberfeld is the main Catholic church and the most important Catholic church in Wuppertal .

history

The St. Laurentius Church was the second Catholic church in Elberfeld after the Reformation , following a previous building on the tower courtyard . She took over the patronage of the Elberfeld city ​​patron , St. Laurentius , to whom the original city church, today's Old Reformed Church, was consecrated in the Middle Ages .

In 1828, on the initiative of Pastor Stephan Oberrhé, the community acquired the so-called Osterfeld west of the city and began planning the construction of a new church. On August 10, 1828 the foundation stone was laid by the Cologne auxiliary bishop Karl Adalbert Freiherr von Beyer . Due to major technical and financial difficulties, the construction time was delayed and the church was only officially opened on November 8, 1835. The church was consecrated on July 11, 1847 by Archbishop Johannes von Geissel .

From May 1845 to March 1849 Adolph Kolping was chaplain at the parish. A bone splinter of the social reformer is exhibited as a relic in a side altar, a plaque on the rectory commemorates him.

During the air raid on Elberfeld on the night of 24./25. June 1943, the church and its furnishings were destroyed by fire bombs. After the provisional reconstruction by the community, the reopening took place with the Christmas service in 1949. The final restoration dragged on until 1974.

From 2007 to 2009 the vault was renovated and the church was reopened on May 9, 2009 by Joachim Cardinal Meisner (Archbishop of Cologne) in a pontifical office.

In December 2013, the St. Laurentius Church was elevated to the papal minor basilica .

  • St. Laurentius by night

  • North-east view over the roofs

architecture

The church was built from 1828–1835 according to plans by the church builder Adolph von Vagedes in the Luisenviertel on Laurentiusplatz (then “Königsplatz”) in the classical style. The church was deliberately placed in this prominent place as an urban dominant feature and formed the visible center of the first (partially) planned city extensions of Elberfeld. Due to the urban development situation, a south-north orientation was chosen, deviating from the usual eastward orientation. The apse of the choir faces north, the entrance faces south towards the square (and orthogonally to Friedrich-Ebert-Straße). The appearance is completely geared towards the representation of the square: the slightly protruding entrance building with a deep, barrel-vaulted niche opens up between a wide, pointed-tower double tower facade. There, under a crescent-shaped window and an arrangement of columns, lies the portal.

The structure suffered some damage during World War II, but this was largely repaired until the 1970s when the spiers were reconstructed. As a result of the urban redevelopment of the Luisenviertel in the 1980s, the church and its square became a center of Elberfeld life again. In 1963 the parish church was restored by Heinz Bienefeld .

Pink sandstone was chosen as the material , it is adorned with white cornices. The towers only have windows on the bell floor. The rear parts of the church are kept simple-cubic. Arched windows illuminate the church space, which opens into a rectangular choir.

The representative appearance of the church building shows that the Catholic community of Elberfeld was able to appear on an equal footing in the formerly reformed city as early as the first half of the 19th century. The old reformed church was trumped in size, height and number of towers.

organ

Prospectus of the Seifert organ in St. Laurentius Wuppertal
Prospectus of the Seifert organ in St. Laurentius Wuppertal
Console of the organ of St. Laurentius, Wuppertal
Console of the organ of St. Laurentius, Wuppertal

The main organ of the Laurentiuskirche was built in 1964 by Romanus Seifert from Kevelaer . The instrument was one of the first after the Second World War that Seifert rebuilt with a slider drawer and mechanical action mechanism. Despite several modifications, the technology was not stable, so the organ was equipped with a new console and new action in 2003 .

When the organ had to be dismantled a few years later to rebuild the vault, the community took the opportunity and had the sound defects on the instrument remedied during the reconstruction. Today it has 35 sounding registers and an extension :

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
1. Hollow flute 8th'
2. Quintatos 8th'
3. Principal 4 ′
4th Transverse flute 4 ′
5. Principal 2 ′
6th Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Sesquialter II 0 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
8th. Scharff III
9. Cromorne 8th'
Tremulant
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
10. Drone 16 ′
11. Principal 08th'
12. Flute allemande 08th'
13. Viol 08th'
14th Octave 04 ′
15th Fifth 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
16. Super octave 02 ′
17th Mixture IV
18th Trompeta magna 08th'
19th Spanish trumpet 08th'
III Swell C – g 3
20th Reed flute 8th'
21st Viola da gamba 8th'
22nd Vox coelestis 8th'
23. Principal 4 ′
24. Flute 4 ′
25th Nasard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
26th Flautino 2 ′
27. Trompette harmonique 0 8th'
28. oboe 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
29 Principal bass 16 ′
30th Sub bass 16 ′
31. Octavbass 08th'
32. Drone bass 08th'
33. Choral bass 04 ′
34. Back set IV
35. trombone 16 ′
36. Trumpet 08th'
Extension No. 36

Bells

St. Laurentius has seven bronze bells in its west tower, which form the largest and deepest ring in Wuppertal. The bells hang on steel yokes in a steel bell cage:

number Surname Strike 1/16 Weight (kg) Casting year Caster
I. St. Laurence a ° -6 4,200 kg 1882 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher
II. St. Francis Xaverius c 1-4 2,400 kg 1959 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher
III. St. Peter d¹ +/- 0 1,600 kg 1903 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher
IV. St. Michael e¹ +/- 0 1,180 kg 1953 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher
V. St. Suitbertus f¹ +/- 0 1,050 kg 1953 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher
VI. St. Mary g¹ +/- 0 660 kg 1953 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher
VII. St. Paul a¹ +/- 0 430 kg 1959 Petit & Edelbrock in Gescher

Pastoral and pastoral care

St. Laurentius is the seat of the parish of St. Laurentius. In addition, St. Laurentius is a location of the Catholic City Church Wuppertal.

literature

  • Johannes HM Wahl: Catholic parish church St. Laurentius in Wuppertal-Elberfeld. Published by the Catholic Parish Office St. Laurentius Wuppertal, Wuppertal o. J.
  • Hermann-Peter Eberlein: Thousand Years of Church in Elberfeld. In: History in Wuppertal. 19. 2010, pp. 16-30.
  • Hermann-Josef Scheidgen : German Catholicism in the revolution of 1848/49: episcopate - clergy - lay people - associations. Böhlau, Cologne and Weimar 2008, pp. 411–421 in the Google book search (Chapter 4.2 “The Catholic Journeyman Association” with a detailed description of the Elberfeld situation and the work of A. Kolping).
  • Klaus Goebel , Andreas Knorr (Ed.): Churches and places of worship in Elberfeld. In: Church art in the Rhineland. Vol. 5. Düsseldorf 1999, pp. 19-29.
  • Klaus Pfeffer: The church buildings in Wuppertal-Elberfeld. In: Rheinische Kunststätten. 229. 1980, pp. 28-35.
  • Joachim Dorfmüller: 300 years of organ building in Wuppertal . Wuppertal 1980.
  • Georg Dehio , Ernst Gall : Handbook of German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia, I. Rhineland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1967. p. 648.
  • Wolfgang Zimmermann: Adolph von Vagedes and his church buildings . Cologne 1964.

Web links

Commons : St. Laurentius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the Wuppertaler Rundschau @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wuppertaler-rundschau.de

Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 24 ″  N , 7 ° 8 ′ 22 ″  E