St. Laurentius (Eppstein)

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St. Laurence
St. Laurence

St. Laurentius is the Catholic parish church of Eppstein . The church is consecrated to Saint Lawrence of Rome and is a listed cultural monument .

history

In 1299 the Counts of Eppstein built the St. George's Chapel in Eppstein. Eppstein was initially a branch of Bremthal. Four Eppsteiner counts ( Siegfried II. , Siegfried III. , Werner , Gerhard II. ) Became archbishops of Mainz.

In 1544 the Reformation was introduced in Eppstein and Catholic life ended. In 1581 Kurmainz became (co-) sovereign. In terms of the church, the few Catholics in Eppstein were now assigned to Fischbach. Around 1600 the Catholics received a prayer room in Eppstein Castle . With the increase in the Catholic population, this was expanded and converted into a castle chapel. The castle chapel is now the Eppsteiner Heimatmuseum. In 1728, a Catholic service was celebrated again for the first time in Eppstein in the castle chapel. At the end of the 18th century, about half of the population was Catholic. The castle chapel also served as a parish church when Bishop Peter Joseph Blum established the Catholic parish of Eppstein on September 20, 1848 . The main reason for the fact that a parish had only now been established was the poor material resources of the parish. The former parish had fallen to the Protestant church with the Reformation. The basis of the parish's financing was a foundation that Johann Ohlenschläger set up in 1827 for the benefit of a new parish. From 1852 the building at Pfarrgasse 1 (today Poststrasse 1) served as a parsonage. In 1899 the current rectory was occupied. This is also a listed building.

On November 1, 1855, Vockenhausen was repared from Bremthal . In 1957 the parish had 1900 believers.

Today St. Laurentius is the parish church of the Catholic parish of St. Laurentius, St. Margareta, St. Jakobus and St. Michel, Eppstein. The churches belong to this:

The church

At the end of the 19th century, the castle chapel was much too small for the grown Catholic community. In 1900 there were 467 Catholics in Eppstein. Josef Fassel, who had been the parish administrator since 1899 and pastor of the community since 1900, therefore pushed ahead with the construction of a new church. The construction was made possible by wealthy donors, including his aunt Anna Fassel.

In 1902 the foundation stone of the church was laid. On August 10, 1903, it was consecrated to St. Lawrence. The building, built according to designs by the Wiesbaden master builder Josef Dormann , is a neo-Gothic three-aisled basilica with a transept, a slim west tower with a pointed helmet. The choir is set up at the five-eighth end. Inside there are low, ogival arcades over squat round pillars with profiled warrior pieces. The ceiling forms a ribbed vault over services that end halfway up the wall. There is a sacristy annex to the south. Both outside and inside, plastered wall surfaces and structural elements in sandstone alternate.

Originally there were three neo-Gothic altars in the church. These were removed during a renovation in 1969. Eight of the thirteen painted wooden sculptures by the Frankfurt sculptor Josef Schnitzer were preserved and placed as individual figures in the choir and the aisle ends. The four saints in the choir are from the left St. George (from the old high altar; there is a George altar in the valley church), St. Antonius (from the old high altar; from around 1380 until the Reformation there was an Antonius chapel of the Königstein convent to the east of the old town ), St. Martin (from the old high altar; St. Martin is the patron of the Diocese of Mainz) and St. Laurentius (from the southern high altar). The group is supplemented by the tabernacle that the Eppstein architect Hans Jakob Sauer created in 1969. In 1969 coats of arms were attached to the pillars of the central nave, symbolizing the history of Eppstein.

A number of painted neo-Gothic windows date from the construction period and were made in the Mainz workshop of Benhard Kraus. A baroque sculpture of St. Anthony of Padua was taken from the old castle chapel. This came to Eppstein in 1813 from the property of the abolished Capuchin monastery in Königstein .

The organ from comes from Wilhelm Sauer (Frankfurt / Oder) and was built in 1890 for the Friedenskirche in Mannheim. In 1903 she was brought to Eppstein. The housing has been renewed. In 1990 it was restored to its original state with a pneumatic action and 10 stops.

All previous bells were drafted and melted down during the world wars. Today the church has four bells. These were made in 1958 by the Rincker bell and art foundry and have the tones f ', b', c '' and d ''.

Outside the church

Outside the church, west of the tower, is the grave of the Eppstein pastor Karl Haas († 1863). It was moved here from the old cemetery on Burgstrasse.

Pastor

  • Matthias Kloft (1848–1861)
  • Karl Haas (1861–1863)
  • Wilhelm Haas (1864-1886)
  • Heinrich Kloos (1887–1899)
  • Josef Fassels (1900-1918)
  • Heinrich Fischer (1918–1925)
  • Johann Gottschalk (1925–1955)
  • Richard Stegmiller (1955–)
  • Gaspar Minja (today)

literature

  • Berthold Picard: History in Eppstein: a guide through the districts of Bremthal, Ehlhalten, Eppstein, Niederjosbach and Vockenhausen. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-7829-0442-7 , pp. 47-51.
  • Handbook of the Diocese of Limburg, as of January 1, 1958, p. 186.

Web links

Commons : St. Laurentius (Eppstein)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 8 ′ 22.5 ″  N , 8 ° 23 ′ 26.8 ″  E