St. Laurentius (Marmagen)
The Catholic parish church of St. Laurentius Marmagen is an essentially late-Gothic village church in Marmagen in the Eifel, which was redesigned between 1950 and 1960 by artists from the Cologne factory schools into a contemporary church space in the spirit of Karl Rahner's theology . It is the center of the Catholic parish of Marmagen, one of the old Eifel parishes that were mentioned as early as the 14th century, and today forms the community of the parishes of St. Hermann-Josef Steinfeld in the diocese of Aachen with several other parishes .
The church is a protected architectural monument .
Founding legend
According to legend, the St. Laurentius Church in Marmagen is said to have been donated by an unknown knight in gratitude for his salvation from the battle of Lechfeld in 955. The core of the legend is the tradition that after the victorious battle against Hungary Otto I founded the diocese of Merseburg on the basis of a vow and had it consecrated to St. Lawrence. Since the victory against the Hungarians fell on August 10th, the feast of St. Lawrence of Rome, a cult of Laurentius developed from this, the popularity of which led to the establishment of numerous patron saints of Lawrence.
Building history of the church
Today's St. Laurentius Church is of late Gothic origin. It is believed that it had a predecessor church. They even see bolder claims built on Roman foundations. The oldest part of the church is the choir with an old sacristy (today the baptistery).
Extension in 1896
The originally single-nave building with a west tower was extended in 1896 by side aisles according to plans by the Cologne architect Eduard Endler . The old nave was torn down so that only the choir , baptistery and west tower remained of the old building .
Extension 1923
In 1923 the church was extended by two bays by the same architect . The old west tower was demolished and replaced by a new tower. Marmagen workers carried out the renovation work as part of state emergency work . In the last year of the war, 1945, the church lost the spire in an artillery attack, which was replaced after the war.
Church inventory
The oldest inventory of the church is a lecture cross from the 13th century and the main altar ascribed to the 14th century. The old church bells date from the early 16th century and were cast by Gregorius von Trier. The oldest bell from 1505 with the tone g sharp 'bears the inscription: “Scts. Laurentius I call, I roar the Leven, I lament the Dodn, Gregorius von Trier gous me Anno Dni MCVCV. "The other bell with the tone f sharp 'comes from the year 1510. It bears the inscription:" Sca Maria ind Anna I call , In dyi eren Godz I invited, the Duvel I drive away, Gregorius von Trier gous me Anno Dni XVCX ”. A third bell from 1722 was melted down for war purposes in 1917.
Redesign of the church in 1955/56
The church underwent a fundamental, modern reorganization in the sense of the world theology of Karl Rahner and the Second Vatican Council in 1956/57 under the art-loving pastor Erich Froitzheim. He won over young artists from the Cologne Werkschule under the direction of the Cologne architecture professor Georg Maria Lünenborg for this task. In today's Marmagen church there are works by Theo Heiermann , Jochem Pechau , Klaus Balke and Titus Reinarz . The church windows were designed by the Cologne painter Hans Lünenborg by the glass painting company Oidtmann in Linnich . The organ with 17 registers is the work of organ builder Johannes Klais from Bonn.
- Contemporary works of art in the St. Laurentius Church in Marmagen
Laurentius portal by Theo Heiermann
Late Gothic high altar with altar cross by Klaus Balke
Organ with angels making music by Klaus Balke
Devil's window on the west wall by Titus Reinarz
History of the parish
The pastor of Marmagen is mentioned for the first time in Liber valoris 1308, a tax register of the Archbishop of Cologne, Heinrich II. Von Virneburg. This list also includes a pleban in Marmagen, which exercises pastoral care for the mostly absent pastor. However, this is not assessed, but assigned to the dean of the Eifel deanate in Münstereifel.
The estimate of the income of the pastor of Marmagen given in the Liber valoris can no longer be deciphered. But it can prove that it was already a real parish church . Around 1400 this benefice exists u. a. of 15 acres of land in Marmagen, where the right of presentation of the pastor is subject of Marmagen. It is owned by the Dukes of Jülich-Berg, who are inherited from the Marmagen prebende .
Patronage Mirbach 1402–1672
The oldest known feudal deed dates back to 1402. With her, a woman, Adelheid von Berg, becomes the owner of the Marmagen parish. Johann von Bergh is the first known pastor of Marmagen. In 1369 he appeared as a co-sealer on a lapel of the Lords of Schönforst . In 1432 the pastor Goswin von Berghe exchanged his pastor in Marmagen with Tillmann von Euskirchen for his position in Berg before Nideggen . This means that the Marmagen parish comes to the Lords of Mirbach , who reside as Jülische officials in Münstereifel . Until the late 18th century they were enfeoffed by the Duke of Jülich with this prebend. Pastor Johannes Remelinckhausen , who in 1513, as dean, collected and rewrote the statutes of the Eifel dean's office , gained particular importance .
Only two pastors of Marmagen are known from the Mirbach house itself: the canon of the Prüm monastery , Wilhelm von Mirbach (1571) and his nephew Adam von Mirbach (1584). The people of Marmagen rebelled against him because he did not properly fulfill his pastor's duties.
On July 29, 1657 , two altars were consecrated in the church of Marmagen by order of the Archbishop of Cologne by his suffragan , Georg Paul Straffius, the main altar to the church patron St. Laurentius, another to the Holy Apostle Peter.
Patronage Steinfeld 1662–1801
In the 16th century, Steinfeld Abbey began to have its own priests take care of the divine service in St. Laurentius in place of the actual pastors who were absent, and this was also secured by contract with the pastor. In 1662 the abbot acquired the right of presentation for the pastor of Marmagen through a pawn loan agreement with Werner Freiherr von Pützfeld zu Pützfeld . Pützfeld was the guardian of an underage Mirbach heir. As such, he pledged the Marmagen church gift in his possession, together with the Mirbacher Hof in Nettersheim / Eifel, to the Steinfeld abbot for 2,700 Reichstaler . Since the right to present the priest in Marmagen was attached to the 15 acres of land in Marmagen, this was now transferred to the Steinfeld Abbey. The abbot could now appoint the pastor of Marmagen and transfer the income from the church to the monastery. This led to an almost hundred-year-old trial between the Lords of Mirbach and the Abbot of Steinfeld before the Imperial Court of Justice, as the Duke of Jülich continued to give the Marmagen prebend to Mirbach heirs.
The importance of the parish of Marmagen can be seen from the fact that high-ranking officials of the Steinfeld convent - mostly priors or cellars - were appointed as pastors.
The pastors of Marmagen 14. – 20. Century
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14th - 16th century
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17.-18. century
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19th - 20th century
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secularization
After the French occupation of the Rhineland in 1794, Steinfeld Abbey was dissolved in 1802 and the monastery property was sold. The Marmagen church fell into state hands as a former departmental property. The church assets were administered by the cantonal office in Blankenheim and the Marmagen church was closed.
The awakening from a church-dominated way of life in a strictly secularized political foreign rule, in which crosses become “cult symbols”, church services become “cult events” and church bells can only be rung for fire warning purposes, represented an existential turning point for the rural, purely Catholic population of Marmagen If before the observance of the church commandments was sanctioned by the sending courts of the archbishop, now any public practice of religion was made a punishable offense. Priests fled or were imprisoned. In Marmagen, as in other places in the Eifel, a religious subculture arose with secret services in barns and private houses.
Only after the Concordat between Napoleon and the Pope of 1802, which regulated the borders of the bishoprics in the French territory, did the situation improve. Marmagen came to the diocese of Trier because the Roman curia established the new dioceses in the departmental boundaries. The canton administration in Blankenheim then allowed the parish church to be used for worship purposes again, but the Marmagen priest, Godefridus Classens, was only allowed to take action after he had taken an oath on the new French constitution. In June 1812, due to a council resolution of the prefecture in Trier, a church administration was set up in Marmagen, which was allowed to draw up an independent church bill and was liable to tax against the mayor's office of Marmagen.
swell
- Parish archive Marmagen, Mockel inventory, church newspaper for Marmagen 1927
- City Archives Mönchengladbach, estate of Hans Lünenborg
- Erich Froitzheim: Marmagen (= Small Art Guide, 1478). Munich 1984.
- Manfred Gehrke: Conventual directory of the Premonstratensian Abbey Steinfeld 1541 - 1795. Steinfeld / Kall 2001.
- Ernst Wackenroder : The art monuments of the Schleiden district (= Paul Clemen [Hrsg]: The art monuments of the Rhine Province , Volume 11, Section II). Published by L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1932.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Monument No. 152 in the list of monuments of the municipality of Nettersheim.
- ↑ Main State Archives Düsseldorf, Herrschaft Schönforst, Certificate No. 30
- ^ Joester, Ingrid: Aachen citizen sons as Steinfeld canons . In: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein , vol. 88/89, p. 117 f.
- ^ Liège City Archives, Fonds Francais No. 474
- ↑ cf. Johannes Becker: History of the parishes of the deanery Blankenheim. Cologne 1893, p. 49.
- ^ Walter Hanf: Church in distress. The French period 1794-1814 . In: District Euskirchen (ed.): Yearbook of the District Euskirchen 2009 . Euskirchen 2008, p. 23 ff.
- ^ Parish archive Marmagen, holdings of the mayor's office in Marmagen, document dated June 16, 1812
Coordinates: 50 ° 28 ′ 36.1 ″ N , 6 ° 34 ′ 50.2 ″ E