St. Mary's Birth (Birk)

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West side of the Church of St. Mary's Birth

The Roman Catholic parish church of St. Mary's Birth is a listed church building in Birk , a district of Lohmar in the Rhein-Sieg district . It is located on an elevated area surrounded by a wall on Birker Straße. A military cemetery was created on the site between the church and the wall . South of the church is the cemetery.

history

St. Mary's Birth from the East

The chapel in Birk, mentioned in 1398, is a branch church of the parish church of St. Johannes Beheading in Lohmar, was cared for by Minorites of the Seligenthal Monastery and the Minorites of the Siegburger Klause, who represented the pastor of Lohmar. According to the information in the visitation records from 1550, only Holy Mass was celebrated there, but already in 1629 she had baptismal rights and burial rights. After the elevation to the parish church under the title “St. Birth of Mary ”in 1840, in 1844 the places Hochhausen, Pohlhausen , Wahn and Straßen from the parish of St. Margareta in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid were assigned to the parish of Birk. Since January 1, 2010, the parish of St. Mary's Birth as well as the three other individual parishes of the former pastoral care area of ​​Lohmar no longer exist under canon law. All parishes in this pastoral care area became the large parish “St. Johannes “in Lohmar-Ort.

Building history

Interior towards the altar

The oldest building from the Romanesque period consisted of a central nave and a low north aisle as well as a four-story tower in front . Nothing is known about the end of the choir. Around 1260 the church was extended to the east by an elongated Gothic choir with a 5/8 end that towered over the nave. Later on, a side chapel was added to the north side of the choir as a St. Nicholas chapel, which was accessed from the interior of the church. During renovation work in 1801, the steep roof of the choir was removed and replaced by a lower roof, the western yoke of the choir was shortened and the St. Nicholas Chapel was demolished.

Building description

The old church tower had to be demolished for the new building from 1887/88 according to plans by the Franciscan brother Paschalis Gratze . A three - aisled neo - Gothic hall church with a new indented west tower was created, for which the old spire was still used. The choir with its narrow lancet windows was preserved. Inside, the walls are divided by three-quarter wall columns and service bundles. The services of the choir closure are interrupted by shaft rings . The ribs of the ribbed vault extending from the capitals in the choir head unite in the keystones . The capitals and keystones are decorated with foliage .

Furnishing

Of the preserved church treasures, the following are particularly noteworthy:

organ

The former organ of the Klais company from 1890 was demolished in 1960, but 7 registers were reused by the Klais company in the new building from 1965/1966 and now has the Opus 1322. It has 13 registers on two manuals and a pedal .

I main work C – f 3
Drone 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Slack 8th'
octave 4 ′
Night horn 2 ′
Mixture III-IV
Trumpet 8th'
II Positive C – f 3
Dumped 8th'
flute 4 ′
Small cornet III
Pedal C – f 1
Sub bass 16 ′
Open bass 8th'
Quintad 4 ′

Bells

During restoration work in 1987/88 the church tower received a new belfry . There are four bells hanging there . The two oldest, the Marienglocke striking tone f '(weight 710 kg) and the Mathias bell striking tone a' (weight 365 kg), were cast in 1888 in the bell foundry Claren in Sieglar . The Marienglocke was requisitioned in 1942, but returned in 1947. The two younger ones, the Christ-Königsglocke strike tone g '(weight 600 kg) and the Antoniusglocke strike tone c' '(weight 200 kg) were cast in 1955 in the Edelbrock bell foundry in Gescher . The motif of the bells is based on the Regina caeli .

Marian devotion

During the renovation in 1960, in the ribbed vault of the choir head under the keystone, an incompletely preserved representation of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus was found . The broken robes in the Rhenish zigzag style resulted in a date around 1260. The depiction indicates that the church was a place of devotion to Mary at that time . There is evidence of pilgrimages to Birk to worship the painful Mother of God since the 1490s. The 48 cm high late Gothic Vespers picture , created around 1490 , was said to have a miraculous effect. In 1503 the " Brotherhood of Our Lady " was founded, whose brotherhood book has been preserved. The pilgrimages were encouraged by the Minorites, but after the secularization they came to a standstill.

literature

  • Jakob Schlafke: Pilgrimage in the Archdiocese of Cologne . Cologne 1989. ISBN 3980236005
  • Peter Jurgilewitsch, Wolfgang Pütz-Liebenow: The history of the organ in Bonn and in the Rhein-Sieg district , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-416-80606-9 , pp. 374–378. [not yet evaluated for this article]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of works by Klais
  2. ↑ Heinrich Hennekeuser: The parish church of St. Mary's birth in Birk, Part I. In: Lohmarer Heimatblätter No. 15 (2001) pp 40-48..
  3. ↑ Heinrich Hennekeuser: The parish church of St. Mary's Birth in Birk, Part II. In: Lohmarer Heimatblätter No. 16 (2002) pp. 40–42.
  4. ↑ Heinrich Hennekeuser: The Bells of Birk. In: Lohmarer Heimatblätter Heft 5 (1992). Pp. 27-43.
  5. ↑ Heinrich Hennekeuser: Marian devotion. In: Birker Stories , anniversary book men's choir "Liederkranz" Birk 2008. pp. 73–75.
  6. ↑ Jakob Schlafke: Pilgrimage in the Archdiocese of Cologne. Cologne 1989. pp. 126-127.


Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′ 7 ″  N , 7 ° 16 ′ 35 ″  E