St. Maria Goretti (Meinersen)
The Sankt Maria Goretti Church was the Catholic church in Meinersen , a municipality in the west of the Gifhorn district in Lower Saxony . The church, which last belonged to the Gifhorn parish of St. Altfrid, was the westernmost church in the dean's office in Wolfsburg-Helmstedt and the first church in the dean's office to be profaned. In the Diocese of Hildesheim it was the last church named after Saint Maria Goretti . Today, St. Bernward in Gifhorn and St. Matthias in Uetze are the closest Catholic churches, each around 13 kilometers away.
history
In the 16th century the population in the Meinersen area became Evangelical-Lutheran through the introduction of the Reformation .
As a result of the Second World War , Catholics settled again in the Meinersen area; they were refugees and displaced persons from the eastern regions of the German Reich . Initially, Catholic services were held in Meinersen in a hall or in the Protestant St. George Church.
In 1959 the district court in Meinersen was dissolved; his building (Hauptstrasse 2b) was acquired by the Gifhorn district. From April 1960 it was rented by the Catholic Church, which set up the St. Maria Goretti Chapel in it . The chapel was installed in 1960 by the architect Hans Hübscher from Wolfsburg ; large parts of the inventory were donations from the Netherlands . On November 6, 1960, the chapel was consecrated by Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen . Today the building is used for residential purposes.
Since the lease for the chapel expired and the building had become dilapidated, the church was built instead. In 1972 the building site at Lindenstrasse 1a was acquired and in 1976 construction of the church began. The foundation stone was laid on September 24, 1977 by Dean Martin Verdiesen and already on December 17 of the same year by Auxiliary Bishop Heinrich Machens .
The chapel, later a church, initially belonged to the parish of St. Bernward in Gifhorn, from August 1, 2004 with St. Bernward to St. Altfrid in Gifhorn. Since November 1, 2006, the church has belonged to the then newly founded Dean's Office in Wolfsburg-Helmstedt; previously she was part of the Wolfsburg dean's office. Due to declining financial resources, but also the decreasing number of priests and church members, all churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim were classified according to their future needs. At that time, the St. Maria Goretti Church was seen as "not absolutely necessary for pastoral development" and was scheduled to be closed. At the beginning of 2014, the Hildesheim diocese decided to close this church. It was profaned on September 24, 2014 by Vicar General Werner Schreer . The church was sold and demolished in 2015; In the same year, three houses were built on their property.
Architecture and equipment
The church, which is about 52 meters above sea level , was built by the diocesan building department using prefabricated construction and had around 140 seats. In the free-standing, cross-crowned bell tower there was a bell from 1979. The tabernacle was placed in the center of the back wall of the chancel; There was a crucifix above the altar . Next to the chancel there was a representation of Mary, in front of which sacrificial candles could be lit. The Way of the Cross , made of clay and comprising 15 stations, was built in the 1990s. On the east side of the church were the baptismal font , a statue of St. Maria Goretti, an organ and a confessional room . Nikolaus Bette designed the windows ; the execution took place through the glass painting Peters . The window on the north side showed the descent of the Holy Spirit . The parish rooms were located to the south of the church and separated from it by folding doors .
organ
The pipe organ was made around the 1960s by the organ building company Emanuel Kemper for the Essen Music School . The slider chests -instrument with mechanical tracker action had five registers , relying on a manual and pedal distributed. In 1981 the organ was converted by Günter Graun from Burgdorf, from whom the parish in Meinersen also purchased the organ.
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See also
literature
- Horst Berner: 850 Years of Meinersen, 1154–2004, The Chronicle. Meinersen 2004, ISBN 3-934653-02-2 , pp. 92, 100-101
- Gifhorner Rundschau , November 5, 1960 (for the inauguration of the chapel)
Web links
- Internet presence of the parish
- Profanation on the diocese's website
- Profanation on the website of the dean's office
- Profanation on the Gifhorner Rundblick website
Individual evidence
- ^ Diocese of Hildesheim (ed.): Classification of the parish churches and branch churches in the Diocese of Hildesheim. Hildesheim 2009.
- ↑ Aller-Zeitung No. 158/2014, July 10, 2014, p. 22
- ↑ KirchenZeitung No. 38/2014, September 21, 2014, p. 1
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 30.5 ″ N , 10 ° 21 ′ 15.4 ″ E