St. Maria Hilf (Wuppertal)
St. Maria Hilf is the Roman Catholic church in the Wuppertal district of Dönberg and part of the Elberfeld parish of the Heart of Jesus .
history
The few farmers of today's Dönberg, which consists only of individual farmsteads, were looked after by the Franciscans of the Neviges monastery until the Reformation . The next church, the St. Antonius chapel in Tönisheide , was lost to the Franciscans during the Reformation, and the St. John Evangelist church in Neviges and the St. Trinity chapel in Windrath were no longer available to the Dönberg Catholics; also only a few farmers from Dönberg remained Catholic after the Reformation.
Due to a personal vow, Rudolph Freiherr von Wendt and Holtfeld decided in 1855 to build a chapel in the diaspora in order to restore the original condition. In June 1855 he wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, Johannes von Geissel , asking for permission to build a chapel. He enclosed the first building plans with the letter. In addition to the Virgin Mary , the new church was also to be dedicated to Saints Rudolf von Bern and Clothilde von Burgund , the namesake Rudolph von Wendts and his wife Clothilde Constantine, née from Marchant d'Ansembourg. As a founder, he alone wanted to bear the costs. However, it is not known how Cardinal von Geissel reacted to the letter and why the plans were not carried out.
After Wendt's death in 1863, von Wendt's widow felt committed to the plans of her deceased husband and first considered the Dönberg as the location for the new chapel. In addition to the distance to Neviges, the great distance to the next parish of Sankt Laurentius in Elberfeld spoke in favor of this location . In a letter from the Neviges vicar Father Franziskus Strick in 1863 to the pension master of Wendt's widow, the parish of Neviges committed itself to pastoral care for the possible construction of a chapel on the Dönberg. A Barmer then offered a plot of land next to the Evangelical Cemetery in Dönberg for the construction of the chapel, which, however, was not bought out of consideration for the Protestant community. Instead, Freifrau von Wendt bought a plot of land on the edge of the developing town center of Dönberg for 350 Taler. Friar Paschalis Gratze designed a neo-Romanesque chapel building with 250 to 300 seats, the estimated construction costs of which were approved by the diocese of 5000 thalers. On August 8, 1865 the foundation stone was laid for the new chapel, which was completed exactly one year later in the presence of the founder's widow.
The new chapel was initially unused until 1870. The reason for this were ongoing disputes between the widow von Wendt and the Neviges monastery, which was of the opinion that the founder's widow would also have to bear the ongoing maintenance costs of the chapel, since no large financial contribution was to be expected from the poor population of Dönberg. On the occasion of the visit of Bishop Paulus Melchers on October 4, 1869, the still unused chapel was festively decorated by the people of Dönberg. The bishop then promised the Franciscans that the archbishopric would assume all of the maintenance costs and, because of the winter, set the benediction of the chapel for May 16, 1870. Two processional parades arrived at the chapel for the celebration, one from Elberfeld and a second from Neviges.
Despite the material shortage in the Second World War and the lack of manpower, Father Antonius Lohagen, Dönberg's parish rector since 1940, completed extensive renovation work on the chapel in 1942, including the construction of a new vault and the consecration of two new bronze bells. For unexplained reasons, these were spared from being melted down, and at the end of the war there was no damage whatsoever to the chapel. In 1973, the poor structural condition of the chapel became clear, and a commissioned building surveyor estimated renovation costs in the six-figure range. The new building of a church on a church property on Höhenstraße was checked, but rejected due to the dangerous traffic situation for the children attending the weekly school service. The newly founded church building association still had too little money until 1975 for the ninth new building plan, so that the old chapel was saved from collapse with great difficulty. With the sale of a wooded property opposite the church to the city of Wuppertal, enough money was finally raised, and the community celebrated the last Holy Mass in the old chapel on July 11, 1982 . At the invitation of the presbytery, people turned to the Evangelical Church for services.
The foundation stone for the new church was laid on April 17, 1983. A time capsule was embedded in the foundation stone and sealed with the foundation stone of the old chapel. The consecration of the new church was carried out on May 27, 1985 by Auxiliary Bishop Klaus Dick , for which the church choir and the parish orchestra performed the Missa brevis by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart .
Building description
The church is a simple hall church in the style of modernism . At the south end of the 30-meter-long nave facing northeast is the neo-Romanesque entrance portal of the old chapel, which was preserved when it was demolished and was architecturally integrated into the new church. In the middle of the nave there is an 18-meter-wide transept, which, like the main nave, is divided by several narrow and dark-framed windows. The church does not have a steeple, the bells are located in a small, open-walled bell cage above the neo-Romanesque main portal, the design of which corresponds to a bell gable . With the exception of the neo-Romanesque portal, the church is completely plastered in white and is particularly modern in contrast to the dark windows and the dark roof tiles.
In the interior, apart from the windows, the church is completely different from the exterior. When the church was rebuilt, the wooden organ loft was stored and placed in the new church. The church stalls were preserved, as was the art nouveau altar furnishings .
organ
In the old chapel there was a pneumatic organ rebuilt in 1910 by the Johannes Klais Orgelbau company from Bonn with the opus number 228. The 4 'principal was added at an unknown time. During the renovation of the church, a decision was made against keeping the instrument, which was demolished with the church, due to the high renovation costs.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P, super and sub-octave coupling
- Playing aids : two fixed combinations (mezzoforte and tutti)
On Sunday, September 21, 1986 a new organ from the Kreienbrink company from Osnabrück was consecrated. The former Cologne Cathedral organist Josef Zimmermann played .
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
literature
- Gregor Avesing, Josef Kottsieper: St. Maria Hilf Dönberg - From the rectorate to the parish. Wuppertal 1991.
- Rolf Müller: Dönberg - A parish on the edge: The Catholic parish. Wuppertal 1990, pp. 245ff.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Joachim Dorfmüller : 300 years of organ building in Wuppertal. St. Maria Hilf Dönberg, p. 132.
Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 45 ″ N , 7 ° 9 ′ 35 ″ E