St. Matthias (Neuwied)
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The parish church of St. Matthias in the inner city of Neuwied in Rhineland-Palatinate was built in late Gothic form in 1901 according to a design by the Cologne architect Heinrich Krings and is now a listed building . The Catholic Church belongs to the dean's office Rhein-Wied in the diocese of Trier .
history
For the development of the city of Neuwied, founded in 1653, was that of Count Friedrich III. zu Wied in 1662 issued a liberal city law of importance, which allowed followers of all denominations to settle in the city of the Protestant counts. The first church was the Lutheran church on Neuwied Marktplatz , built in 1684 .
The Catholics were a minority at that time, and they held their services in neighboring Irlich , which was under Electoral Trier sovereignty and was Catholic. In 1682, Count zu Wied gave the Catholics permission to build a church and school at their own expense as soon as they had 130 citizens and 65 houses in the city. In 1701 they began building their first church on a plot of land outside of the then built-up town (today Upper Marktstrasse), a simple church with a gable roof and three pointed arched windows on each side.
In 1843 the desire to build a new church arose. At that time, 2300 Catholics lived in Neuwied, the city had a total of around 7000 inhabitants. The first plans could not be realized for financial reasons, instead the old church was enlarged to double its length in 1852 after a fundraising process. A plot of land was acquired on Heddesdorfer Strasse in 1888 for a new building, and in 1897 an architectural competition was announced . The new church should have enough space for 2500 believers. The competition was won by the Cologne government master builder Heinrich Krings, who was commissioned with the execution.
The foundation stone for the new church was laid on November 5, 1898. The old church was torn down due to increasing dilapidation and the new parish church of St. Matthias was prematurely blessed on September 15, 1901. The consecration was carried out on April 24, 1904 by Trier's auxiliary bishop Karl Ernst Schrod .
During the Second World War , the Matthias Church suffered major damage in air raids on Neuwied in September 1944 and subsequent bombardment and artillery fire, which led to the extensive loss of the tracery and windows, as well as damage to the interior of the building, the spire and the roof.
The church was renovated in the 1950s. A second comprehensive restoration and redesign of the church interior between 1977 and 1979 was characterized by a re-historicization.
Construction and equipment
Building description
The parish church of St. Matthias in Neuwied is a three-aisled hall church that takes up late Gothic shapes with short, polygonal transept arms and a basilically designed choir.
The exterior building made of tuff stone and sandstone , which is perceived as picturesque in the sense of late historicism , is dominated by a 68 meter high bell tower, which is a cornerstone at the adjacent street intersection. The reddish corner blocks contrast with the light tuff stone of the masonry. The cornice gives the tower a horizontal structure. The tower delimits the asymmetrical main facade facing Heddesdorfer Strasse on its left. The right boundary of the facade is formed by a round stair tower. The entrance is designed in the form of a three-axis portal system with arbor . Above the central arcade there is a walled-in rose window , and above it stands the statue of the apostle and church patron Matthias, which was restored in 2008, in a niche in the outer wall. In addition, numerous details adorn the building, which is characterized overall by its asymmetry and differentiation.
Inside, St. Matthias is a three-aisled, slightly staggered hall church 57 m long and 23 m wide. The vault over the central nave is 19.50 m high. The wall structure is two-story. The economical neo-Gothic painting was recreated in 1979 by the restorer Gisela Heinrich-Schreyögg .
Furnishing
- The choir houses the most important piece of equipment, the neo-Gothic high altar. This altar, the two side altars and the wooden pulpit were made in 1903.
- The Altar retabel the main altar stands on a dark by six columns with bright and bases sheet capitals articulated cafeteria that in the middle of the figure shows the pelican its young with its own breast meat feeds (symbol of the sacrifice of Christ). On the wooden predella , the four church fathers Ambrosius, Hieronymus, Augustine and Gregory appear as half-figures from left to right.
- The simpler side altars of the side chapels are consecrated to Maria (north side) and Joseph (south side).
- The carved neo-Gothic pulpit had a high sound cover and a basket with images of the four evangelists.
- A wooden Madonna on the crescent moon from the old parish church dates from the first half of the 18th century and was restored by the Cologne painter Johann Hansen.
literature
- Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-422-00382-7 .
- Sabine Heuser-Hauck: The architect Heinrich Krings (1857-1925). Dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2005.
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 25 ′ 52 ″ N , 7 ° 27 ′ 50 ″ E