St. Menas (Koblenz)
The parish church of St. Menas is a Catholic church in Koblenz . The parish church, completed in 1833, is located on the slope above the Stolzenfels district . It bears the patronage of St. Menas , the only one north of the Alps .
history
A first chapel was built as “capella Sewardi” in Stolzenfels and was a branch of St. Kastor in Koblenz. It can be traced back to 1100 and gave the place its former name "Kapellen" (first called "Capella" in 1153). The chapel received the very unusual Menas patronage in 1328 when the chapel was owned by the Benedictine monastery on the Karthauser . In 1486 it was raised to a parish . The dilapidated chapel was demolished in 1819.
In place of the chapel, a new church was built between 1826 and 1833 according to plans by the Koblenz architect Johann Claudius von Lassaulx , which was consecrated on May 5, 1833. The paintings were made by Johann Adolf Lasinsky in 1844 , but were later painted over again. A sacristy was added to the choir in 1898 .
The Lahnstein painter M. Adler painted several pictures with biblical scenes in the round arches of the interior in 1907. From 1939 to 1948 Matthias Laros was pastor of St. Menas, who gained worldwide fame through leading the Una Sancta movement . Between 1966 and 1968 the church was renovated inside and out. A vestibule designed by Ferdinand Selgrad was added in front of the entrance. At the same time, the liturgical redesign was carried out according to the plans of the architect Rudolf Maria Birtel , the wall paintings of Adler were whitewashed and the church was equipped with a new altar, an altar wall and new benches. The pictures were exposed again in 1981 and the remains of the first painting by August Gustav Lasinsky ( tools of torture and angel heads) were discovered in the central arched niche behind the altar .
Construction and equipment
Outside
The parish church of St. Menas is a neo-Romanesque hall construction made of unplastered quarry stone masonry , which stands parallel to the slope and ends with a semicircular choir to the south. Above a high plinth , the building is structured by a rhythmic sequence of narrow and wide arched niches . A large arched window opens in each of the wide blind arcades . A round arch frieze made of light tuff closes the wall at the top. On the north side of the verschieferten gable roof , a rising bell roof skylights with high pointed helmet . At the front of the church is a sculpture of St. Sebastian and the entrance, which is framed by two building-high pilasters . It shoots upwards with a triangular gable , underneath a round window.
Around the church there is a cemetery with the oldest graves on the high retaining wall in the west. Here is a fragment of a grave monument (marked 1818) with an elaborate cast-iron cross, created in the Sayner hut . Another important tomb is the one for the Reichsbahn interlocking master Joseph Gieres († 1929) with a classical Lahn marble grave stele.
Inside
The flat-roofed hall inside is brightly plastered and repeats the wall structure of the exterior. The ceiling is painted with dark, of ornaments divided ornate bar in large fields. The two arcades to the left and right of the altar are decorated with paintings in the style of the Nazarenes in 1907 by the painter M. Adler. In the middle niche, remains of Lasinsky's first painting were uncovered in 1981. In each of the two apse windows there is a late Gothic glass window with depictions of John the Baptist and the Crucifixion , donated by Lassaulx and his wife.
The church has been equipped since 1955 with an expressive crucifix from the middle of the 15th century with a colored wooden sculpture of the dying Christ. The walnut crucifix used to stand in the neighboring cemetery. To the right of the altar is a modern figure of Our Lady on the crescent moon (around 1520) in a moving robe with a scepter in the left and the naked Christ child playing with an apple in the right. On the left side on the east wall on a modern console is the figure of St. Sebastian (around 1500) made of limewood . The youthful figure is tied to a tree stump and raises his right hand upwards.
On the left side of the church is a figure of Saint Menas, dressed as a Roman soldier, who holds his left hand over an open flame and raises his right to take an oath, according to a legend relating to his martyrdom under Emperor Diocletian . The figure was created in 1940 by the Koblenz sculptor Wilhelm Tophinke . It is flanked by an ancient "Menas ampoule" (4th / 5th century) set in a frame, which pilgrims who had visited the Menas shrine in Egypt carried with them. It is a gift from the President of the Societe d´Archeologie Copte ( Cairo ).
In addition, there is a tabernacle , newly created in 1968, in the church , which integrates two angel figures with the " handkerchief of Veronica " (around 1500), a plague cross from the 17th century and a hexagonal baptismal font with pale sandstone pillar in late medieval form.
Tabernacle with the "handkerchief of Veronica"
Madonna and Child
Baptismal font
Menas ampoule
Organ and bells
An organ for St. Menas was built by Carl August Buchholz in 1844 . Today's instrument with two manuals and pedal comes from the Johannes Klais Orgelbau workshop from 1942 and has 22 registers . This Opus 977 was the last work that could be delivered and assembled before the factory closed in 1943 due to the war. The system is an electro-pneumatic register chamber with several transmissions into the pedal.
In the roof turret hang two bells (f and dis) that were cast in 1925 and 1929 by the Mabilon bell foundry in Saarburg .
Parish community
St. Menas is part of the " parish community Koblenz-Innenstadt Dreifaltigkeit", which also includes the St. Kastor Basilica , the Church of Our Lady and the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the old town and St. Joseph in the southern suburb .
Monument protection
The parish church of St. Menas is a protected cultural monument according to the Monument Protection Act (DSchG) and entered in the list of monuments of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . It is located in Koblenz-Stolzenfels in the forest path .
Since 2002 the parish church of St. Menas has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Upper Middle Rhine Valley .
See also
literature
- 500 years of the parish of St. Menas, Koblenz-Stolzenfels. 1486-1986. Koblenz-Stolzenfels 1986.
- Wolfgang Schütz: Koblenz heads. People from the city's history - namesake for streets and squares. Verlag für Werbung Blätter GmbH, ed .: Bernd Weber, Mülheim-Kärlich 2005 (2nd revised and expanded edition), p. 377f.
- Ulrike Weber (edit.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany. Volume 3.3: City of Koblenz. Districts. Werner, Worms 2013, ISBN 978-3-88462-345-9 .
Web links
- Information on the parish church of St. Menas in: stolzenfels.de
- St. Menas in: regionalgeschichte.net
Individual evidence
- ^ Dehio handbook of German art monuments: Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1972, p. 421.
- ↑ http://www.dreifaltigkeit-koblenz.de/
- ↑ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district-free city of Koblenz (PDF; 1.5 MB), Koblenz 2013
Coordinates: 50 ° 18 ′ 17.5 ″ N , 7 ° 35 ′ 30.5 ″ E