St. Michael (Höfen)

View from the south-west

St. Michael is the Roman Catholic parish church of the Monschau district of Höfen in the city ​​region of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia .

Old building in neo-Gothic style

Organ from Weimbs (Hellenthal, 1971)

The church is dedicated to St. Archangel Michael consecrated and entered under number 360 in the list of architectural monuments in Monschau .

location

The church building is in the middle of Höfen on the main road ( Bundesstraße 258 ). The cemetery borders the church building directly to the east.

General

Originally the area around Höfen belonged to the parish of Konzen . When Monschau was raised to a parish in 1640, Höfen was assigned to this new parish. In 1697 Höfen received its own church, which was now a subsidiary church of Monschau. On April 6, 1701, Höfen was finally raised to an independent parish . The parish was incorporated into Reichenstein Monastery until its dissolution in 1802.

Building history

View from the north

The first church building in Höfen was built in 1697 in the Baroque style and consecrated on July 14, 1701 by the Steinfeld abbot Michael Kuell. In the middle of the 19th century this church became dilapidated and demolished in 1857.

Today's parish church was built between 1857 and 1859 according to plans by the builder Richard Castenholz from Malmedy . The consecration took place on June 26, 1864. The church was damaged during World War II . By 1951 all damage had been repaired.

In the 1960s the parish church became too small and an extension was decided. Between 1966 and 1970 the extension was realized according to plans by the Lammersdorf architect Stephan Legge . In doing so, the south wall of the neo-Gothic church was broken off and the new building facing south was added to it. A new chancel was set up in the new building, with all the benches facing. The choir of the old part of the church has served as a baptistery and sacrament chapel since then. The consecration of the new building took place on May 31, 1970 .

Building description

The old building is a single-nave, four-bay hall church in neo-Gothic style with a three-storey bell tower in front of it in the west and a two-bay choir closed on three sides in the east. The room is spanned by ribbed vaults. The windows all have two-lane tracery . In place of the former south wall, there are now four ogival openings that connect the old part of the church with the new building. The new building was built in modern forms. The shape of a star can be seen in the floor plan. The new building is completely clad with slate . The old building is made of quarry stone.

Furnishing

Landscape nativity scene

The church has modern equipment. The altar from 1970 in the new building is made of granite. The organ is a work by the organ builder Weimbs from Hellenthal in 1971. The instrument has an electric action and 21 registers distributed over two manuals and a pedal . The stained glass windows in the new part of the church were created by the glass painter Johannes Beeck in 1970. They depict geometric compositions. The windows in the old part of the parish church depict geometric ornaments and were designed by Anton Wendling between 1932 and 1933 . After being destroyed in the war, the windows were reconstructed according to the original plans in the 1950s.

During the Christmas season, a large landscape crib is set up behind the altar in the new part of the church, which is approx. 10 meters high and 30 meters wide. It attracts around 10,000 visitors from different countries every year. In addition to the traditional nativity scene, details from the Eifel flora and fauna are shown.

Pastor

The following pastors have been pastors at St. Michael so far:

from ... to	Surname
1930-1962	Josef Nösser
1962-1965	Jakob Goldstein
1965-1988	Ignaz Hüpgen
1988-1995	Walter Haas
1995-2009	Karl Schnitzler
2009-2014	Karl-Heinz Stoffels
2014-2016	Philipp Cuck (administrator)
Since 2016	Heinz-Albert Schmitz (Administrator)

Web links

Commons : St. Michael (Höfen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Handbook of the Diocese of Aachen 3rd edition, published by the Episcopal General Vicariate, Aachen 1994, p. 571.
2. ↑ Handbook of the Diocese of Aachen 3rd edition, published by the Episcopal General Vicariate, Aachen 1994, p. 571.
3. ↑ Monschau-Höfen, Catholic Church of St. Michael. In: Forschungsstelle Glasmalerei des 20. Jahrhundert eV Accessed on September 30, 2017 . 
4. ↑ The crib. In: The Singing Shepherd website. Retrieved September 30, 2017 . 

Coordinates: 50 ° 32 ′ 10.1 ″  N , 6 ° 15 ′ 10.2 ″  E