St. Norbert (Grasleben)
The Sankt Norbert Church is the Catholic church in Grasleben , a municipality in the northern district of Helmstedt in Lower Saxony . It belongs to the parish of St. Ludgeri with its seat in Helmstedt , in the Wolfsburg-Helmstedt deanery of the Hildesheim diocese . The church, named after Saint Norbert von Xanten , is located at Helmstedter Straße 42, its catchment area includes the municipality of Grasleben .
history
In the 1920s, the labor requirements of the industrial companies that had settled in Grasleben from around 1900 increased, so that Catholics again moved to the village, which had been evangelical since the Reformation . The nearest Catholic church was an emergency chapel set up in 1912 in the neighboring village of Weferlingen , about three kilometers away , and from 1929 the local church “ St. Joseph and St. Theresa of the Child Jesus ”. From autumn 1934, holy masses were occasionally held in Grasleben , this was done by the pastor from Weferlingen in the house of the monastery, for which a 39 m² room was set up as a chapel. In 1935, 85 Catholics were already living in Grasleben. From 1943 onwards, the masses took place every Sunday until the beginning of July 1945 the demarcation of the border prevented that. From August 1945 a pastor from Helmstedt occasionally held church services in the chapel on the estate.
After the number of Catholics in Grasleben and the surrounding villages had increased significantly as a result of the influx of refugees and displaced persons as a result of the Second World War, a Catholic parish was formed in Grasleben from 1945 onwards. On July 1, 1946, Grasleben got its own Catholic pastor, a displaced person from the Archdiocese of Breslau , so that from then on there were regular masses in Grasleben. At this time 450 Catholics belonged to the parish in Grasleben, which, in addition to Grasleben, also included Heidwinkel , Mariental-Dorf , Mariental-Horst with the refugee transit camp and Querenhorst . In 1946, another church service room was set up in the farm building of the Heidwinkel forest camp, in a former labor service training room. At times the Catholic services in Grasleben took place in the Evangelical Church . In 1954 Grasleben was already a parish vicarie belonging to St. Ludgeri in Helmstedt , to which about 770 German Catholics belonged. There were also around 500 Polish Catholics who lived in Mariental-Horst. Services were held every Sunday in Grasleben, in Heidwinkel and in the barrack chapel of the Mariental-Horst foreigners' camp, which existed until 1962, and occasionally in the Waldheim lung sanctuary in Grasleben, in the old people's home in Mariental-Horst and in a classroom at the school in Querenhorst.
In 1955 the pastor applied to the diocese to build a church, in 1957 the building site was purchased and a church building association was founded that existed until 1980. On July 17, 1960, the foundation stone for the St. Norbert Church was laid by Dean Georg Cich from Königslutter , and the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on October 13 of the same year. The parsonage and youth center were built parallel to the church. On 17./18. June 1961 followed by the consecration of Auxiliary Bishop Heinrich Pachowiak . From July 1, 1964, Grasleben was an independent church community (Kuratiegemeinde), it comprised the political communities Grasleben, Mariental and Querenhorst. In 1970 the chancel was redesigned according to the decisions of the Second Vatican Council , and on May 30, 1970 the altar was consecrated by Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen . In 1973 the community rooms were enlarged by an extension.
St. Norbert has been without a local pastor since the summer of 1976 and is also looked after by the priests from St. Ludgeri in Helmstedt. A kindergarten was added in 1994 and a day nursery in the former rectory was added in 2011. On March 1, 1998, the Helmstedt deanery, to which the church belonged, merged with the Wolfenbüttel deanery to form the new Helmstedt-Wolfenbüttel deanery. Since November 1, 2006, the church has belonged to the then newly founded dean's office in Wolfsburg-Helmstedt, which arose out of the dean's offices in Wolfsburg and the Helmstedt part of the dean's office in Helmstedt-Wolfenbüttel. Since September 1st, 2008 the church belongs to the parish of St. Ludgeri in Helmstedt.
Architecture and equipment
The church, located around 107 meters above sea level , was built according to plans by the Brunswick architect Alois Hafkemeyer (1929–1986), who also built the Corpus Christi (Rotenburg (Wümme)) , St. Marien (Braunschweig-Querum) , St. Elisabeth (Salzgitter) , St. Bernward (Braunschweig) , designed the Ecumenical Center St. Stephanus and St. Maximilian Kolbe (Salzgitter) .
The St. Norbert Church, designed as a solid structure with an entrance tower, offers 123 seats. The depiction of St. Norbert on the outside of the church was designed by Claus Kilian in 1962 . As a symbol for the Eucharist , the back wall of the sanctuary shows a pelican tearing its chest open to feed its young with blood. This altarpiece was also designed by Kilian in 1961 and renewed in 1978. The stained glass windows on the east side of the church, designed by Kilian in 1961, show the seven Catholic sacraments . Two of the three bells were cast by Feldmann & Marschel in 1962. The third bell previously hung in the bell tower of the emergency chapel in the Heidwinkel camp, it came from Ottendorf in the Sprottau district and came to Heidwinkel via a bell cemetery in Hamburg .
organ
The organ was built in 1967 by the Krell Brothers . The slider chests -instrument has eleven register on two manuals and pedal . The actions are mechanical.
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See also
literature
- Johannes and Helma Paus: Chronicle of the Catholic Church Community St. Norbert, Grasleben. Grasleben 1986.
- Willi Stoffers: Diocese of Hildesheim today. Hildesheim 1987, ISBN 3-87065-418-X , pp. 162/163
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 18 ′ 3.8 ″ N , 11 ° 0 ′ 46.6 ″ E