St. Peter (Hofgeismar)
The Church of St. Peter is the Catholic church built in the years 1897 and 1898 on Dragoner Strasse in neo-Gothic style in the small town of Hofgeismar in the Kassel district .
From the city's history
The settlement "Hovegeismari" received city rights in 1223 by Archbishop Sigfried II of Mainz , after it had developed into the center of a church district. The area between Diemel and the Upper Weser also belonged to the secular sphere of influence of the Archdiocese of Mainz .
From the founding years of the city in the 13th century, today's “ Old Town Church ”, the former collegiate church of St. Maria , whose construction began in the first half of the 12th century in the Mainz “Hovestätte Geismari” and in which The Hofgeismar Passion Altar from the early 13th century is still located today.
As early as the 16th century, the former collegiate church became the church of the Protestant community in the old town of Hofgeismar. Under the rule of Landgrave Philip I , Hofgeismar - now a town in the Landgraviate of Hesse - became Protestant. Along with Saxony and Württemberg, Hesse was one of the pioneers of the Reformation in the German Empire .
The Catholic parish pastoral care in the strongly evangelical city began again to a notable extent in 1892, the construction of the Catholic St. Peter's Church followed in 1897/98. Before that, monthly services for the Catholic members of the Hofgeismar garrison and some civilians had already been held in the Old Town Church in the last third of the 19th century. Only after the Second World War did the number of the Catholic population rise sharply due to the influx of displaced persons - especially from the Sudetenland - in the former Hofgeismar district to around 22,000 believers in 1948.
In 1959, another Catholic church was built in Hofgeismar with the Church of St. Mary.
From the history of St. Peter's Church and the parish
The brick church, built in the neo-Gothic style in 1897 and 1898, was designed by the architect Georg Carl Wilhelm Kegel and built at the “Kasseler Tor” city entrance. According to the portrayal of the long-time parish priest and dean Joseph Weber (1939-1970), the title "Petrikirche" was reminiscent of an old Hofgeismar church that had stood in the area of today's Petriplatz until the 18th century. This church, which was built in the 14th century, was consecrated to the Apostle Peter and also gave its name to the then newly created Hofgeismar district of “Peterstadt”.
St. Peter was the first church to be rebuilt in the 19th century for the increasing number of Catholics in Hofgeismar and the surrounding area, after the chapel initially set up in a house on Niedermeiser Strasse (later the "sister house") proved too small. The diocese of Fulda was able to buy the property on November 4, 1891 for the purchase price of 10,500 marks. In this house there was the pastor's apartment and on the ground floor a chapel, in which dean Leopold Stoff from Kassel had held the first service on October 9, 1892.
The foundation stone for St. Peter was laid on May 27, 1897, and the church was consecrated on Pentecost Sunday in 1898. In the same year the Catholic parish in Hofgeismar was raised to the status of a curate , and it only became an independent parish much later, on May 1, 1956.
The first pastor of the church was Ferdinand Gruß (pastor in Hofgeismar in the years 1896–1899). The Catholic rectory on Dragoner Strasse was built in 1906 during the tenure of Pastor Ferdinand Spieß.
The original interior of the church has largely been preserved to this day after extensive restoration of the church in the 1970s.
In the two world wars the church bells had to be delivered (in 1917 and 1941) and were replaced after the wars (1927 and 1949).
In 1923 Sisters of the Order of Mercy Sisters began their service in the community and also devoted themselves to nursing the sick, and later they also worked in the community's Catholic kindergarten.
literature
- Friedrich Pfaff: History of the city of Hofgeismar , published by the city of Hofgeismar in 1938
- Joseph Weber: Development of the Catholic communities in the Hofgeismar district , in: Heimatjahrbuch für den Hofgeismar district 1968, p. 44 ff.
- Erhard Heidrich: The development of the Roman Catholic Church in the Kassel district , in: Yearbook of the Kassel district 1984, p. 66 ff.
Web links
- Parish of St. Peter Hofgeismar
- The church "St. Peter" on the homepage of the city Hofgeismar
- Information on http://regiowiki.hna.de
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 29.8 " N , 9 ° 22 ′ 51.6" E