St. Pius X. (Saarwellingen)

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Piuskirche, rear front
Saarwellingen, Campanile bell tower St. Pius X.
Saarwellingen, St. Pius X., portal picture "Pope Pius X. as the founder of communion for children" by Arnold Mrziglod (1921–1984)
Saarwellingen, St. Pius X., portal area with statue "Petrus as the rock of the church and fisherman"
Saarwellingen, Rectory St. Pius X., facade painting, sgraffito "The Parable of the Sower " by Arnold Mrziglod (1921–1984)

St. Pius is the name of a former parish church and parish and church community in Saarwellingen . The church was assigned to the diocese of Trier . The patron saint of the church and the parish was St. Pope Pius X. The feast day of the patron saint is August 21st. On October 13, 2019, after a last pontifical ministry with auxiliary bishop Robert Brahm , the church was profaned by reading out the corresponding episcopal decree.

history

Parish establishment

After a new residential area was built north of Saarwellingen in the post-war period , its residents founded a church building association in 1957 . The diocese of Trier then established the parish vicarie of St. Pius X on May 1, 1959 .

Patronage

The church patron was a few years earlier in 1954 by Pope Pius XII. has been canonized . The patronage of Pius X was also chosen because the Pope had particularly emphasized the importance of the Eucharist , for whose celebration he formulated the participatio actuosa ("living participation") of the people as a principle. This principle was later taken up by the Second Vatican Council . Characteristic for the pontificate of Pius X. were among other things his recommendation of the daily reception of communion and the lowering of the minimum age of children for admission to first communion to seven years in the decree Quam singulari of August 8, 1910. This aspect was in the large sgraffito over the church portal by the Silesian artist Arnold Mrziglod. Pope Pius X leads First Communion children to the crucified Savior, whose blood pours into a chalice in the hands of the pontiff. A statue of Peter with the Keys of Heaven , which - as an allusion to Mt 16.19  EU - seems to grow out of a boulder, served as the central support of the entire portal facade . Numerous fish reliefs served both as a reference to the original profession of Peter as a fisherman as well as to the fisherman word of Jesus ( Lk 5,1-11  EU ). In this way, the line of continuity of the papacy from the time of Jesus to the present should be visually shown to those entering the church .

Church building

On June 28, 1959 by the Saarlouiser dean Heinrich Unkel foundation stone for the new building of the church at the New Church Square set whose benediction already on Passion Sunday could take place the following year. The Saarwellingen architect Toni Laub was responsible for the planning . The church was positioned on a hill facing Bahnhofstrasse. A large flight of stairs leads from the street to the main portal. The hill had been planted with coniferous trees to recall the former forest character of the new settlement. The cubature of the church with its flat roof pitch, in conjunction with the surrounding vegetation, gave the impression of a modern, alpine -looking homestead. The construction costs of the church with campanile amounted to 90 million francs. The bell tower was positioned as a campanile on the left in front of the main portal. It was faced with brick up to below the bell chamber and rose on a square floor plan. The bell room housed three bells that had been made in 1960 by the Fraulautern bell foundry Otto .

The church was a pillarless hall church with a drawn-in and flat-closing choir area. The choir area was oriented to the northeast . The lay room was lit on both long sides through three window axes, the choir area through a large window on the right long side. The saddle roof with a slight incline stood out as a wood-paneled ceiling on the inside. A large organ and singing gallery was located above the vestibule area of ​​the entrance. The apse area was decorated with a cross, the left side altar with a statue of the Madonna and Child in a gold mosaic mandorla. In honor of the church patron Pius X, a carved and unmounted wooden sculpture was erected.

The large-format church window glazing, which ended directly with the ceiling, was designed by the Munich artist Rudolf Schilling. The designs were carried out by the Trier glass company Binsfeld. The motifs of the tall rectangular windows were St. Blaise of Sebaste , the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the seven sacraments , Mary as the apocalyptic woman with the depiction of Adam and Eve being expelled from Paradise and a bombing , the resurrection of Christ with the depiction of his instruments of suffering, the Mother of God with the baby Jesus and the two prophets John and Isaiah as clues to the mystery of the Incarnation . The apse window with bar tracery dealt with the burning thorn bush .

Parish

The elevation to the parish took place on July 1, 1959 by the Trier Bishop Matthias Wehr . Since the church consecration had not been carried out in the early years, it was made up for on September 3, 1990.

First and most competent pastor of the parish was from Saarbrücken - St. Johann originating Spiritan -Pater Alois Engel (1902-1986). After completing his doctorate, Engel worked as a lecturer in church history, missiology and ethnology at the Spiritianer Kloster Knechtsteden . After he came into conflict with the rulers of National Socialism, he escaped arrest by the Gestapo in 1935 by fleeing to Brazil , where he stayed until 1959. On March 1, 1959, Engel was transferred to the parish of St. Pius. X. and headed this until his retirement on February 29, 1984. On the occasion of his golden jubilee as a priest in 1978, he was granted honorary citizenship by the Saarwellingen community. In 1984 Father Engel came to Speyer to the St. Guido Mission House. He died in Speyer in 1986 and was buried there.

Interior renovation

In 1992 a fundamental restoration of the interior was carried out under the direction of the Dillinger architect Franz-Josef Weinard. During the renovation, the church services of the then parish of St. Pius were celebrated in the mother church of St. Blasius. The interior underwent a further redesign in 2002, when a small celebration altar was set up on an improvised grandstand in the central nave. The main altar in the choir has since housed the tabernacle , which previously had a central place in front of the back wall.

restructuring

In the course of the restructuring measures of the Diocese of Trier, the parish and parish of St. Pius were dissolved on September 1, 2007 and merged with the mother parish of St. Blasius in the new parish and parish of St. Blasius and Martinus . The area around the station Nalbach / Saarwellingen, which originally belonged to the parish of St. Blasius and was re-parish in 1922 to the Nalbach parish of St. Peter and Paul , was incorporated into the parish of St. Pius in 1960. This part of the parish came to the civil parish of Nalbach with the communal territorial reform of Saarland in 1974, so that St. Pius has had parishioners from two parishes, Saarwellingen and Nalbach, since then. In the course of the 'redesign of pastoral spaces' as part of the 2020 structural reform of the Diocese of Trier, the Nalbach / Saarwellingen station area again moved to the parish of St. Peter and Paul Nalbach in July 2007.

Profanation and demolition

After the defective heating system, the Saarwellingen St. Pius Church could be used almost exclusively in summer, so that the church remained as such for the time being. On June 2, 2019, the diocese of Trier announced at a parish meeting in the church that the profanation of St. Pius X should take place. Two Catholic churches in Saarwellingen are no longer financially bearable against the background of declining church attendance. The profanation was then carried out by Auxiliary Bishop Robert Brahm on behalf of Bishop Stephan Ackermann on October 13, 2019.

The area with a rectory and church building, with a size of 7,800 square meters, was sold to the Federal Association of Lebenshilfe in the Saarlouis district . The Lebenshilfe wants to set up an integrative kindergarten with four groups for 32 children between eight months and three years in the rectory. For this purpose, the interior is completely gutted and then re-divided. The construction costs should amount to 2.4 million euros. The Saarwellingen community intends to buy part of the site for the existing St. Pius kindergarten.

The Lebenshilfe planned to have the church with the large campanile (bells: g ′, a ′, c ′ ′) completely demolished, as it was not used for the sacred building. A new kindergarten will be built in their place. A few “hundred thousand euros” were discussed as the purchase price. The sacred objects in the church were partially transferred to the Saarwellingen parish church of St. Blasius. The large glass windows should only be partially preserved. Non-liturgical objects were sold to interested parties. The sacred building has been demolished since April 2020. Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tower could only be blown up on May 14, 2020 at 4:30 p.m. For this purpose, 52 holes were drilled in the lower eastern area of ​​the 90 cm thick masonry of the tower, which were then filled with explosives . Thick rubber mats in front of the blast holes were supposed to prevent splinters of brick from spreading over a greater distance. The tower fell on a heap of rubble that had been pushed together from the rubble of the demolished rectory and most of the church building. The southern church facade had been left with emergency glazing to protect the adjoining residential area until it was blown up.

  • Status of the demolition work at the end of May 2020

  • Right nave wall / southern church wall

  • Belfry

  • Former choir window

  • Way to the original church portal

  • Remnants of the campanile

  • View from the former nave to the former entrance portal and the former gallery

  • Former choir area with basement

Chaplain

Pastor of the previous parish

  • P. Dr. Alois Engel CSSp (1959–1984)
  • Josef Bilsdorfer (1984–1992)
  • Klaus Paulus (1992–1997)
  • Karl-Heinz Gorges (1997-2007)

Vicars of the previous parish

  • Manfred Tüx (1985–1988), resident in the rectory of St. Pius
  • Bernd Seel (1988–1991), resident in the rectory of St. Pius
  • Ralf Braun (1991–1994)
  • Stephan Gerber (1994–1997)
  • Klemens Mohr (1997-2000)
  • Rainer-Matthias Müller (2000-2003)

organ

The church organ was bought as a used instrument by the parish in 1990. It was built around 1968 by the Saarland organ builder Hugo Mayer , like most organs in the area. The relatively small instrument with six registers has a mechanical performance and stop action mechanism , two manuals and a pedal . As windchests was used grinding shop.

I Manual
Reed flute 8th'
Principal 2 ′
II manual
Covered 8th'
recorder 4 ′
Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Pedal C – d 1
Sub bass 16 ′

literature

  • Gerhard Maiworm et al. (Ed.): 100 Years Parish Church of St. Blasius and St. Martinus Saarwellingen, Merzig 2000.

Web links

Commons : St. Pius X.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

source

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Maiworm et al. (Ed.): 100 years of the parish church of St. Blasius and St. Martinus Saarwellingen, Merzig 2000, pp. 49-50.
  2. ↑ Bernhard H. Bonkhoff: The bells of the Saarland, Saarbrücken 1997, p. 142. Bonkhoff only specifies the c´´ bell with a weight of 350 kg and a diameter of 80 cm.
  3. ↑ http://institut-aktuelle-kunst.de/kunstlexikon/saarwellingen-campus-nobel-reisbach-schwarzenholz-wald-katholische-kirchen-1970 , accessed on May 1, 2020.
  4. ↑ Gerhard Maiworm et al. (Ed.): 100 years of the parish church of St. Blasius and St. Martinus Saarwellingen, Merzig 2000, p. 52.
  5. ↑ https://www.kirchesaarwellingen.de/cms/st.-blasiusst.-martinus/pfarrei/st.-pius/pater-engel.php , accessed on May 2, 2020.
  6. ↑ https://www.kirchesaarwellingen.de/cms/st.-blasiusst.-martinus/pfarrei/st.-pius/ehemalige-pfarrei.php/ , accessed on May 1, 2020.
  7. ↑ https://www.sr-mediathek.de/index.php?seite=7&id=79390 , accessed on May 1, 2020.
  8. ↑ Johannes A. Bodwig: St. Pius Church is being sold and torn down, Saarbrücker Zeitung, Local Time, newspaper for the Saarlouis district, page C 5, June 3, 2019.
  9. ↑ Johannes A. Bodwig: The loud last day of the St. Pius tower, Saarbrücker Zeitung, C 6, Local, Saturday / Sunday, 16./17. May 2020.

Coordinates: 49 ° 21 '57.5 "  N , 6 ° 47' 50.6"  E