St. Stephanus (Golkrath)

St. Stephanus in Golkrath

The St. Stephanus Church is the Roman Catholic branch church of the Golkrath district of the city of Erkelenz in the Heinsberg district ( North Rhine-Westphalia ).

history

A first chapel in Golkrath was built in 1705. Before that there was no sacred building in the place. At this time Golkrath belonged to Kleingladbach parish . This chapel was replaced by a larger church in 1810. This was expanded several times until the 1850s. On December 6, 1851, Golkrath finally became an independent parish.

In the 1880s, the parish wanted to build a new church instead of the chapel. Probably at the beginning of the 1890s, the Cologne architect Josef Seché was commissioned to plan a new church. However, the first two designs were not approved by the Cologne church authorities and the idea of hiring another architect arose. Then the last plan was suddenly approved. In 1897 the construction of the new church finally began. The foundation stone was laid on May 9, 1897 and it was completed on December 22, 1898. The result was a three-aisled hall church with a transept, a bell tower in front and a choir closed on three sides in the neo-Gothic style .

However, this building did not exist for 50 years, because on February 25, 1945 the bell tower was blown up by German troops. The demolition destroyed not only the tower, but the entire church down to the foundation walls. One day later, on February 26th, Golkrath was captured by the Americans. Reconstruction began in 1949. The two Rheydter architects Müller and Wolters provided the plans . The existing wall remains were included in the new building. The transept and the three-sided closed choir and the sacristy can still be seen , the only part of which is completely preserved from 1897/98 with vaults. The ceiling is no longer vaulted, but a flat wooden ceiling. On October 21, 1951, the rebuilt church was consecrated by the Aachen auxiliary bishop Friedrich Hünermann .

Since 2010, Golkrath is no longer an independent parish . It was merged with some other former parishes to form the parish of St. Lambertus Erkelenz. In 2015 this was again merged with the parish of St. Maria and Elisabeth Erkelenz to form the new large parish of Christkönig.

Furnishing

Some quite old pieces of equipment have been preserved in the church. Particularly noteworthy is a Madonna with Child Jesus from 1520, which comes from the Hohenbusch monastery , a Sacred Heart and a Madonna figure by the Erkelenz sculptor Franz Xaver Haak, which were created after 1900, the group of figures "The Death of Joseph of Nazareth" and a Pieta from around 1900 by the Erkelenz sculptor Peter Tillmann. In addition to these pieces of equipment, the church has modern furnishings.

Bells

In 1908 the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen cast four bronze bells (d ′ - e ′ - gis ′ - g ′) for St. Stephanus. From this peal only the small g-bell did not survive the confiscation of bells of the two world wars and was re-cast by Otto in 1951.

No.	Surname	Diameter (mm)	Mass (kg, approx.)	Percussive ( HT -¹ /₁₆ )	Caster	Casting year
1	Maria	1,440	1.963	d ¹ -2	Karl Otto (I), F. Otto , Hemelingen	1908
2	Stephen	1,280	1,380	e ¹ -3	Karl Otto (I), F. Otto, Hemelingen	1908
3	Hermann-Joseph	1,120	955	f sharp ¹ -4	Karl Otto (I), F. Otto, Hemelingen	1908
4th	Anna	1,080	818	g ¹ -4	Karl Otto (III), F. Otto, Hemelingen	1951

Motif: Regina Coeli

Web links

Pictures of the church

Individual evidence

^ History on the website of the parish St. Lambertus Erkelenz
^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, in particular pages 62, 516, 549 .
↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, in particular pp. 82, 481, 506 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).
^ Norbert Jachtmann: Bells in the Heinsberg region. P. 43

51.08338 6.24895Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 0.2 ″ N , 6 ° 14 ′ 56.2 ″ E

[1] History on the website of the parish St. Lambertus Erkelenz

[2] Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, in particular pages 62, 516, 549 .

[3] Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, in particular pp. 82, 481, 506 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).

[4] Norbert Jachtmann: Bells in the Heinsberg region. P. 43