St. Theresia (Mülheim-Selbeck)
The Selbeck Church of St. Theresia von Avila is a Roman Catholic church in Mülheim-Selbeck . The church of the diocese of Essen belonged to the Mintard parish from 1303 to 1927. The strong industrial turnaround caused by the Selbeck ore mines (see below: From the pit to the church ) and the associated influx of miners ensured that a Catholic church was planned. Count Hubertus Spee zu Linnep donated the necessary land and the “Selbecker Mining Association” financed the planned church building. In the course of the times, the boundaries of the congregations were also often changed (see Between the boundaries of church and state). On June 27, 1890, construction work began according to the plans of the Strasbourg builder Franz Schmitz . On September 8, 1892, Cardinal Philipp Krementz consecrated the Selbeck Church.
history
Before the consecration in 1892
Before 1892, between 1889 and December 1891, services were held in what was then the Plönes inn, today's "Kastanie". During this time, the first little bell, which hung in a tower above the restaurant hall, called for Holy Mass.
Steeple
On June 5, 1896, the mine director Karl Forst gave the parish the pastorate and the sexton's apartment. In the late summer of 1926, the dilapidated slender church spire was replaced by the current one. The tower is 31 meters high in total. In the same year the village had its first stock exchange closing after Mülheim and Düsseldorf.
Bells
In 1892 Pastor Eitel von Mintard ordered two bronze bells for the St. Theresa Church in Selbeck from the renowned Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen. In the summer of 1892 the new church received two new bells. The larger bell - donated by the mine director Karl Forst - sounds in the tone “G sharp” and bears the image of St. Theresa on one side, whose name it also bears, and on the other side you can see Karl Forst's coat of arms.
The smaller bell was named after the second parish priest, St. Barbara, whose portrait it carried. Next to it was the symbol of the miners - flails and iron. The bell sounded "h". In 1918, however, the Barbaraglocke was confiscated and melted down for war purposes. A new bell was procured to replace it in 1925 and consecrated to St. James. It sounds in the tone "c". The inscription reads: "For Barbara lost in the war, St. James was chosen to proclaim for the joy and sorrow that all call them to bliss!"
Theresienglocke
In 1942, the strikes of the Theresa bell also seemed to have been counted. The beautiful, old bell was taken away, although Pastor Schäfer had initially obtained a postponement of the confiscation from the authorities on the grounds that the bell also served as a storm and fire warning. Fortunately, however, the bell remained. It was found again after the war in the “ Hamburg Bell Cemetery ” and was brought back to Selbeck with great solemnity for the patronage festival on October 16, 1949. Since then it has been in its old place in the church tower.
Church renovation
At Christmas 1963 the church and parsonage were equipped with oil heating, which, however, led to heavy pollution of the church in the following years. The Second Vatican Council after 1965 brought some changes to the Selbeck church as well: The communion bench and the beautiful pulpit were removed.
In 1973 the Schützenhaus was expanded to include the adjacent parish hall, which also offers space for larger events. In 1977 the new sacristy was built. After its completion, the church was completely renovated from April to December 1978. The beautiful choir windows (from 1981) could be installed again. On this occasion, a new heating system with the associated ventilation shafts could be installed and then the artistic ceramic floor was laid again. During the work, the mass was read in the parish hall. In the vault area, old paintings were found that were restored by Georg Maul from Cologne and touched up by Hans Jungbecker from Breitscheid after water damage in 1988. The sound and technical defective pipe organ with 12 registers (see Festive Sounds) was replaced by a smaller one with 6 registers and a sliding drawer by Romanus Seifert from Kevelaer as part of the renovation.
The new altar
With the consecration of the new altar on October 24, 1981 by Auxiliary Bishop Wolfgang Große, the restoration work came to a worthy end and all worship services and therefore have a special meaning. The celebration altar is the work of the painter and sculptor Klaus Balke. The cafeteria plate is made of bluestone. On the substructure, a painted canvas shows the representation of the four beings as they are described in the Book of Ezekiel and the Revelation of John. (Ez. 1,5-10; Rev. 4,6-8). Ezekiel distinguishes four living beings in the case of a divine apparition, whose faces characterize God's essence: the human being as an image of reason denotes the wisdom of God, the lion his majesty, the bull his power, the eagle symbolizes the protective power of God. When depicting the four-faced creature, Ezekiel was probably influenced by the figures of the Babylonian gods. Even after the revelation of John, four mysterious living beings with the appearance of a lion, a young bull, a human and an eagle surround the throne of God. A Gospel book from the 14th century gives us the following interpretation, which is also found in a similar form on an old Lydian marble block: “The four beings symbolize Christ the Lord: He is a man at birth, a bull in sacrificial death, lion in resurrection and eagle through his ascension. ”In the course of Christian history the four beings are then taken as symbols for the four evangelists: man (Matthew), lion (Mark), bull (Luke) and eagle (John).
Loudspeaker and high altar
The installation of an inconspicuous loudspeaker system (1982) and the redesign of the confessional into a confessional room in the left niche of the nave (1983) completed the structural changes in the nave of the church, which has been a listed building since September 1989. In December 2009 the Friends of St. Theresa financed the restoration of the high altar, which was able to shine in new splendor. In June 2014, a new staircase to the entrance portal with handicapped accessible access from the side was inaugurated.
Choir window
The five colorful choir windows date from 1891. The middle window shows the holy family at work, the young Jesus is making a cross - an ideal image of family spirit and hard work. The window was donated by Count Hubertus von Spee, whose family coat of arms it bears. Next to it is the coat of arms of his wife's family (von Papen). In the window on the left you can see the two parish saints: St. Theresa as a young Carmelite with the attributes of a book and a flaming heart; St. Barbara with chalice and tower. At Barbara's feet you can see the coat of arms of Karl Forst, who donated the window, and next to it the coat of arms of his mother's family (Sandt). The right choir window contains a curiosity. It shows the rose miracle of St. Elizabeth and the holy King Edward with the ring. Under St. Eduard, however, there is the - incorrect - inscription "Sante Bernhard". However, this is not the only bug with this window. The coat of arms under St. Elisabeth is that of the founder Eduard Dahmen, however, the tower would not have to be gold on silver, but rather silver on black. Next to it is the coat of arms of Cologne, the hometown of the founder.
The sea of glass
The windows in the nave, designed in 1979 by the artist Nikolaus Bette, Essen, and executed by the Herbert Koll company, Bottrop, are a pictorial representation of the apocalyptic vision of St. John of the Transparent Sea, the four creatures and the seven plagues.
In contrast to the windows in the choir room and the painting of the church, the artist worked very sparingly and cautiously with glass painting means and forms. The vertical and horizontal lines, combined with the white of the windows, are supposed to create the association of water, clouds and sky. John saw the sea of glass twice in the Apocalypse. The windows on the left in the nave represent the first version of the glory of God and the four beings. “In front of the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the middle, around the throne, were four eyes in front and behind. The first living thing looked like a lion, the second a bull, the third looked like a human, the fourth looked like a flying eagle. And each of the four living beings had six wings, full of eyes on the outside and inside. "" Lightning, voices and thunder emanated from the throne. And seven flaming torches burned before the throne; these are the seven spirits of God ”(Rev. 4,6-8 and 4,5). The seven braziers, symbol of the seven spirits of God and the four beings, can be seen in the large window in the area of the star vault on the left. In the further course of the left window, the 24 elders are shown with the symbols of the 24 harps. This representation corresponds to the Bible passages Rev. 4.9-10 and 5.8. On the right-hand side, the second passage from the Apocalypse, namely that of the shell vision, is shown (cf. Rev. 15: 1-2 and 5-8). A short quote may clarify the symbolic content: “And one of the four living beings handed the seven angels seven golden bowls; they were filled with the wrath of God who lives forever. And the temple was filled with the smoke of the glory and power of God. Nobody could enter the temple until the seven plagues had come to an end from the hands of the seven angels. ”In the main window in the area of the star vault on the right side the first angel is shown, who pours his plague on humanity; left and right are the angels with the second and third plagues. In the further course of the window the remaining four angels are symbolized with their bowls of anger.
Between the borders of church and state
The parish of St. Theresa, as it is today, did not exist in this form from the start. Until 1927 the parish of St. Theresia Selbeck-Breitscheid belonged to Mintard and was led by a parish rector. Already in 1920 the people of Selbeck tried to clear the parish. However, the community only became independent in 1927. The boundaries of the new parish corresponded to those of the political community of Selbeck-Breitscheid at the time, with the exception of Linnep Castle, which, at the request of the Counts of Spee, remained with the community of St. Laurentius, Mintard. On August 1, 1929, Selbeck was incorporated into the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr. The parish of St. Theresia now consisted of Mülheim-Ruhr-Selbeck and Breitscheid, which remained with Angerland, and belonged to the Deanery Ratingen in the Archdiocese of Cologne . When the diocese of Essen was established on January 1, 1958 , this had serious consequences for the community. As a district of Mülheim, Selbeck came to the new diocese of Essen, Breitscheid remained with the archbishopric of Cologne. The small parish was divided. The rest of the community was now in a condition that could hardly be described as viable. Therefore, one thought of a thought that Pastor Schmalen had already expressed in 1920. In April 1969 - initially against violent protests from the affected residents - part of the parish of St. Mary's Assumption, Saarn, was re-parished into the community.
On December 1, 2006, the restructuring of the parishes in the diocese of Essen was implemented due to the financial bottlenecks in the diocese and three parishes were named in Mülheim (St. Barbara, St. Mary's Birth and St. Mary's Assumption) to which the nearby churches were affiliated. St. Theresa now belonged as a branch church to the parish of St. Mary's Assumption, which now comprised 22,000 Catholics.
Festive sounds
The solemn organ playing has a fixed place in the liturgical design of church services. Prelude, vocal accompaniment, meditative solos when receiving Holy Communion, finale: organ music fulfills many functions during Holy Mass. Many well-known composers from Johann Sebastian Bach to Haydn, Mozart, Schubert to Max Reger have written great organ works and with their compositions have contributed to the fact that the “queen of musical instruments” still plays a central role in church music today. Four years after the consecration, the then mechanical pipe organ was supplied by the Fabritius company, Kaiserswerth, in 1896, and it was only possible to operate it electrically in 1938 after a renovation. With its twelve sounding stops, this organ had a wonderful and powerful sound, which the older parishioners in particular will probably remember fondly. This Fabritius organ, which was decorated with filigree carvings on the upper case panels, faithfully accompanied the congregation to all church services in the church year until it fell apart. During the renovation of the church, however, it turned out that repairing the damaged organ would no longer have been worthwhile. It was destroyed. In the parish hall (today's Bürgersaal) some pipes and decorations remind of the glory days of this beautiful instrument. In 1979 the community took over a smaller organ with only six registers and a sliding drawer. The new organ comes from the Romanus Seifert company in Kevelaer. To this day, the acquisition of a larger, more powerful instrument has failed due to the tight financial situation of the small community.
Name and patron saint
The veneration of saints occupies a not insignificant place among the ecclesiastical forms of piety. In times of need and peril, people have called on saints to seek intercession from God. The saints are models; Christians are baptized in their names, altars and churches are consecrated to them and the interiors of churches have been adorned with their images since the Gothic period. Among these saints, St. Theresa and St. Barbara occupy a special place as patron saints of the church and community. Teresa of Avila was born in Avila on March 28, 1515. On November 2, 1535, Teresa entered the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation in Avila. She was 39 years old when she was shocked in front of a statue of the suffering Christ. She made a vow that she would serve the Lord without reservation in the future. This decision became the starting point of their reform work. On her many trips she founded 17 Reformed women's and 2 Reformed men's monasteries in 15 years. The secret of their pious life lies in the words: “Nothing should frighten you, nothing should frighten you. Everything passes. God alone remains the same. Patience achieves everything. Whoever possesses God cannot lack anything. God alone is enough. ”She died in 1582, was canonized in 1622 and in 1970 by Pope Paul VI. elevated to a doctorate As a mining patroness, St. Barbara was also the patron saint of the church in Selbeck, where ore was mined at the time the church was founded (see From the pit to the church). She lived in Nicodemia (now Turkey) in the 4th century as a committed Christian. Although her pagan father tried with all his might to dissuade her from the faith, Barbara unconditionally confessed to her Lord and God until her execution. She was therefore venerated as a great martyr, first in her homeland, and later also in the West.
From the pit to the church
Street names such as "Erzweg" or "Glückaufstraße" still bear witness to Selbeck's mining past, to which not only the church, but also the so-called "colony houses" in the village center and numerous other buildings in Selbeck are due. From 1882 to 1907 zinc, lead, copper and sulfur ores were industrially mined here.
Mining brought the place, which was until then almost exclusively agricultural, a short period of economic prosperity and growth. Until well beyond the middle of the 19th century, the Selbeck plateau was a typical single courtyard area. Since the clayey, weathered soils were unsuitable for growing grain, the farmers used their land primarily as meadows and pastures. The large farm units required for this type of agriculture were located off the then Provinzialstrasse, today's Kölner Strasse. Numerous smaller cottages on the edges of the large courtyards were typical of the time. They were used to house the sons who were not entitled to inheritance. As early as 1844, the farmer Backhaus discovered ore deposits near his house and mined them to an insignificant extent and at shallow depths. From 1846 to 1881 this area changed hands several times. Everyone tried to mine ore successfully, for example a Franco-Belgian company that mined lead ore to a depth of 18 m manually, or the district forester Engelbert Diepenbrock, known from Lintorf, whose experimental work had to be stopped in 1864/65 due to lack of money. He was the namesake of the later plant "Neu-Diepenbrock III", which the "Union Selbecker Erzbergwerke" - a company founded by Cologne merchants on April 24, 1882 - exploited for the first time industrially via three shafts. From 1888 to 1891 alone, the Selbeck ores were worth 1,135,000 marks. In 1890 the union was transformed into the stock corporation "Selbecker Bergwerksverein". Their share capital amounted to 5.4 million marks. Ten years later, the AG was returned to its original union form. On December 30, 1907, the trade union meeting resolves the premature liquidation of the company. The operation was stopped because the mining of the ores made mining more and more difficult and finally impossible due to the ingress of large amounts of salty mine water and the frequent spontaneous combustion of the alum slate near the Ganges. The mine brought the necessary workers - the company already had 570 employees in 1892 - from Italy or mostly from the Catholic Eifel. Selbeck was nicknamed "Neu-Prüm" at this time. The number of inhabitants more than doubled within a short period of time, from 460 in 1880 to 1,085 in 1901. The first miners found accommodation with the Selbeck farms and farmers as tenants, boarders or sleepers. Through the colliery, they participated in the economic upswing of their community in many ways. Soon, however, this space was no longer sufficient. A "living and dining establishment" for 125 unmarried miners was built on Kölner Str. - not far from the colliery site. The menu, which is valid for half a year, provides information about the eating habits of the time: twice rind, sometimes with bread, sometimes with pearl barley; Jacket potatoes with a pickled herring; 115 gr. Pork with potatoes and white cap; Semolina, pearl barley - or potato soup - some of the typical dishes of the time. From 1890 to 1893, the mining association built 20 two-family houses for its workers and their families, which were grouped symmetrically around the church, on a 20.5 hectare plot of land belonging to the Markscheider farm owned by Count Spee. The houses had a water connection and 500 m² of garden land each - enough space for the “miner's cow”. Additional buildings were a double house for officials at the entrance to the village, the school, a syringe house and a sexton's house. Prayer in church and participation in the village community life may have provided the miners with a balance for their hard work in the mine.
Web links
- Website of the parish in the parish association
- Website of the association
- St. Theresa bells ringing (WDR recording)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Manfred Buer: The couch grass . In: Ratinger and Angerländer Heimatblätter . No. 79 . Breitscheid 2009.
- ↑ a b c Carl Forst: Description of the welfare institutions of the Selbeck mining association . Cologne 1889.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p unknown: Festschrift of the parish: "100 years of St. Theresa Church, Mülheim-Selbeck" . Ed .: unknown. Mülheim Selbeck.
- ↑ a b unknown: Festschrift: 100 years "School on Karl-Forst-Straße" . Ed .: unknown. Mülheim Selbeck 1993.
- ↑ F. Otto: accounting and cash book . Hemelingen 1892.
- ^ 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, here in particular p. 506 .
- ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, here in particular p. 473 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (PhD thesis at Radboud University Nijmegen).
- ↑ a b Rainer Slotta: The metal ore mining . In: Technical monuments in the Federal Republic . 1986.
- ↑ The Selbeck ore mines near Mintard (ed.): In memory of the 3rd General German Miners' Day in Düsseldorf . Mintard 1886.
- ↑ unknown: Glückauf . Ed .: Berg- und Hüttenmännische Zeitung. 1886.
- ↑ a b Yearbooks of the Oberberg District Dortmund . 1904.