St. Thomas Church (Hemer)
The Thomaskirche is a former Protestant church in Hemer in North Rhine-Westphalia , which was inaugurated in 1966. In 2007 the congregation sold the building to the Hemer Baptist congregation . The church is located in Gockelschen Park in the center of the Westig district .
history
Planning
When the Protestant parish in Hemer created a second pastorate in 1903, planning began to build a church for Westig and Sundwig . The two world wars and the inflation during the Weimar Republic prevented the building of a church for financial reasons. Instead, a community hall was built, which is still called the Zinzendorfhaus today and which is now used as a leisure and training home.
After the Second World War , planning was resumed. In 1951 the Protestant church divided the two districts into two independent parish offices, so that a short time later it was finally decided to build two smaller churches instead of a large church in the direct vicinity of the Zinzendorfhaus. While the Christ Church in Sundwig was consecrated in 1964 , construction in Westig was delayed for a few more years.
The Protestant church acquired a site on the edge of Gockel Park in the center of the village as a building site . There was the now dilapidated Villa Gockel , which was finally demolished in 1964. The Witte family of manufacturers had the building built in 1875/76 and presumably sold it in 1909 to the Gockel family, who in the following decades owned stone quarries in the Hemer district and a company for steel wire mattresses . Later owners were the Clarfeld manufacturers and the Hans Prinzhorns family .
Construction and inauguration
An architect from Dortmund took on the design of the church building, for which the foundation stone was laid on December 19, 1964, with the bell ringing of the Catholic parish church in Westigs . Even at that time, the apostle Thomas was the namesake. On June 16, 1965, the community celebrated the topping-out ceremony . The three bells had been completed a few months earlier. In the Zinzendorfhaus, the bell of the former Vitus Church from 1498, which today hangs on the Paul Schneider House , rang . In autumn 1965 the bells hung in the tower of the new St. Thomas Church for the first time.
The exterior work was completed in November 1965, so the church was consecrated after the interior work was completed. Ernst Wilm , President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, took over this task after the parish of the parish from the Zinzendorfhaus to the Thomaskirche. This enabled Easter and confirmation to take place in the new, modern rooms in 1966.
Community life around the Thomaskirche
The Karl Schuke Berlin organ building workshop built the new organ of the St. Thomas Church, which was inaugurated on June 23, 1986. In 1972 the parish hall was built next to St. Thomas Church. A year later, a former kindergarten was converted into a community hall, while the Zinzendorfhaus was leased. With the inauguration of the new facility, the community is also building an elderly meeting place for senior citizens in Westig. The parish hall was given the name "Adolf Frommann House".
In 1984 the Thomaskirche was shown in the " Service on ZDF " series. The sermon was delivered by Helmut Frenz , then Secretary General of Amnesty International . In it he also addressed the history of the city of Hemer as the location of Stalag VIa during the Nazi regime. In 1991 the congregation celebrated the 25th anniversary of the St. Thomas Church. In 1997 the St. Thomas Church was expanded to include a parish hall.
Sale and de-dedication
After the congregation had already sold the Adolf Frommann House to the Hemeraner Baptist congregation in 1997, they decided to give up the St. Thomas Church in 2007. In the meantime, Westig and Sundwig have again formed the joint southern district within the Protestant parish in Hemer. The Sundwiger Christ Church should be the only community center in it. In May 2007, the Baptists expressed an interest in buying the church, which was decided for the following July. On June 17, 2007, the divestment service took place, which ended with the Lord's Supper in the Christ Church. The Sundwiger Church is to be the common community center for Westiger and Sundwiger Protestants in the future, which is why it was fundamentally modernized and renovated in 2008.
architecture
The semicircular arrangement of the stalls around the altar and the pulpit is architecturally striking, so that the St. Thomas Church is a hybrid between the traditional basilica and a central building . The windows on both sides of the stalls, which connect the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, are characteristic. The Hagen artist Roswitha Vombek-Lüder designed the windows and referred to the Thomas story in the Gospel , in which the risen Jesus also bears the wounds of the nails. The same motifs merge into the design of the back wall behind the altar.
The altar , pulpit and baptismal font , on the other hand, are simply designed. The floor plan is symmetrical, with the sacristy and presbytery to the left of the entrance and a parish hall for about 80 people on the right. In the case of special church services, this hall can also be seated so that the church can hold a total of around 400 believers.
See also
- List of Hemeran churches and places of worship
- List of de-dedicated churches in the Evangelical Church of Westphalia
literature
- 25 years Thomaskirche Hemer-Westig in: The key. Hemer 1991.
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.tripleorange.de: Zinzendorfhaus Hemer + A warm welcome. Retrieved June 8, 2018 .
- ^ Berliner Orgelbauwerkstatt GmbH ›Karl Schuke. Retrieved June 8, 2018 (German).
- ↑ IKZ Hemer : “Purchase offer for church” , from May 8, 2007
- ↑ IKZ Hemer : “Farewell to Tears from the Westiger Thomaskirche” , June 18, 2007
- ↑ IKZ Hemer : "Christ Church: Two organs and a Bechstein concert grand are in the 'Church of the South'" , from October 1, 2008
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 20.2 " N , 7 ° 45 ′ 24.4" E