St. Kilian: Catholic Parish Church in Erftstadt-Lechenich
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page12 sections
History
St. Kilian is a Catholic parish church in Lechenich, Germany, now a district of Erftstadt. The present building was constructed between 1746 and 1749 in the Baroque period and replaced a church damaged by repeated fires. It stands near the market square within the preserved ground plan of the medieval town.
Medieval Parish Church
In 1254, Archbishop Konrad incorporated the developing parish church of Lechenich into St. Aposteln in Cologne, the Basilica of the Holy Apostles and a major collegiate religious institution. St. Aposteln held patronage rights, lands, and tithes connected with the church and the surrounding area. The present parish church succeeded an earlier building west of the town, outside its walls. That church had been abandoned before Lechenich was fortified.
In 1271, Archbishop Engelbert II of Falkenburg confirmed St. Aposteln’s rights over the church at the present location, continuing the arrangement that had applied to its predecessor. The church was dedicated to Saint Kilian in 1485. Kilian was a seventh-century Irish missionary and bishop whose cult spread widely in continental Europe, and the church has borne his name ever since.
The parish possessed a Marian altar by 1356. A visitation on 3 August 1662 described side altars dedicated to patrons of local brotherhoods, including Saint Agatha and Saint Anthony the Great.
Sieges, Fires, and Baroque Rebuilding
Lechenich’s conflicts repeatedly affected the church. Sieges during the Truchsess War in 1583, the Thirty Years’ War in 1642, and the Dutch War in 1673 brought military danger to the town. During the siege of 1642, bombardment opened large breaches in the church walls. After entering the building, the besiegers used those openings as loopholes. Repairs followed their withdrawal, and views of the town from 1646 and later show the church otherwise intact.
A major fire in 1702 severely damaged the building and made extensive rebuilding necessary. Work was delayed by disputes over responsibility for the choir, nave, tower, churchyard wall, and ossuary. The municipality began rebuilding the tower in 1706, and it was completed around 1717. The tower later served as a store for firefighting equipment.
Archbishop Joseph Clemens and his successor, Archbishop Clemens August, pressed St. Aposteln to help finance a complete reconstruction. Another fire in 1722 destroyed almost every house in Lechenich and caused further delays. St. Aposteln and the municipality eventually agreed that St. Aposteln would pay for a new roof, while the municipality would restore the church in the Baroque style. A further fire in 1744 finally made rebuilding unavoidable. St. Aposteln commissioned the new church between 1746 and 1749, and the building was consecrated in 1750.
Neo-Gothic Alterations and Later History
In 1864, the church was remodeled with prominent Neo-Gothic elements under designs prepared by the Cologne architect Ernst Friedrich Zwirner. Neo-Gothic was a nineteenth-century revival of medieval Gothic architecture, characterized here by features such as pointed arches, tracery, buttresses, and rib vaults. In 1888, Cologne architects Carl Rüdell and Richard Odenthal added a transept and a new choir. The Baroque altars were removed and replaced with Neo-Gothic altars. The former altars are said to have been transferred to the Heddinghoven Chapel of St. Servatius.
St. Kilian survived the Second World War relatively well. Its Neo-Gothic high altar was dismantled in 1961 after the wood was damaged. A replacement altar from the parish of Lendersdorf was restored and installed in the choir in 1982. The present organ combines a new work by Josef Weimbs Orgelbau with sixteen registers from an 1880 predecessor. Its surviving Baroque case front dates from the church’s construction period.
Remains
Exterior and Structural Form
The Baroque Tower
The eighteenth-century church is a brick Baroque building with four bays, a choir, and a tower projecting at the west end. The tower has four principal stories, curved gables, and a prominent onion dome. Its upper levels originally had two round-arched sound openings on each side. A sound opening allows the bells to carry beyond the tower, while the middle section is decorated with blind arches, ornamental arches that do not create openings. This delicate treatment reflects regional building traditions.
After the nave was added, its roof concealed the tower’s lower sound openings, so the town raised the tower by another story. The later bell stage differs stylistically from the earlier work. Horizontal bands of cut stone frame its windows and masonry, while the framing, imposts, and wedge-shaped arch stones beneath the onion dome remain prominent.
The Nave, Transept, and Choir
The nave was built later than the tower and was not fully coordinated with it. Its tall round-arched windows were adapted to the height of the nave and separated by pilasters integrated into the masonry. The 1864 remodeling inserted Gothic-style tracery into the arched windows, and the exterior pilasters received stepped buttresses reaching toward the upper cornice.
The transept added in 1888 continues the cornice line of the nave. Its short arms contain the side altars, while the north arm holds a richly carved baptismal font, the vessel used for Christian baptism. The same campaign produced the polygonal choir, whose pointed-arched windows contain tracery. Rib vaults cover the crossing and choir, supported on corbels, while large groin vaults span the nave and rest on transverse arches carried by half-columns.
Interior Arrangement and Furnishings
Entrances, Gallery, and Tower Chapel
The official entrance lies on the northwest side, one of four existing entrances. It opens into a modest vestibule beneath the organ gallery and then into the nave. Another entrance is set in the south wall of the first bay. The gallery is recessed into the rear wall and has a flat beam ceiling supported at its front by wooden beams. Its beams, braces, and balustrade carry Neo-Gothic carving.
The open lower level of the tower contains a small chapel. Beside it, a display case holds an Anna Selbdritt, an image of Saint Anne with the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. A staircase beside wall sculptures opens onto the south side of the tower’s first bay. It forms part of a two-story exterior spiral tower and leads to the organ gallery and the bell tower.
Nave and Liturgical Furnishings
High round-arched windows with tracery line both sides of the nave. Their colored glazing depicts biblical scenes and includes the date 1902 in the lowest section. Two confessionals stand on each side in the bay sections beginning from the west, and a small staircase in the fourth bay of the south wall leads to the pulpit, the raised platform used for scripture and preaching.
A central aisle, bordered by benches, crosses a black-and-white tiled floor and continues toward the vaulted crossing and adjoining choir. The choir is slightly elevated. The high altar, side altars, organ gallery, baptismal font, confessionals, and pulpit form a stylistically unified ensemble. The present high altar is the restored altar acquired from Lendersdorf.
Bells and Organ
The church received a new peal from Martin Legros of Malmedy in 1744. Two bronze bells made by the Otto foundry of Hemelingen in Bremen were added in 1926, but both were melted down during the Second World War. Three new Otto bells completed the peal again in 1957. The five bells now sound the notes d’, e’, g’, a’, and c”. Their diameters are 1,412, 1,257, 1,083, 965, and 792 millimetres, with corresponding weights of 1,650, 1,150, 800, 600, and 300 kilograms.
The present organ incorporates a new instrument by Josef Weimbs Orgelbau and sixteen registers from the predecessor organ built in 1880. Its Baroque prospect, the visible ornamental front of the instrument, survives from the period when the church was constructed.
