St. Martinus, Filial church in Wissersheim, Nörvenich, Germany.
St. Martinus is a Neo-Romanesque brick hall church with three naves, a transept and a three-sided choir, built 1894–1896 to plans by Theodor Kremer. Its four-storey west tower becomes octagonal above the second floor and carries a slate-clad pyramidal spire. The nave shows a round-arched window with a circular window and a smaller gabled entrance.
Wissersheim was first documented in 836, and a Romanesque church from the 12th century served the parish, which existed around 1300 in the Deanery of Bergheim. That building was demolished as unsafe at the end of the 19th century. The present church was built a few metres south between 1894 and 1896 to plans by Cologne architect Theodor Kremer and consecrated on 7 May 1896 by auxiliary bishop Hermann Joseph Schmitz. It is listed as monument number 72 in Nörvenich.
The parish was merged with St. Medardus, St. Gertrud, St. Heribert, St. Mariä Heimsuchung and St. Viktor into the parish of St. Josef Nörvenich, so St. Martinus is no longer a parish church. Its patron is St. Martin of Tours, and the interior keeps pieces from the 12th-century predecessor, among them a 1653 Descent from the Cross and an early Gothic crucifix.
The church sits in the Wissersheim area and can be reached via local roads, making it accessible for visits. It helps to check opening times beforehand since the space mainly hosts community gatherings and regular services.
The tower's 16-metre spire was shot off by a direct hit in the Second World War and demolished in May 1945; it was only re-erected in 1982, made of spruce and weighing 3.5 tonnes. It could not be rebuilt to the original height because Nörvenich airfield lies about a kilometre away, imposing height limits.
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