St. Katharina, Parish church in Langerwehe, Germany.

St. Katharina is the Roman Catholic parish church of Wenau, part of Langerwehe in the Kreis Düren. Its main body is built of rough light grey and brown stone blocks under a steep dark slate roof, with tall pointed windows framed by stone tracery on the elevated left section and a smaller round-arched window lower on the right. A tall, slender dark spire topped with a cross rises behind and to the right. Inside, pale plastered walls and stone arches frame three pointed recesses on the right wall, a painted statue on a bracket between them, a dark wooden chandelier and rows of light wooden pews.

Founded in 1122 by Count Walram III Paganus of Limburg as a Premonstratensian double monastery under Floreffe Abbey, St. Katharina became a parish church in 1804 after the monastery was dissolved in 1802. The male branch moved to Schwarzenbroich in 1340, and the site was plundered in 1542, damaged by fire in 1561 and rebuilt after destruction in 1642. The choir with its ribbed vault was rebuilt in the 15th or 16th century.

The church is a station on the Way of St. James leading to Santiago de Compostela. Its 1969 bells are dedicated to Saint Catherine, Saint Pancras, Saint Norbert and Saint Donatus. The parish was founded in 1804, after the monastery was dissolved in 1802.

The church is walkable from the town center and its towers are visible from many spots around Langerwehe, making it easy to locate. Plan time to walk through the interior carefully to notice the craftsmanship in the stonework and windows.

The monastery was dissolved in 1802 after 680 years, and the church became a parish in 1804. Its oldest treasure is a wooden Crucifixion group of 1250/1260, moved in 1953/54 to the triumphal arch; it is the oldest fully preserved example of its kind in the Meuse region.