Kirche St. Gangolf, Baroque church in Mettlach, Germany.
Kirche St. Gangolf is a baroque church situated between Besseringen and Mettlach, designed as a hall church with detailed architectural features from its period. The building combines classic baroque style with regional construction methods characteristic of the Saar valley area.
The parish received its first documented mention around 1230 when it joined Mettlach monastery and served surrounding communities. This connection to Benedictine traditions shaped its role in the region's religious life for the following centuries.
The baroque high altar came from the parish church of Oberwesel and was last installed in Gutenberg before reaching St. Gangolf; the neo-Romanesque altar tables are still in use. Since 2008 the church has held the sandstone group "Entombment of Christ", the only survivor of a Way of the Cross carved by Johann Bohr of Tünsdorf in 1792–1793; Karl Riemann of Blieskastel-Lautzkirchen made new stations in 1934.
The church stands between Besseringen and Mettlach, on the road linking the two villages; the site is reached on foot from either side. The building is a listed monument and the remaining stump of the Capuchin monastery, with its small roof turret, stands next to it. Behind the church, old gravestones are set into the wall of the former Capuchin cemetery.
Behind the church, old gravestones of the Capuchin friars are set into the wall that closes off their former cemetery; the friars used the adjoining monastery building from 1901 to 1974. On the lawn in front of the church lies the grave of Julia Schwarzbach.
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