Kirche St. Martin

Beschreibung

Based on archaeological finds, it is likely that the flood-safe settlement site around the Emmel parish church was already in use in Celtic times, but certainly in Roman times. A Roman column drum and a capital with the base of a romantic column made of shell limestone bear witness to this. The church with the patronage of St. Martin, which was originally a branch of Piesport, became the patronage of the Karthause in Trier in 1376. The current parish church was built in 1723 as a cross-vaulted hall building with a west tower. The upper part of a Gothic sacrament house is the only remnant of the old predecessor church, along with two bells from 1421 and 1477 and the Gothic baptismal font (in front of the house at Kettergasse 3). 
Due to the increase in population in the 19th century, the 150-year-old chancel was demolished in 1930 and the church was extended to the east with a wide transept and spacious choir room. In 1967/68, the church was redesigned according to the guidelines of the renewed liturgy, until the dilapidated nave was provided with tie rods and renovated in a first construction phase in the mid-1990s.

Eberhard Münch, a church painter from Wiesbaden, designed and executed the new color scheme for the chancel, including a medieval wooden corpus of the crucified Christ on a red glass background and the choir room windows. It is also thanks to him that the six plagues of mankind (disease, hunger, war, ignorance, bondage and death) are named in writing in a surrounding band of color under the chancel windows - between them the cross as a sign of redemption. In addition, he painted and donated a 12 square meter Lenten cloth on canvas to the congregation, which covers the crucified Christ together with the glass panel construction in the period between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The large staircase window with an Easter motif on the rectory (cemetery side) is also by him.

The bronze apostle candlestick, the baptismal font, incorporated into the paradisiacal tree of knowledge in the centre of the church; the pillar of fire, which together with the eternal light indicates the presence of God; the lectern, which shows the division of the mantle - the key scene of Christian charity - from the life of the church patron saint and the vine tabernacle, with the heart connection of two vines typical of our wine-growing landscape, were created by the South Tyrolean Hermann-Josef Runggaldier from Ortisei. The same artist also created the bronze protective mantle Madonna, which is located on the northern exterior of the parish church.

The vestry seat and the choir benches were designed and created by the blacksmith Hans-Jörg Bender from Schweich, the stained glass of the vestibule doors by Heidemarie Leder from Kanzem. A replica of the relief "Christ in the winepress" has been in the tower since 2010. It comes from the estate of the Piesport building contractor Ludwig Wanninger.

A special feature in the history of the parish of St. Martin is a long-lasting split in the community, when a civil constitution became binding for the clergy in 1790 in the course of the French Revolution. The parish priest of "Emmel" at the time, Karl Anton Feyen, refused to swear an oath to this constitution and was therefore expelled from the country in 1801. Before that, however, he appointed a parish administrator on his own authority. He found a large following among the population, who refused to recognize the new pastor, who had been appointed by the diocese in the meantime. A letter of admonition from Trier was unsuccessful and a schism arose among the families and inhabitants of the village, which lasted in its last remnants until 1866. The people of Niederemmel got their nickname from this time

        "Emmeler Knupperten"