St. Lambertus Immerath

The demolition of the so-called cathedral of Immerath took place
with great media attention

St. Lambertus was a Roman Catholic parish church, located in the village center of Immerath.

The church has been a listed building since May 14, 1985, but despite protests it was finally demolished on January 8 and 9, 2018 in favor of the Garzweiler brown coal opencast mine.

It was the only church in the Heinsberg district with a double tower facade. The building was also popularly known as the “Immerather Dom”.

The last service
in Immerath

Before a church can be demolished, a decree is read out during a final service that profanes the church. It is therefore no longer a holy place. This service took place on October 13, 2018. The “Holy of Holies” was removed from the altar and the Eternal Light was extinguished.

The day before, the last regular event in the church was a baptism and a wedding in the otherwise almost completely deserted Immerath.

De-dedication of the church of Immerath (October 2013)

The cathedral of Immerath will be demolished

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On January 8th and 9th, 2018, the church was demolished by Immerath. The start of demolition work was delayed because Greenpeace activists gained access to the building and hung on the facade. However, demolition began around midday and was completed the next afternoon.

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Move the slider or use the arrow keys.January 8, 2018 view large / January 8, 2018 view large

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Move the slider or use the arrow keys.January 7, 2018 view large / January 9, 2018 view large

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Demolition of the church of Immerath (January 2018)

Archaeological excavations

After the demolition in January 2018, archaeologists took over the old location of the church. This gave them the opportunity to examine the building history of the Immerath church in more detail and to uncover and document the old foundations of the previous buildings before everything is demolished.

Excavations at the site of the church of Immerath (2018)

The chapel at the new location

A smaller chapel was built in the new town to replace the Immerather cathedral.

RWE compensated the church, just as the residents are compensated.

How the compensation amount is used and what a new church building looks like or how big it will be is at the discretion of the church.

Twelve villages will be demolished for opencast mining

Five villages have already been completely destroyed, one has almost nothing left and six others are currently being relocated. Two to three individual farms, the final mining limit is not yet entirely certain, will be relocated towards the end of the opencast mining.