Christ's Transfiguration Church (Cologne-Heimersdorf)

In the early 1960s the population of Heimersdorf grew sharply as part of the housing development of the Neue Stadt Chorweiler. From 1962 a separate pastoral district formed here, incorporating older settlements from the neighbouring parishes of Weiler, Longerich and Fühlingen. At first the attic of a private shop served as an emergency church — notably, the Protestant congregation also held its services there. The rectorate parish Christi Verklärung was founded in January 1963.

As the makeshift church soon proved too small for the growing congregation, Lehmbrock was commissioned in 1963 to plan a complex comprising a church, hall, youth centre, staff apartments, kindergarten and library. The parish hall was finished so quickly that from April 1965 services were celebrated in this Tabor Hall, complemented by a provisional bell tower. By October 1966 the church itself was complete; shortly before its consecration on 29 October, the foundation stone was placed within the masonry.

The furnishings continued to grow in the following years: bells were added at the end of 1967 and an organ in 1974. In 1978 the crypt received an altar slab found during excavations in the northern aisle of Cologne Cathedral. The last provisional element, the ambo, was replaced in 1979.

In the single-storey baptistery, set two steps lower than its surroundings, stands a font made of various stone objects — some crafted by apprentices at the Cologne Cathedral workshop, some dating from the 19th century; an accompanying cross is the work of Toni Zenz. The large rose window with abstract compositions in red and blue was created by Günter Peltzer. Among the earliest pieces is a Baroque Madonna sculpture from Aargau in Switzerland, made around 1750 and placed to the left of the altar area.

The altar with its vine motif was made by the Düsseldorf sculptor Josef Klein from black Kattenfels. The altar cross hanging above it, by Hubert Gülden (1971), is inspired by Romanesque triumphal crosses and depicts a crowned, royal Christ surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists. The eagle-shaped ambo comes from Paul Nagel. A 1975 work by the Cologne sculptor Jutta Osten first served as the tabernacle; it was later exchanged for the sacrament house of the sold sister church St. Markus, which is made from a pinnacle of Cologne Cathedral and contains a tabernacle by Paul Nagel. In 2000 a Russian icon of the Transfiguration of Christ was added, as well as the collaboratively created collage "Entfaltungen" by Eva Marie Degenhardt, which clads a concrete louvre to the left of the altar over its full height.

The condition of the outer walls no longer matches the original, which is why heritage protection by the monument conservator has so far not been granted. Between 2007 and 2011 the large rose window was restored over four years, and a later-added second entrance on the side aisle had to be repaired because of subsidence.