Status: 10.08.2023, 19:22 p.m.
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Will lead the future city church: Pastor Benjamin Gnan (third from right). © Hi
The parish associations of St. Jakob as well as Heilig Kreuz and St. Peter are merged to form the Stadtkirche. This is expected to take two years.
Dachau – The Catholic parishes of Dachau are facing major upheavals. For example, the two parish associations of St. Jakob and Heilig Kreuz/St. Peter, which have existed in Dachau so far, are to be merged into one city church. This was announced by Benjamin Gnan, Dean of the Dachau parishes and pastor of the Dachau St. Jakob Parish Association, in the current parish letter.
Will lead the future city church: Pastor Benjamin Gnan (third from right). © Hi
Since the departure of the long-time pastor of Holy Cross and St. Peter, Heinrich Denk, Gnan has also been acting head of this parish association due to illness. In his own words, Gnan has "endeavoured to do justice to this task within the scope of my possibilities". However, he does not see the leadership of two parish associations by his person as a permanent solution.
For example, the Dachau Parish Association of St. Cross and St. Peter also needs a "clear and coherent vision of the future". For this reason, the responsible committees in the Dachau parishes as well as the Archbishop's Ordinariate have dealt intensively with the topic of "Stadtkirche Dachau" in recent months. This is now being sought. This means that the four parishes of the parish band of St. Jakob, i.e. the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, St. Jakob, Mitterndorf and Pellheim and the two parishes of Heilig Kreuz and St. Peter, which form the second Dachau parish association, are to be merged. Gnan expects that such a process and the associated coordination in pastoral care and administration will take about two years.
There are already city churches in other cities of the archdiocese. For example, in the Stadtkirche Landshut there is a joint pastoral care team, a city church council and a general church administration. However, no parish, no parish council and no church foundation at parish level was dissolved there.
According to current plans, the process in Dachau should begin as early as Advent this year. Gnan also sees the process of merging the parishes into the city church of Dachau as an opportunity to "keep Catholic life in our city alive for the future". However, this also includes "the courage to raise one's head beyond the horizon of our previously accustomed structures".
The process towards becoming a city church already has personnel consequences. The previous chaplain of St. Jakob, Jasper Gülden, will become parish vicar of Holy Cross and St. Peter on 1 September. The new chaplain in St. Jakob will be Christian Ulbrich, who was ordained a priest in July and previously worked in the Röhrmoos-Hebertshausen parish association.
Bernhard Hirsch