Catholic parish church "St. Antonius Einsiedler"

The first church in Bechen was probably founded around the same time as the Cistercian monastery in Altenberg around 1133. The church was first mentioned around 1275 in a directory of the Archbishopric of Cologne. In 1301, the knight Adolf von Stammheim sells his Bechener Fronhof (allod, i.e. individual farm that can be freely sold) with the associated farms ("Hörigen"), land, income and rights to Altenberg Abbey. This Fronhof, from time immemorial the center and original cell of the small village, can be delimited today as an area on the village street, on the one hand the former Koch inn, next to it the König farm; opposite, on the site of the Caritas house, was the location of the church and the cemetery. The patronage of the church in Bechen was linked to the Fronhof and passed to the abbey, which was looked after by the Cistercian monks of Altenberg until secularization and the dissolution of the abbey in 1803. Heinrich Schuck, the last Cistercian monk who was pastor in Bechen, remained until his death in 1815.

The document states:

Anno dm (domini) MCCC pmo (primo) incorporä (incorporate) est ecclia (ecclesia) prochial (parochialis) I (in) Bechen möstio (monasterio) vetis (veteris) mont (montis).

In 1301, the parish church of Bechen was incorporated into the Altenberg monastery..

In the Altenberg abbot's chronicle, the church is depicted with a Romanesque tower and ridge turret.

In 1701, Altenberg Abbey built a new nave while retaining the Romanesque tower. On February 5, 1866, the church burned down to the surrounding walls due to a lightning strike, an emergency church was built and the tower was repaired. A larger, neo-Gothic church was then built in 1876-78 approx. 100 m east of the old site (today Caritas Haus). The old cemetery, also located there, had already been moved to its current location on the road to Pohl in 1871. The church tower had to be replaced in 1897-99 due to structural damage.

The neo-Gothic nave was demolished in 1974 due to the risk of collapse and replaced by a polygonal concrete building typical of the time in roughly the same location, which was consecrated in 1977. The choir room with the side absidia and its altars were preserved. Neo-Gothic furnishings were installed in the new building, such as glass pictures with the Beatitudes (from 1916-19), figures of saints and the Stations of the Cross. One of the four bells dates from 1889, three bells from 1954 (recast after the war).


A concrete relief above the entrance doors and a small apse with figures of the patron saints on the outside of the parapet of the small square with the high stele to the right of the church commemorate the patron saints St. Anthony and St. Catherine.


Bechen was an independent parish until the founding of the St. Marien parish association in 2010.


The church has been a listed building since 1984 (monument no.: 4).