The burial church of St. Bartholomäus is a former Roman Catholic parish church in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, which has been used as a columbarium since 2014, in which the ashes of the deceased are buried in burial chambers. The burial church is supported by the Catholic parish of Saints Rochus, Epiphany and Bartholomew. It is the first and so far (as of 2019) only burial church in the Archdiocese of Cologne.
In 1955 the architect Hans Schwippert, a representative of functionalism, was commissioned to plan the church. It was built in 1958-59 and consecrated in December 1959; the construction of the church tower followed in 1962. The church, which is kept emphatically simple, was built on an approximately square floor plan and shows the raw exposed concrete inside, the outer facade was clad with red brick. In 1978, the stained glass windows created by Giselbert Hoke were used, followed in 1988 by the Way of the Cross made by Ludek Tichy. In April 1995, the church was included in the Cologne list of monuments as a monument under number 7460.
In 2006, after the merger of the three parishes of St. Rochus, St. Epiphany and St. Bartholomew, the church council decided to convert the St. Bartholomew's Church into a burial church. The architectural competition to transform the church into a columbarium was announced in January 2011. In 2011, the roof and facade of the building were renovated and the design by the architect Hans-Peter Kissler from Wiesbaden was selected for conversion into a burial church. In March 2013, the Archbishop's General Vicariate granted the building permit.
On January 24, 2014, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of St. Bartholomew was opened and blessed by Auxiliary Bishop Melzer, the first urn burial in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher took place on January 27, 2014.