Most likely
The Annahaupt is a relic of St. Anna , which is kept in a shrine in the Anna Church in Düren . The relic consists of a palm-sized piece of the skull plate. This piece of bone is incorporated into a bust .
The stonemason Leonhard from Kornelimünster stole the relic, which had been brought from Bethlehem to Mainz in 1212 , on the evening of November 29, 1500 from St. Stephen's Church in Mainz and took it with him to Kornelimünster. On December 27th, 1500, the Carthusian Hans from Mainz traveled to Leonhard's hometown with his companion. The abbot of the imperial abbey Kornelimünster informed him that he himself had brought the relic to Düren to the Franciscans so that it could be returned from there to Mainz. The Mainz delegation then traveled to Düren and received the acceptance head there. A few hours later, however, the Düren city council confiscated the relic on behalf of the Duke of Jülich . The people of Mainz returned empty-handed. They described the theft to the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz , but even they were unable to obtain the relic after a long legal dispute. Ultimately, on March 18, 1506, Pope Julius II decided in favor of Düren by means of a papal bull . The relic remained there and was placed in a valuable reliquary. In the same year the Martinskirche was placed under the patronage of St. Anne.
The annual pilgrimages to the Annahaupt took place in Düren as early as 1510 , at that time there were already 20,000 pilgrims . Even today, the worship of the relic is carried out in the Annaoktav . For this purpose, the head of acceptance is raised, i.e. taken out of the shrine, and shown to the believers. At the same time as the Anna pilgrimage in 1638, a market was held around the Anna Church. That was the forerunner of today's folk festival, the Annakirmes .
literature
- Albert Lennarz: The dispute over the St. Anna relic . In: Heimatblätter. Supplement to the Dürener Zeitung 1932, p. 113
- Günter Krieger : The head of Anna . Grenzecho-Verlag, Eupen 2001, ISBN 90-5433-151-8