Poor Clares

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Clarisse

The second order of St. Francis , the Order of the Poor Clares , and arms Poor Clares or Poor Clares called ( Latin Ordo Sanctae clarae , religious symbol OSCl; also seraphic orders called in France also Cordelières ), was the Holy Francis and St. Clare of Assisi founded (1193 to 1253). Attracted by the sermon of St. Francis, Clare of Favarone decided to follow Christ in evangelical poverty.

history

After Klara in the night of Palm Sunday (. 18-19 March) 1212 in the Portiunculakapelle of Francis's hair had cut and was dressed by him "with a poor garment" brought Francis it for a short time in two convents of Benedictine women under. She later found shelter at the San Damiano chapel on the outskirts of Assisi, which was restored by Francis . In the meantime, other women, including her younger sister Agnes , had joined her. The community of sisters quickly became known as "Damianitinnen", "poor women near San Damiano". It was only after Clare's death in 1253 that they were referred to as Poor Clares and the Order of St. Damian became the Order of the Poor Clares.

Francis wrote a short rule (Formula vitae) for the community, of which Clare had been abbess since 1215 , which demanded strict enclosure and complete poverty with almost no property or income. Like Francis, Clare wanted to hold on to this evangelical poverty claim. The example of the Damianite Sisters quickly found imitation and thus led to the founding of new monasteries by the Minorites and Poor Clares, and later to the establishment of a third order .

St. Clare mourns for St. Francis. Cycle of frescoes by Giotto di Bondone in the Basilica of Assisi.
Entrance to the Church of San Damiano in Assisi

Cardinal Hugolin von Ostia, later Pope Gregory IX. , saw in these monasteries a model for the reform of other women's monasteries, took them on and wrote his own rule, which was based on the Benedictine Rule and classified the Damianite women in traditional monasticism . In most of the monasteries that followed the example of San Damiano, the rule of Cardinal Hugolin was introduced after 1218. Since Clare had given up Hugolin's Franciscan poverty and saw the immediate assignment to the Friars Minor endangered, she stayed with the Formula vitae of Francis even with a few monasteries (including the one founded by Blessed Agnes of Bohemia in Prague ) . In 1228 Hugolin (now Pope Gregory IX) granted Clare the privilege of poverty (Privilegium paupertatis) .

In 1247, the sisters of Innocent IV received a new rule, which adhered to the rule of St. Francis of 1223 and thus clearly assigned the Damianites to the Franciscans, which was entirely in the spirit of Clare. However, she protested against the fact that Innocent IV granted the monasteries a fixed income and common property, because this eliminated the privilege of poverty. Three years later, the Pope's rule was withdrawn again because the Franciscans had resisted it too, because they saw too great a burden in the pastoral care and management of the sister community.

Clare then began to write her own rule and in her “Testament” insistently laid out her own way of conversion and her Franciscan succession to Christ. In 1253 the rule of Clare was confirmed by Pope Innocent IV with the confirmation bull Solet annuere . Two days later, on August 11th, Klara died. It was in a time of lively religious women's movement, in which women often joined together to form religious communities, and so the order of Clare had spread quickly despite the internal insecurity. When St. Clare died there were already 111 monasteries: 68 in Italy, 21 in Spain, 14 in France, 8 in the Holy Roman Empire ; towards the end of the 14th century there were over 400 monasteries in Europe.

The rule of Clara only applied to the monastery of San Damiano, and so there remained uncertainty and diversity in the other Franciscan women's monasteries. In order to finally be able to remedy this problem and to achieve a uniform order, Pope Urban IV published a new rule in 1263; to a large extent it took up the rule of Pope Innocent IV again and once again allowed the monasteries to share property and a fixed income to secure their livelihood. This led to the fact that the monasteries did not achieve the desired unity, as they were now divided into two groups: one followed a stricter observance according to the rule of Clare, the other the Urbans IV.( Urbanists , Ordo Sanctae Clarae regulae Urbani IV. , Abbreviation OSClUrb). The stricter branch is called after a reform by the French Clarisse Colette von Corbie at the beginning of the 15th centuryColettinische Klarissen or Colet (t) inside (Latin: Ordo Sanctae Clarae reformationis from Coleta , poor clarissas; order abbreviation OSClCol). After the Capuchin Order split off from the Franciscan Order in 1525 , a reform movement also formed among the Poor Clares, the Capuchin Poor Clares (OSClCap). Within this movement, the Capuchin Sisters of Perpetual Adoration emerged in 1860, with four houses in Germany today.

Today there are around 1,000 Poor Clare monasteries worldwide. In Germany there are about 20 Poor Clare monasteries of different observance. The urbanist branch, to which most of the Poor Clare monasteries in Germany belonged in the Middle Ages, still has around 88 monasteries worldwide with 1200 nuns, the Colettinnen branch with around 60 monasteries in Spanish-speaking countries has almost 800 sisters and the Capuchin Poor Clares (SOClCap) 2300 sisters in 157 monasteries.

See also

literature

  • Lothar Hardick OFM: The Order of St. Klara in Germany. Notes on its history. On the occasion of the seven centenary of the death of St. Clare. In: Vita Seraphica , 34th year, 1953, pp. 49–73, now also in: Dieter Berg (Ed.): Spiritualität und Geschichte. Ceremony for Lothar Hardick OFM on his 80th birthday. Werl 1993, ISBN 3-87163-195-7 , pp. 185-202.
  • Ancilla Röttger, Petra Groß: Poor Clares. Past and present of a religious community. Werl 1994.

Web links

Commons : Poor Clares  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Poor Clares. In: Order online , accessed on February 13, 2019.
  2. [1] ; [2] ; [3] .