Echternach jumping procession

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Echternach jumping procession
Intangible cultural heritage Intangible cultural heritage emblem
EchternachDancingProcession.jpg
Spring procession 2008 on the market square
State (s): LuxembourgLuxembourg Luxembourg
List: Representative list
Number: 00392
Admission: 2010

The Echternach jumping procession is a religious procession that takes place every year on the Tuesday after Pentecost in Echternach in Luxembourg . The participants "jump" to polka melodies in rows through the streets of the city to the grave of St. Willibrord in the Echternach basilica .

The event is part of the country's official intangible cultural heritage . The UNESCO has the procession at its meeting of 16 November 2010 in Nairobi for the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity added.

history

The current form of the jumping procession goes back to the 19th century, but sources of its origin can be traced back to the Middle Ages.

The oldest source is the sequence “Laudes Christo” by Abbot Berno von Reichenau (around 1000), in which the faithful are asked to celebrate the praise of Christ in honor of St. Willibrord “magno tripudio” (with a big triple jump). Abbot Thiofrid († 1110) reports of a pilgrim procession to the grave of St. Willibrord, but there was still no talk of a dance or "jumping". In the Middle Ages , the communities that belonged to the Imperial Abbey of Echternach had to pay their tithe to the Imperial Abbey in the week of Pentecost . This was called the ban procession. 1497 are mentioned in a source "jumping saints" . The first pictorial representation of the jumping procession dates back to 1604.

Colored postcard (around 1900) with a painting from 1553: Willibrord and the jumping procession

How it came to dancing or jumping is not fully understood today. St. Willibrord, as well as John the Baptist and St. Vitus , were saints who were invoked in cases of nervous diseases, cramps, St. Vitus ' dance or epilepsy . Expressions such as Echternach disease or the disease of St. John were often associated with the jumping procession. One can therefore assume that the sick took part in the procession or that the believers moved like sick people in the procession in order not to get these diseases. Other declarations see in the procession a thanksgiving to St. Willibrord, who is said to have freed the people of the area from the St. Vitus dance. Another theory suggests that the jumping procession evolved from a civilized form of the flagellant procession , which was popular in the 14th century as an aid against the plague . Several indications suggest that the jumping procession goes back to Willibrord's time and emerges from a Christianized pagan ritual . This was the view of most commentators on the procession in the 19th century. There have also been jumping processions in other regions of the Eifel , e.g. B. the Prüm jumping procession in Prüm , which originated in the 13th century.

In the 18th century, the century of the Enlightenment , jumping was increasingly criticized from secular and spiritual sides. Some considered it an expression of obscurantism and superstition , others regretted the derailments when the believers became too ecstatic . In 1778 the Archbishop and Elector of Trier Clemens Wenzeslaus of Saxony banned the Echternach and Prüm jumping procession because they were "not sensible" . Even the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire , Joseph II. Was in 1786 banning all processions, this prohibition took soon after, however, back, probably because anyway nobody thought of it. The procession was again banned by the French Revolution and the ensuing French occupation. Under Napoleon it was allowed again in 1801. Now women also got the right to take part.

In 1825, according to a decree of Wilhelm I , the jumping procession was to be moved from the Tuesday after Pentecost to Pentecost Sunday itself in order not to lose a working day. The Grand Duke did not seem to have had much success with this, as the decree was repealed in 1830. The only periods in recent history when the procession could not take place were the time of the German occupation 1940–1944 during the Second World War and in 2020 during the corona pandemic . Instead, there was a digital offer for implementation in June 2020.

The shape of the jumping procession

Participants come from the department gate

The dance step is not written down anywhere. The Echternach “ pilgrim step ” - two steps forward, one backward - is a popular cliché. In 1848 the Düsseldorf pastor Anton Joseph Binterim rejected the sequence of steps described in the literature available to him (3 forwards , 2 backwards, [dicunt] saltantes progredi passus tres regredique duos , according to P. Bertholet; 3 forwards , 1 backwards, [scribunt] post tertium quemque passum retrocedere passu dumtaxat uno , PFC de Feller; 2 forward, 1 backward, [ajunt] post binas tantum passus unum esse retrogradum , Encycl. Univ. Germanica) off; he himself - as already described by Michael Müller for the period around 1790 - observed in Echternach that the "jumpers" moved by taking three or four steps to the right and then as many to the left, but not jumping back ([ affirmat] saltatores non regrederentur, sed ut triplici vel ut quadruplici passu, dextrorsum totidemque passibus sinistrorsum procedendo sese moverent) ; the impression of jumping back arises at most when the procession is blocked , when a crowd prevents progress (densior turba sequentes progredi vetet) .

The first film recordings of the procession show that at the beginning of the 20th century only individual groups of pilgrims who felt obliged to a supposed tradition jumped a few steps forward and then jumped back. Very often it was three steps forward and two steps back. This regulation, which always caused chaos, was definitely abolished in 1947. Since then one only jumps forward with lateral steps, alternately to the left and to the right. The whole thing by resting briefly on the respective foot with each step and then starting the next step with the other foot, always in time with the processional march.

Today the procession is organized by the Willibrordus-Bauverein asbl . It also determines the order of the pilgrims and music groups, the processional route, etc.

The procession begins in the courtyard of the former imperial abbey of Echternach . Five pilgrims stand in a row, each holding on to his neighbor with the help of a white handkerchief. Usually the pilgrims are dressed in white shirts or t-shirts and blue or black trousers. Jumping takes place in a traditional polka manner. This was recorded in writing at the beginning of the 20th century, but is of older origin. Groups of pilgrims alternate with music groups, including many music associations from all over Luxembourg and the nearby border area. The procession takes its one kilometer long route from the abbey courtyard to Sauergasse, past the Peter and Paul Church across the market square to Bahnhofstrasse, Krämergasse, until it arrives at the basilica and thus Willibrord's grave .

The motivation to take part in the procession lies in both religious reasons and an awareness of tradition. Every year, 12,000 to 14,000 pilgrims took part in the procession. Among them are 8,000 to 9,000 jumpers. The pilgrims come from all over Luxembourg, but also from the Netherlands and Germany, especially from places near the border in the Eifel. One example is the annual foot pilgrimage from Prüm and Waxweiler , which is organized on a voluntary basis by so-called brother masters. For many pupils in Echternach schools, it is still something special to take part in the procession. However, the Tuesday after Whitsun in Luxembourg was no longer a day off in 2019, which led to protests by the organizing Willibrordus Building Association and the Bishop of Luxembourg. Students had to show an apology from their parents to their school if they wanted to take part in the procession. Nevertheless, there were more children and young people in 2019 than in previous years.

In 2019, 10,243 participants registered, that is 1,330 more than in 2018. 8,411 wanted to participate as jumpers. In addition to 592 prayers and singers, 1,174 musicians and 66 clergy took part. In addition to the Luxembourg Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich and his predecessor Fernand Franck , the Cardinals Rainer Maria Woelki from Cologne and Willem Jacobus Eijk from Utrecht , Monaco's Archbishop Bernard Barsi and the diocesan bishops Stephan Ackermann ( Trier ), Felix Genn ( Münster ) and Aachen took part the retired bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff .

The jumping procession was mentioned in the literature by Guillaume Apollinaire and Clara Viebig ( Das Kreuz im Venn , Berlin 1908).

The procession was artistically captured by the French painter Lucien Simon in the monumental painting (400 × 630 cm) La procession dansante d'Echternach (Echternach jumping procession) . For this work (and the other two works La Moselle and La Sûre ) he received first prize at the Paris World Exhibition in 1937 . The painting can be seen today in the documentation center about the jumping procession in Echternach's St. Willibrord's Basilica .

Figurative meaning

The term “Echternach jumping procession” is used in the sense of “three steps forward, two backward” for particularly arduous processes in which there are many steps backwards.

literature

  • Alex Langini: La Procession dansante d'Echternach. Son origine et son histoire . Société d'Embellissemement et de Tourisme, Echternach 1977.
  • Frank Wilhelm: "Mysterious, unique and colorful" . In: Voilà Luxembourg 2, April 1992, 4, ISSN  1017-2955 , pp. 90-101.
  • Paul Krack: Relicts of dancing mania. The dancing procession of Echternach . In: Neurology 53, Dec. 1999, ISSN  0028-3878 , 2169-2172.

Films and documentaries

  • Les danseurs d'Echternach (1947) by Evy Friedrich

Web links

Commons : Echternach jumping procession  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Echternach jumping procession Entry on the website of the national register, accessed on November 30, 2018.
  2. ↑ UNESCO: The hopping procession of Echternach (English)
  3. ↑ The jumping procession is a world cultural heritage. (Not available online.) In: SWR.de . November 17, 2010, formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 17, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.swr.de
  4. ↑ Théophile Walin: The Echternach jumping procession and Saint Willibrord. Archdiocese of Luxembourg , June 24, 2008, accessed June 10, 2019 .
  5. ^ The history of the jumping procession ( Memento of June 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), www.willibrord.lu
  6. ↑ a b Archive link ( Memento from May 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Karsten Rudolph: jumping procession to Guantánamo. In: Berlin Republic . 2007, accessed June 8, 2018 .
  8. ↑ DNB 989339076/04
  9. ↑ DNB 989339076
  10. ^ Michel Pauly, Georges Hellinghausen, Lucie Walzer: Religion in Luxemburg . In: Handbook of the Religions of the World . tape 1 . Traugott Bautz Verlag, Nordhausen 2012, ISBN 978-3-88309-727-5 , p. 277-285 .
  11. ↑ Jump procession due to Corona only digital , swr.de, from June 2, 2020 (accessed on July 14, 2020)
  12. ^ Anton Josef Binterim: De saltatoria, quae Epternaci quotannis celebratur, supplicatione cum praeviis in choreas sacras animadversionibus. Tractatum historicum. Düsseldorf 1848, p. 18f.
  13. ↑ Luxemburger Wort: Jumping and praying through Echternach , June 11, 2019.
  14. ↑ domradio.de: Large attendance at the Echternach jumping procession , June 11, 2019.
  15. ↑ Fig. St. Willibrord's Basilica, Echternach ( Memento from June 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )