Emmeram from Regensburg

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Statue of the saint near the St. Emmeram Bridge in Munich

The holy Emmeram (Heimramm) (* unknown in Poitiers , tortured allegedly by 652 in small village Help ; † in Feldkirchen near Munich ) was bishop and martyr . The dating is based on the Vita et passio Sancti Haimhrammi Martyri of the Freising Bishop Arbeo as well as on the late Gothic tombstone in Aschheim. Other dates mention the years 685 and 692 as well as the time around 715. The bishop is buried in St. Emmeram in Regensburg . Other spellings of his name are Emmeran, Emeran, Haimeran, Heimeran. The only written source on his life comes from Bishop Arbeo von Freising , who wrote the Vita et passio Sancti Haimhrammi martyris around 750 - a good 100 years after Emmeram's death.

In his old Bavarian homeland, he is considered a fateful messenger of faith of the 7th century. His feast day in the Catholic calendar of saints is September 22nd.

Life

The wandering monk Emmeram, who was initially bishop of Poitiers in Aquitaine , came during a missionary trip to spread Christianity in the middle of the 7th century from western Franconia along the Danube to the Bavarian ducal court in Regensburg, where the Agilolfing duke Theodo I ruled. This accepted Emmeram benevolently and persuaded him to stay. Emmeram then devoted himself to strengthening Christianity in Regensburg and the surrounding area.

About three years after his arrival in Regensburg, Uta , the duke's daughter, confided in him. She had a secret liaison with the son of a civil servant who was expecting an illegitimate child. To protect the couple from a likely punishment from the Duke, Emmeram advised Uta to name himself as a father. He himself went on a pilgrimage to Rome to answer for the supposed misstep in front of the Pope and, after his return, to clarify the truth in front of the Duke.

Martyrdom of St. Emmeram. Parish Church of St Emmeram (Spalt)

When Uta revealed the agreed story to her father shortly after Emmeram's departure, he was angry. In order to save his sister's honor, the Duke's son, Lantpert (also called Landfried in some publications ), pursued the wandering bishop who was fleeing in his eyes. On September 22nd, 652 Lantpert and his troops placed the bishop in the town of Kleinhelfendorf (Isinisca), southeast of Munich , on the old Roman road Salzburg - Augsburg , the Via Julia . He had him tied to a ladder and his body parts cut off while he was still alive, until he finally had him beheaded .

According to legend, in the typical form of an early medieval saint's life, his companions Vitalis and Wolflete found the bishop still alive in his blood and tried to bring him quickly to Aschheim . Only on the way there Emmeram is said to have died near Feldkirchen. And right after Emmeram's first burial in Aschheim, according to legend, forty days of rain began.

After Duke Theodo learned the truth, he had Emmeram exhumed and the body transferred to Regensburg, where he was laid to rest in the Church of St. George. At the Anniversar 752, the Regensburg bishop Gaubald (also: Gawibald, † 761) had the body of Emmeram transferred to the new crypt in the later Imperial Abbey of St. Emmeram . The new church above was dedicated to St. Emmeram. According to legend, Emmeram was sent down the Isar on a raft , but the raft miraculously drifted upstream to Regensburg.

The imperial abbey of St. Emmeram existed until secularization . The Benedictine monastery was a center of science for centuries. Not only the famous Aventinus worked and was buried here, the natural sciences were also pursued with great zeal by the monks of this monastery.

Importance of Emmeram for the Catholic Church

Marterkapelle in Kleinhelfendorf

“The voluntary assumption of the guilt of others by Emmeram as a central statement of the Vita places the saint as a martyr of his faith in direct imitation of Christ. The question of the motive remained largely unanswered until today. Political murder has repeatedly been seen behind Emmeram's torture . The clearly Frankish tendency of Bavarian Christianization could have become the doom of the Franconian Emmeram in times of increasing Bavarian independence. The bloody act would therefore lie in the fear of the Bavarian duchy of Frankish domination. The preliminary burial of Emmeram in the ducal Aschheim, the translation to Regensburg ordered by Theodo a little later and the exile of Lantpert described by Arbeo make the murder appear more like an act of an anti-Frankish court party surrounding the duke's son. The extremely high punishment for episcopal murder, which was anchored in the Bavarian code of law, the ' Lex Baiuvariorum ', was also interpreted in this context as 'Lex Haimrammi'. "

- Michael Volpert

For a long time the historical truthfulness of the legends about Emmeram was doubted. However, an anthropological analysis of the bones buried in St. Emmeram revealed traces of the severe abuse. All hand and foot bones were missing. The forearm bones, however, showed traces of blows with sharp-edged objects. The nasal bone was also injured. The injuries of the anterior dentition and the branch of the lower jaw, which often occurred during this process, indicated the pulling out and cutting out of the tongue. An empty grave shaft found in Aschheim, which was located in what was probably the first church on site and was interpreted as the temporary resting place of the bishop at the time, also points to the historical core of the Emmeram legend.

Others

Chapel Emmeram in Feldkirchen near Munich

In the publication Officium or the times of the day of the miraculous Bavarian apostle and martyr of Christ St. Emmerami, printed in Munich in 1743 , for daily and devout use in all concerns and adversities, etc. it can be read that the carriage was accompanied by

“[...] Man and woman in the 200 people with great pity and devotion. Half an hour before Aschheim, the saint demanded that a halt be made so that the hour of his reward might be in heaven. This happened, he was lifted from the wagon and laid on a beautiful meadow, where he immediately gave up his ghost ... The place where they went remained fresh and green at all times, until at last through the alms of travel (because there four streets come together) and other kind-hearted Christians a church was built, where afterwards a lot of miracles and still happen today! "

Bishop Arbeo von Freising described the life of St. Emmeram in the Vita et passio Sancti Haimhrammi martyris and describes his place of death as one

"[...] a lovely, always spring-green place where a spring rose and the residents later built a little church."

A chapel was built in 1842 at the place where St. Emmeran died, as attested by Bishop Arbeo von Freising.

A parallel legend exists about Amram von Mainz , which takes up the subject of the corpse swimming against the current.

Hermitage in Feldkirchen

It has been proven that a chapel was indeed built on the site, and later - with the monk Stiftinc - the hermits of the small monastery St. Emmeram began a thousand years of missionary and teaching activity there - it is reported that there was an attached hermitage with a cemetery . The students came from the surrounding towns, Feldkirchen , Heimstetten , Aschheim , Hausen, Kirchheim and Oberndorf . They were taught the arts of reading, writing and arithmetic. The last hermit, Magister Humpmayr, died in 1804 at the age of 81 of dropsy of the breast and then the hermit monastery of St. Emmeram fell into secularization . The small hermit monastery was sold to a demolition contractor for 300 guilders . At the place where St. Emmeram is said to have died, a small chapel was built in 1842 , which is still standing today. The St. Lorenz Church in Oberföhring has a side altar dedicated to St. Emmeram. At the Aschheim church of St. Peter and Paul, a grave slab with an inscription reminds of the first grave site in Emmeram.

A memorial plaque was placed in the Walhalla near Regensburg .

Patronage and renaming

See also

swell

literature

Web links

Commons : Emmeram von Regensburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Richard Strobel, Markus Weis: Romanesque in Old Bavaria. Echter, Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-429-01616-9 , p. 51; Fritz Lutz : St. Emmeram near Munich-Oberföhring, a former pilgrimage and school ceremony. Self-published n.d. (approx. 1992), p. 13.
  2. ↑ Heiliger Emmeram , Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, accessed on December 22, 2017
  3. ↑ cf. Olav Röhrer-Ertl: The St. Emmeram case. Treatises and reports on the identification of individuals I and II from the parish church of St. Emmeram in Regensburg with St. Emmeram and Hugo. (=  Contributions to the history of the diocese of Regensburg . No. 19 ). Verlag des Verein für Regensburg Bishopric History , 1985, ISSN  0522-6619 , p. 22-27 .
personal data
SURNAME Emmeram from Regensburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Emmeran; Emeran; Haimeran; Heimeran; Heimrammi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bishop and martyr
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century or 7th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Poitiers
DATE OF DEATH at 652
Place of death Kleinhelfendorf