Ephrata Cloister
The Ephrata Cloister was a semi- monastic community founded in 1732 by the German emigrant Johann Conrad Beissel in Pennsylvania , North America . The monastery is now a public museum.
history
The community of the monastery came from the Pietist - Anabaptist movement of the Schwarzenau Brethren (also called Tunkers or Dunkers ), which had formed in Germany at the beginning of the 18th century and then emigrated to North America. Here, under the leadership of Beissel, a part of them split off in 1728 and formed the new group of the Siebentägner Tunkers (English Seventh Day Dunkers ). Characteristic of the seven-day tuner was, among other things, the celebration of the Sabbath on Saturday and the increasing openness to celibate ideas . In 1732 the group finally founded the Ephrata monastery on the banks of the Cocalico stream. The name of the monastery was derived from the word for Bethlehem ( Efrata ) mentioned in the Jewish Bible . The community was sometimes called the Order of the Lonely .
The group of the Siebentägner-Tunker is to be seen as part of the church-critical radical pietism of the 18th century, whose representatives consciously met in convents and communities outside the established churches. In contrast to the orthodoxy of the large churches, the radical Pietists were in part strongly influenced by mystical and spiritual ideas. The Tunkers and the Siebentägner Tunkers descended from them were also influenced by the Anabaptist movement.
Several smaller workshops and mills such as a carpentry and a tannery were soon established within the Ephrata Monastery. Agriculture was practiced in the vicinity of the monastery. A German school was also founded. The monastery printing plant, which has existed since 1742, was of particular importance, where the first German edition of the Märtyrerspiegel was printed in 1748 on the initiative of North American Mennonites . Also choral music played a major role. Beissel wrote the founder of the community itself several religious pieces that were a hallmark of the community. The Ephrata hymnbook was published for the first time in 1747. In addition to Beissel, the theologian Johann Peter Müller , who also came from Germany, soon assumed a leading role. Müller wrote a chronicle of the community for the first time in 1786 under the pseudonym Agrippa with the font Chronicon Ephratense .
Most of the community's residents were celibate. Life was mostly spartan and characterized by work, praying and singing together. They slept on 38 cm wide wooden benches with wooden blocks as pillows. Typically, people slept six hours a night, from 9:00 p.m. to midnight, and from 2:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a two-hour "watch" for the coming of Christ . Meals consisted of one small vegetarian meal a day. The only time members of the community were allowed to eat meat was during the celebration of the Eucharist when lamb was served. Services were held every Saturday by Beissel as long as he was alive and often lasted several hours. The clothing was also simple and essentially consisted of a characteristic white hooded cloak.
At its height in the mid-18th century, the community consisted of about eighty celibate men and women. There were also around 200 married couples and families who were connected to the monastery community and lived on farms in the vicinity of the monastery. After Beissel's death in 1768, the monastic way of life was increasingly abandoned. The last celibate resident of the monastery died in 1813. In the following year the remaining congregation joined the Seventh-day Baptists , some of whom also brought new residents to the monastery. With the death of Marie Kachel Bucher in 2008, the last member of the Ephrater Seventh-day Baptists also died. In the early years of her life, Bucher had lived with her family at the Ephrata Cloister.
In 1941 the state of Pennsylvania bought the monastery as a historic site and initiated a comprehensive restoration program in the following years. The Ephrata Cloister has been a National Historic Landmark since December 1967 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District .
reception
The choral music of the Ephrata Cloister is in the novel Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann described as a seduction by the means of music by the founder Beissel.
gallery
Gottesacker ( God's Acres ) with gravestones in German
Living areas
Prayer room
Meeting house and living quarters for the women
literature
- Jeff Bach: Voices of the Turtledoves: The Sacred World of Ephrata. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 2003, ISBN 978-0-271-02744-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Conrad Beissel and his Communal Experiment. Church of the Brethren Network, accessed August 30, 2011 .
- ^ Obituary of Marie Elizabeth Kachel Bucher. (No longer available online.) Lancaster Online, archived from the original on July 31, 2008 ; Retrieved August 30, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
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↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Pennsylvania. National Park Service , accessed February 12, 2020.
Ephrata Cloister on the National Register of Historic Places , accessed February 11, 2020.
Coordinates: 40 ° 11 ′ 1.9 ″ N , 76 ° 11 ′ 16.8 ″ W.