Ferula (cross staff)
The ferula ( Latin for whip, rod, stick) is an insignia reserved for the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church . It is a staff with a cross at the top.
Origin and tradition of the St. Peter rod
At least since the early Middle Ages , the popes of such a non-operated curved rod , while up to the Middle Ages at bishops and Abbots penetrated the custom of a rod with a crookedness as a sign of their pastors concern and power of jurisdiction to wear.
According to legend, Peter already carried such a staff (without a cross), which is said to have been in the possession of the Trier church since the days of the Holy Bishop Eucharius (around 250). The staff was later divided between the archbishopric of Cologne and Trier . After the reorganization of the ecclesiastical principalities in the 19th century, the Trier part of the staff , which Archbishop Egbert von Trier salvaged in a precious shell in 980, was transferred to the cathedral treasury of the Diocese of Limburg , where it is still kept today. However, the baton is occasionally symbolically presented to a new Trier bishop when he is inaugurated.
Historical development and use
Similar to the patriarch's cross, the staff with the cross was usually carried in front of the pope. He did not lead it like a crosier in hand. Only at church consecrations did he himself take hold of the ferula in order to knock three times on the door (like the bishops with a crook) and to draw the Latin and Greek alphabet on the floor of the church.
The earliest illustrations show the ferula ending in a small ball, later in a ball elevated with a cross, and in the most recent illustrations only in a cross. In ancient times the ball of a scepter stood for the globe over which the bearer ruled on behalf of the gods; the Christian cross corresponded to the eagle of Jupiter , which adorned the insignia in pagan times. The victorious Roman general carried the eagle scepter on his triumphal procession ; In the Roman Republic it was part of the festive dress of the incoming consul and later went into the emperor's gala costume .
In the late Middle Ages, the triple papal cross was also in use as a ferula (seen on some engravings from this period).
At the latest from the so-called Constantine donation (8th / 9th century), the popes a. a. the right to wear the imperialia sceptra , the imperial scepter . From this insignia, the ferula may have developed as the ruling staff of the popes. After the election of each new Pope, the taking of the cathedra of the Lateran Basilica took place as an independent act of enthronement from the 8th century . At this ceremony the new head of Christianity received the ferula as a signum regiminis et correctionis (sign of ruling and punitive violence). The handing over of the ferula was an important and symbolic act, but it did not have the weight that was attached to the laying on of the pallium at the coronation of the Pope in St.
The first literary evidence of the Ferula can be found in the Historia Ottonis of Liudprand of Cremona . In his biography of Emperor Otto I, Liudprand reports on the deposition of Benedict V by the antipope Leo VIII. In 964. Benedict had to return the pallium and the ferula to Leo VIII. The antipope took the scepter, broke it and then showed it to the people present. The end of the reign of Benedict V was symbolically demonstrated.
Since bishops' staffs have also been a symbol of lay investiture (which the Pope strictly rejected) since the High Middle Ages , the liturgical use of the ferula (in contrast to the use of the crook of the bishops) was largely avoided and limited to rare exceptions outside of the mass. At the beginning of the 16th century, the ceremony of handing over the ferula at the enthronement in the Lateran basilica was completely omitted.
Since the 19th century more and more gifts were given to the popes in order to revive the use of the ferula. In 1877, after the loss of the Papal States , Pius IX. a staff as a gift, crowned by a Madonna, but never used by the Pope. In the same year, on his fiftieth bishop jubilee, Pius IX. from the Circolo S. Pietro , an association of Roman youth loyal to the Pope, a lecture cross presented to John XXIII. later used as ferula. This is the lecture cross that Benedict XVI. used from Palm Sunday 2008 to November 2009 as a ferula like a shepherd's staff. Various "Pope Crosses", Leo XIII. received are difficult to classify, a three-bar croce pastorale (pastoral cross), a gift from the International Committee of the Pontifical Knightly Orders , bears an engraved dedication, which speaks of a summae potestatis insigne (insignia of supreme power).
Until the pontificate of John XXIII. both the three-bar cross and the papal (lecture) cross continued to be used in the liturgical ceremonies of the Pope. The question of which cross should be taken for the celebrations of the Second Vatican Council has led to long and heated debates among papal ceremonies .
After the election of Paul VI. as pope on June 21, 1963 reached the Neapolitan sculptor Lello Scorzelli an urgent request from the private secretary of the Pope, Don Pasquale Macchi , in the manufacture of a shepherd rod for the Pope, the latter to the closing ceremony of the second Vatican Council on December 8, first time in 1965 and often, but not exclusively, used thereafter. The finished work was made by Paul VI. described as “powerful and expressive, a slingshot stretched towards the sky” and from then on regularly worn by him and his successors. The pastoral staff of Paul VI. Adopts the cross shape from the traditional ferula, but adds a representation of the crucified. In contrast to previous practice, the papal cross staff has been used since Paul VI. Analogous to the usual bishop's staff, it is also used during masses.
Usage today
All successors of Paul VI. took over the new cross staff. They already wore it at the church services with which they officially assumed their highest pastoral office - without a previous presentation ceremony. As already Paul VI. John Paul II occasionally used other ferulae, e.g. B. in triple cross shape.
To the 1981 Eucharistic Congress in Lourdes , in which he was unable to attend personally because of the serious injury after the attack on May 13, 1981, John Paul II symbolically sent a legate with a ferula. Through constant use by John Paul II, Scorzelli's cross staff had a lasting effect on the public image of this Pope, especially in the last years of his life.
Pope Benedict XVI consistently set that of Paul VI. introduced use of the ferula also within the mass celebrations.
- He initially took over the silver cross staff of Paul VI. later discontinued its liturgical use. Material and shape did not embody the unbroken Roman tradition desired.
- In a transition period from Palm Sunday 2008 to November 2009, he used a golden ferula without a representation of the crucified. This is the lecture cross of Pope Pius IX mentioned above . , which was already by John XXIII. was used as a ferula.
- From the 1st Advent 2009 until the end of his pontificate, Benedict XVI. a golden ferula made especially for him, which was also a gift from the Roman charity "Circolo San Pietro". This is gold-plated, but weighs less than the previous one (2.53 kg at 1.84 meters in length). The cross has - as with the exception of the Scorzelli staff Paul VI. usual - no body and instead shows the Easter lamb on the front . The ends of the cross show the four evangelists , an engraved net on the crossbeam is intended to remind of Peter as a fisherman of men. The reverse shows two church fathers from East and West at the ends of the cross : Athanasius and John Chrysostom as well as Augustine and Ambrosius . The Christ monogram XP is shown in the center. On the ring below the cross is the name of Benedict XVI. engraved, the upper end of the rod shows the Pope's coat of arms.
Pope Francis alternately uses both the Ferula Benedict XVI. as well as the cross staff of Paul VI. During his visit to Lampedusa on July 8, 2013, Pope Francis used a modern ferula made for the occasion from wooden parts from overturned refugee boats. At the All Saints' Day Mass on November 1, 2013 in the Roman cemetery of Campo Verano, a new ferula was used for the first time, which is made from materials that had been selected with ethical responsibility in mind: Caoba wood (American mahogany), bronze and silver, which are not -invasive methods had been obtained. It is a donation from the “Gruppo di ricerca sui metalli etici”, a research group for the ethically harmless production of metals, and comes from the workshop of the Roman goldsmith Maurizio Lauri. On Palm Sunday 2014, Pope Francis used another new ferula: an olive wood cross rod made by prisoners in San Remo.
Other uses of a cross staff
There is a peculiar custom in the Archdiocese of Paris. Cardinal André Vingt-Trois - like his predecessor Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger - always used a wooden bishop's staff in Paris, which does not end in a crook but in a modern cross. In terms of shape, it is a (stylized) ferula.
The retired Archbishop of Santa Fé de Bogotá and Primate of Colombia, Rubén Salazar Gómez , also used a ferula instead of the conventional curved bishop's staff when he was inaugurated in 2010.
Remarks
- ↑ With the introduction of Bishop Ackermann, as well as with the introduction of his predecessor Spital, this was omitted
- ↑ a b fig
- ↑ Ralf van Bühren 2008, p. 319, fig. 54
- ↑ Bühren 2008, pp. 336f., Fig. 55–57
- ↑ Bühren 2008, p. 337, Fig. 57
- ↑ kath.net report
- ↑ L'Osservatore Romano 49/2009, p. 7.
- ^ The Ferula - First opinion of the Liturgical Office under Pope Francis
- ↑ Report on kath.net
- ^ Report on the Palm Sunday Mass on kath.net
literature
- Ralf van Bühren : Art and Church in the 20th Century. The reception of the Second Vatican Council (= Council history. Series B: Investigations ). Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-76388-4 .
- Klemens Richter : The ordination of the Bishop of Rome. An investigation into consecration liturgy (= liturgical scientific sources and research. Vol. 60). Aschendorff, Münster 1976, ISBN 3-402-03844-7 (Reg. P. 152, sv Ferula), (also: Münster, Univ., Diss., 1972).
- Pierre Salmon: Miter and Staff. The pontifical insignia in the Roman rite. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1960 (esp. 67–73).
