Goar

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St. Goar, stained glass around 1450, St. Goar Collegiate Church
St. Goar, fresco around 1450, St. Goar Collegiate Church
Tumbaplatte Goars around 1340, Catholic Church St. Goar and St. Elisabeth zu Sankt Goar

Goar (* around 495; † 575 ) was a priest from Aquitaine who settled on the Rhine at the site of the later city of Sankt Goar and worked there as a missionary .

Live and act

Little is known about the actual life of the saint. In addition to the constant tradition in St. Goar, the place of his work, more details about him are reported in a vita of the Prüm monk Wandalbert († around 870). This Vita again refers to an older source.

According to this, the priest Goar came from Aquitaine in southwestern France and was the child of a Georgius and a Valeria.

Under the government of King Childebert I († 558), the son of Clovis I , Goar moved from his homeland to the then diocese of Trier and settled on the left bank of the Middle Rhine in the area of ​​today's St. Goar as a missionary to act. After Wandalbert's vita, he built a small church in which he deposited numerous relics, preached the Christian faith to the mostly pagan population and led a pious life of prayer and asceticism . His kindness and friendliness were particularly praised.

Goar lived and died as a hermit with a reputation for holiness. After his death (575) his grave and his former cell became a place of pilgrimage; the place was named after him. A clerical community developed there, the beginnings of which may still go back to him.

Devotion and pilgrimage

As early as 765, King Pippin gave the “Cell of the Goar” to the Abbot Assuer from Prüm for personal use for life. Around 782, Pippin's son Charlemagne converted his father's personal gift into a gift to the Prüm Abbey . Here are at the cell of St. Goar called six resident clerics. From this point on, the Prüm Abbey took care of pastoral and religious services. The pilgrimage to St. Goar promoted the monastery sustainably, which is why the local cleric Wandalbert von Prüm researched St. Goar and wrote his vita around 850. Abbot Assuer initiated the construction of a new church with great energy, which was consecrated in 781 at the latest. St. Goar developed into one of the three main seats of the Prüm Abbot. In the 11th century it was a collegiate monastery with twelve canons and nine vicarages . The dean was at the head of the college . Today's collegiate church of St. Goar with a three-aisled crypt was built around 1100 ; the choir towers and today's choir date from the middle of the 13th century. From 1444 the current nave was added on and the church was magnificently decorated under Count Philipp I von Katzenelnbogen (r. 1444–1479). a. with frescoes and figural stained glass windows.

As early as 1449, Abbot Johann from Prüm had sold the rights to the St. Goar Abbey to Count Philipp von Katzenelnbogen. Since then it has belonged geographically to the territory of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen and in 1479 fell to the Landgraves of Hesse through succession.

Landgrave Philip I of Hesse introduced the Reformation in his territory and abolished St. Goar Abbey in 1527. The first Protestant service was held on January 1, 1528 in the collegiate church of St. Goar, the Catholic cult and pilgrimages were forbidden, the saint's grave was removed and the canons expelled. Philip's great-grandson Landgrave Ernst I of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg converted to Catholicism in 1652, whereby the veneration of St. Goar could revive. First he gave the crypt of the collegiate church to the Catholics for use. Soon afterwards he had the new Catholic Church of St. Goar and St. Elisabeth built. It was consecrated in 1660 and the ornate tumba plate from the grave of St. Goar, which is now installed in the Catholic Church above the right side altar. The historic collegiate church remained in the possession of the Protestant community. The largest relic of St. Goar is an arm relic that is in the St. Castor Basilica in Koblenz .

Even St. Castor had come to the diocese of Trier as a hermit from Aquitaine; it cannot be ruled out that Goar came here through his example.

Legends and Popular Beliefs

According to legend, his hospitality, especially towards the Rhine boatmen, was so great that he had to answer to the Bishop of Trier for it, but found grace when he hung his hat and coat on a sunbeam. Many miracle stories are equally original: Goar is said to have kicked the devil who badly slandered him. He also had the effect that no wine ran out of the open bunghole of a barrel , saved two priests who were on the verge of starvation with the milk of three doe calls and saved a ship from sinking. From the Moselle he had wonderfully driven up the Rhine to Sankt Goar without using oars. Most of the miracle stories are about the proverbial friendliness of the saint or about his help for the sailors and travelers. His hospitality made him the patron saint of potters, bricklayers and innkeepers. He also brought vines from his southern French homeland to the Rhine, which is why he is also called as a winemaker patron.

Fastrada , the third wife of Charlemagne , is said to be at the grave of St. Goar may have been relieved of a toothache.

The attributes of St. Goar are: hind, snake (devil) or pots. He is traditionally called upon as the patron saint of potters, bricklayers, winemakers, innkeepers and boatmen, as well as against defamation and for an honest name.

His feast day is July 6th . In the Diocese of Limburg the festival is celebrated on July 9th, in the Diocese of Trier on July 24th.

In Muri, Switzerland, there is a church dedicated to St. Goar has been his patron.

literature

Web links

Commons : Goar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ On the post-Reformation history
  2. ↑ Close-up of the Tumbaplatte, with the oldest depiction of St. Goar
  3. ↑ To the arm relic of St. Goar in Koblenz ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ St Goar in Muri ( Memento of March 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Goar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Aquitaine priest and missionary
DATE OF BIRTH at 495
DATE OF DEATH 575