Hail holiday (Braunschweig)
The hail holiday in Braunschweig was an old Christian custom to allow crops to flourish and to ward off storms. The Christian hail holiday is believed to be based on these pagan customs.
The Christian custom of the hail procession was discontinued in the middle of the 16th century by Duke Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and Prince of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1564–1613). During the Reformation, the Protestant Church converted this holiday into open-air worship. Some Catholic parishes celebrate this day to this day.
history
The Reformation has in the Protestant church hail holidays such as field processions and priestly Flurumgänge that Duke Heinrich Julius as "idolatrous" converted called and she looked to ban causes in simple worship in the open air on hail holiday. It was not until the church ordinance of Duke Anton Ulrichs von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel from 1709 that it referred explicitly to the hail day in Chapter V. “Since it is an ancient Christian custom that a certain time is suspended during the week Rogate (ie prayer ), in which [...] to call for the recovery of the dear crops and the averting of harmful growth caused by hail, thunderstorms, floods and the like with heartfelt devotion [should] every year on the Monday post Vocum Jucunditatis (ie after Rogate) in towns and villages without distinction throughout Country a day of prayer ” .
There was further evidence for the hailstay being held in the Braunschweig area in the Harz foreland : After a hailstorm with terrible consequences for the fields and buildings occurred in Groß Heere in the Innerstetal on June 11, 1759 during a baptism and when the sky broke on June 11, 1759. June 1760 darkened again and a storm threatened, the congregation set June 11th as the day of hail and penance.
In March 1825, the date of the hail celebration was changed in a renewed public holiday order of the sovereign church regiment in order not to shorten the time of cultivating the fields, either on the "second" or, if this falls in the week of Pentecost, on the third Monday in June " . This holiday had lost its original character as a repentance and holiday. However, it took until December 1968, when the Synod of Brunswick Lutheran Church hail holiday in a resolution definitively abolished: "to the previous Erntebittag (hail holiday) throughout the Church in the future either on the first Sunday after Trinity , or one day in the the following week after that. [...] Many years of practice have shown that harvest day, which used to be celebrated with school and evening services on the 2nd Monday in June, has lost its meaning in many parishes in our regional church ” . This marked the end of the hail holiday in Braunschweig.
literature
- Hans Ehlers: The hail holiday in the state of Braunschweig . In: Braunschweigische Heimat . 60 (1), Braunschweig 1974 pp. 16-18.