Holy Compostelan Year

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The Holy Compostelan Year ( Spanish Año Santo Compostelano or Año Santo Jacobeo , as a short form or logo also Xacobeo ) is celebrated when the feast day of St.  James ( July 25th ) falls on a Sunday. The holy year is identical to the corresponding calendar year. The opening of a Holy Door will begin on December 31 of the previous year . Two extraordinary Holy Years were celebrated on special occasions - in 1885 and 1938.

General

Roman Catholic Christians have the opportunity once per holy year to acquire a complete indulgence from temporal penalties. These years are therefore also called grace years. In order to obtain this indulgence, pilgrims must meet three conditions:

The way of arrival has no meaning for obtaining the plenary indulgence. The Compostela document issued to non-motorized pilgrims is not a certificate of indulgence.

The bull Regis aeterni

The basis for the celebration of the holy years is the Bull Regis aeterni , which, according to the text, was issued by Pope Alexander III on June 25, 1179 . has been promulgated. The bull is preserved in two copies from around 1500, both of which are kept in the cathedral archive of Santiago de Compostela - a splendid manuscript and a more simply designed document. In the bull, Pope Alexander invokes older privileges that had already been granted by one of his predecessors, Pope Calixt II . According to this, every pilgrim who visits the grave of the Apostle James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in a holy year for reasons of veneration and in penance, is granted a complete discount on all temporal penalties on him, following the example of the Roman jubilee indulgence.

The document is considered a forgery for several reasons:

  • In the text, Pope Alexander III refers. on the Roman jubilee indulgence , which the pilgrims in Santiago would also receive. But the Roman jubilee indulgence was only introduced in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII . Alexander III could not have known anything about it in 1179.
  • The acts of a regional synod held in Santiago de Compostela in the middle of the 13th century carefully record all the indulgences given at the cathedral. These are exclusively partial drains; a plenary indulgence on the occasion of a special year of grace is not mentioned.
  • In the history of indulgences, perfect estates of temporal penalties for sin are known in the 12th century, but only as crusade indulgences. Awarding a plenary indulgence at a pilgrimage site would be an anachronism for this time.

history

In contrast to the statements of the Bull Regis aeterni , the practice of Holy Years can only be proven from the 15th century in Santiago de Compostela. First indications are licenses of the English crown for ship passages to Santiago. Accordingly, for the first time in the Holy Year 1428 with 916 pilgrims from England, a clear increase can be determined, as well as for 1434, when 2310 English pilgrims were allowed to cross to Spain. On the other hand, when July 25th fell on a Sunday in 1423, the practice of special grace years did not yet exist, because in that year a license was issued for only one pilgrim ship with 60 passengers. Based on the figures, it can be assumed that around 14 times as many pilgrims came to Santiago as in normal years towards the end of the 15th century.

The most important event of the Holy Year 1434 was the so-called Paso Honroso , a knightly duel to which the Leonese knight Suero de Quinones challenged all pilgrims to Santiago between July 10th and August 9th on the bridge of Órbigo . It is said that Don Suero rode 300 lances and never lost a duel.

During the Holy Years, pilgrims were under special protection from the rulers. In both 1434 and 1445 , King John II of Aragón granted “the inhabitants of the kingdoms of Italy, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Norway or any other nation” safe conduct by sea and land, at night and on the day Days. The climax of the Holy Year 1479 was the pilgrimage of the Catholic kings Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon . The pilgrimage to Santiago revived after a decline in the early 19th century with the Holy Year 1885 after Pope Leo XIII. a year earlier had confirmed the authenticity of the recovered bones of the apostle.

The influx increased in the 20th century, especially after General Franco again designated the apostle as Spain's national saint in 1937. Since then, the Ofrenda al Apostol , an offering made by the Spanish nation to the cathedral chapter, made by the head of state or a member of the royal family, has been one of the highlights of the festivities on the occasion of a Holy Year. A particular increase was recorded in the Holy Year 1965, when the number of pilgrims more than tripled. In 1982, John Paul II was the first Pope to visit Santiago de Compostela on the occasion of a Holy Year. In a sermon in the cathedral he emphasized the role model effect of an apostolic life in discipleship and humility, after which he called on Christian Europe at a European celebration to reflect on its roots, to ask the peoples of the third world for forgiveness for injustice suffered and from now on to be a lighthouse in the world in a positive sense.

The Gate of Mercy

The practice of opening a “Gate of Forgiveness” ( Puerta de Perdón, Gal .: Porta do Perdon ), also known as the Holy Door ( Puerta Santa, Gal .: Porta Santa ) on the occasion of the Holy Year has been around since the late 15th century Century attested. A Romanesque door is used that leads into the ambulatory on the east side of the cathedral between the Savior (Capilla del Salvador) and St. Peter's Chapel (Capilla de San Pedro). In 1611, the gate was accentuated by an early Baroque porch, which was built according to plans by the builders Gonzáles Araujo and Fernández Lechuga . At the top, the porch shows the sculptures of St. James and his disciples Athanasius and Theodorus. In the actual gate the pilgrims enter the cathedral under the Latin saying “Venient omnes gentes et dicen gloria tibi Domine” (All peoples come and proclaim your honor, Lord).

Until the last opening of a Holy Door on December 31, 2003, it was common for a wall that walled up the door to be torn down after three blows from the Archbishop. After the last holy year, no new wall was built in, but a bronze door was installed, which remains closed until December 31, 2009. Nevertheless, at the end of 2009, a wall that was specially built up for this purpose is to be torn down.

Extraordinary Holy Years

Two extraordinary holy years were celebrated in the history of Santiago - 1885 and 1938. In 1885, when St. James' Day fell on a Saturday, the year before Pope Leo XIII. proclaimed authenticity of the recovered James relics celebrated. After the Holy Year of 1937, the “Gate of Forgiveness” remained open for another year to allow those who were prevented from coming by the civil war to obtain indulgence. Another reason was the reintroduction of the "Ofrenda al Apóstol" initiated by General Francisco Franco . Because of the two precedents, it is suggested that additional Holy Years be held. For example, in 2000, when Santiago was European Capital of Culture, it was suggested to keep the Holy Door open for another year, which the cathedral chapter rejected. In the summer of 2009, the City Councilor for Economy and Tourism in the City Hall of Santiago, Xosé Manuel Iglesias, made the proposal to shorten the long period between 2010 and 2021 with an additional Holy Year.

Pilgrims in the Holy Compostelan Years since 1909 (estimated)

year Number of pilgrims
1909 140,000
1915 103,000
1920 112,000
1926 90,000
1937 134,000
1938 8000
1943 200,000
1948 500,000
1954 700,000
1965 2,500,000
1971 4,000,000 (of which traditionally 451)
1976 4,000,000 (of which trad. 243)
1982 4,000,000 (of which trad. 1868)
1993 7,000,000 (of which trad. 99,436)
1999 10,800,000 (of which trad. 154,613)
2004 12,000,000 (of which trad. 179,944)
2010 9,200,000 foreign participants (of which trad. 272,135)

In the understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, a pilgrim is anyone who, in devotion and for reasons of devotion to the grave of St. James is coming. The way of arrival is irrelevant. Proof of the mode of transport is required only for the issue of the “Compostela” pilgrimage certificate, which - seen from a canonical point of view - is a souvenir. The figure of 12 million pilgrims recorded for 2004 relates to the total number of people who entered the Cathedral of Santiago for religious reasons during the year. The cathedral chapter uses three traditional counting methods:

  • 1. The number of those who pass through the Holy Door on the east side of the cathedral
  • 2. The number of saints issued : everyone who sits on the large seat of St. James places a donation in the alms box on the high altar and receives a picture of a saint.
  • 3. The number of communions given during Holy Masses in the Cathedral.

Pilgrims arriving on foot, by horse or by bike have been recorded in Santiago de Compostela since 1953. However, the records from the years before 1970 can no longer be found.

The Compostelan Holy Year at the beginning of the 21st century

The last holy years were 2004 and 2010. The coming years will be 2021, 2027, 2032, 2038, 2049, 2055, 2060 etc. For many pilgrims, the arrival on July 25th in Santiago de Compostela seems particularly attractive, especially in the Compostelan years. The city, which is very crowded on this day, with its cathedral overflowing with church services and boozy conviviality on the streets and squares, is often in stark contrast to the calm of the long hike.

In 1993, the Government of the Autonomous Region of Galicia began marketing the Holy Years to tourism under the Xacobeo label . The religious concerns are thereby increasingly concealed, even if the archdiocese tries to bring back the spiritual meaning of conversion and renewal in the consciousness of the people with committed pastoral letters from the respective archbishops. The queues of believers in front of the confessionals in the holy years 1999 and 2004 show, however, that the religious content still has a high priority.

Web links

literature

  • Juan Pérez Millán: Cronologia del Año Santo Compostelano. In: Compostela No. 12 (1948) pp. 17-19
  • Bernhard Schimmelpfennig : The beginnings of the Holy Year of Santiago de Compostela in the Middle Ages. In: Journal of Medieval History 4, 1978, pp. 285-303
  • Klaus Herbers : The certificate for the award of an anniversary indulgence in the Holy Year. 6th annual gift of the German St. Jakobus Society eV Aachen 1992
  • José I. Carro Otero: El Año Santo. Su significado religioso-eclesial. In: El Apóstol Santiago y su proyección en la Historia. 10 didactic themes. Santiago de Compostela 1993, pp. 59-66.
  • Manuel F. Rodriguez: Los Años Santos Compostelanos del siglo XX. Crónica de un Renacimiento. Caminos y Huellas. Santiago de Compostela 2004, 455 pp., ISBN 84-453-3839-0
  • Heinrich K. Bahnen: Pilgrim statistics of the Holy Year 2004. In: Sternenweg 35 (2005) pp. 24–27
  • Christoph Kühn: Holy Compostelan Year. In: Pilgrim's staff. Messages from the Santiago Friends Cologne 2/2009, pp. 6-8

References and comments

  1. ↑ Sternenweg, member magazine of the German St. Jakobus Society eV , No. 28 (2001) p. 26, No. 35 (2005) pp. 24-27.
  2. ^ El correo gallego, January 18, 2011