Hospitaller of the Holy Spirit

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Coat of arms of the order at the Kreuzherrenkloster Memmingen
Coat of arms of the mother house in Rome
Habit of the hospital brothers
Headquarters in Rome: Ospedale Santo Spirito in Sassia
The former Heiliggeist Hospital in Rapperswil, Switzerland

The Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit , also called Brothers of the Order of the Holy Spirit , Hospitaller Orders of the Holy Spirit , and Canons of the Holy Spirit , followed the Rule of Augustine and were constituted as Canon Regulars . In terms of its founding ideal, the order was particularly committed to caring for the poor, orphans and the sick , but the hospitallers also accommodated pilgrims in their hospitals and cared for benefactors . Because of the cross with two crossbars (also called patriarchal cross ), which the order members wore on their black habits, they were sometimes referred to as Lords of the Cross . Only a small part of the numerous Heilig Geist hospitals that arose in the Middle Ages can be attributed to the order.

history

founding

The beginning of the order goes back to a Heilig-Geist-Spital , which was founded around 1170/75 by Guido von Montpellier in Montpellier in southern France. The hospital fraternity, which had dedicated itself to the care of the sick and the poor, received papal confirmation from Pope Innocent III in 1198 . and was thus recognized as an order. In 1204 at the latest, the community was placed under the Augustine rule and constituted as a regular canon. The Pope gave Guido the Roman hospital Santa Maria in Sassia , later called Santo Spirito in Sassia . He headed the hospitals in Montpellier and Rome until his death in 1208. The order received its own statutes, elements of the knightly hospital orders were included. The friars committed themselves to hospital service through a special vow. Most of the Holy Spirit hospitals were established in the 13th century as a result of the founding of cities.

Further development

After the death of the founder of the order, Guido von Montpellier, in 1208, the hospital (Ospedale) Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome became the main house of the order. There the head of the general order, the general president, had his seat. The hospitallers spread particularly in France and Italy. The German branches in Markgröningen , Memmingen , Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz and Pforzheim together with the monasteries in Alsace formed the province of Alemania Superior . The Munich Heilig-Geist-Spital belonged to the order only temporarily (2nd half of the 13th century to 1330). In the 15th century, around 750 monasteries in the Holy Roman Empire , France and Italy were under the Roman main building . In the late Middle Ages , the hospital service, and thus the original ideal of the order, was largely given up. The Order of fell Verpfründung and in many places to a mere Versorgungsanstalt with secure income. A renewal of the order according to the founding intention was no longer successful until it was abolished in the 19th century.

Dissolution of the order

As a result of the Reformation , the French Revolution and the secularization after 1803, many monasteries and hospitals were lost. A number of hospitals continued to be operated under municipal management. Some Heilig Geist hospitals still exist as foundations in Germany today . Pope Pius IX finally lifted the order in 1847.

Start-up in Poland

In 1986 the Society of the Holy Spirit was founded in the Diocese of Danzig as an institute of consecrated life in diocesan law. The Archbishop of Gdansk Tadeusz Gocłowski confirmed the public canonical establishment of the clerical society of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost 2003 . This new religious community refers explicitly to the charisma and spirituality of Guido of Montpellier and sees itself in the spiritual succession of the Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit. The order's robe is a black cassock with cingulate , and an attached silver-colored double cross is worn on the left side of the chest, which takes up the shape of the order cross of the historical order of the Hospitallers. The order cross is worn on the left side of the black order mantle.

Female branch

A female branch, called Canonises of the Holy Spirit and Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit , arose from the sisterhoods belonging to the hospital communities. The abolition of the male branch in the 19th century led to a reorganization of the female communities, which are now organized in various congregations as Sisters of the Holy Spirit (France and Spain) and Canon of the Holy Spirit (Poland, Motherhouse in Cracow).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See original in Wikimedia Commons
  2. ↑ Karl Suso Frank : Hospitaller of the Holy Spirit . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK) . 3. Edition. Volume 4. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995, Sp. 1315f. ISBN 3-451-22002-4 .
  3. ^ German Association for Women and Culture e. V., Lübeck group: Christmas market in the Holy Spirit Hospital in Lübeck. Leaflet from November 2010.
  4. ↑ State capital Munich: 800 years Heiliggeistspital Foundation . Munich 2008. (PDF file; 679 kB)
  5. ↑ Karl Suso Frank : Hospitaller of the Holy Spirit . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK) . 3. Edition. Volume 4. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995. ISBN 3-451-22002-4 , Sp. 1316.
  6. ↑ Home. Retrieved August 29, 2018 (pl-pl).
  7. ↑ Barbara Henze: Kanonissen . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK) . 3. Edition. Volume 5. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1996, Sp. 1187f. ISBN 3-451-22005-9 .

Web links

Commons : Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Heilig-Geist-Spital  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files