Balamand Monastery
| Balamand Monastery | |
|---|---|
 Photo by Camille Enlart from 1921 with a view of the nave and the bell tower. At the bottom left of the picture you can see the inner monastery garden with part of the cloister. |
|
| location |
 Lebanon
|
| Coordinates: | 34 ° 22 '5.7 " N , 35 ° 46' 46" E |
| Serial number according to Janauschek |
354 |
| founding year | 1157 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1289 |
| Year of repopulation | 1603 ( Greek Orthodox ) |
| Mother monastery | Morimond Monastery |
| Primary Abbey | Morimond Monastery |
|
Daughter monasteries |
Monastery of St. John in Nemore |
The Monastery of Balamand was first named Belmont (or Beaumont , Bellimontis ultra Mare , Bellus-Mons or Valmand ) by the Cistercians in 1157 as the first and most important abbey of the order in the Orient in what was then the county of Tripoli, about 15 km southwest of Tripoli in the Mountains of Lebanon founded.
After the Cistercians left the abbey around the time of the fall of Tripoli in 1289, the same place was used three centuries later to found a Greek Orthodox monastery, which still exists today. In 1833 a theological seminary was established on the monastery grounds, from which the University of Balamand emerged in 1988 .
Geographical location
|
|
|
| Satellite image of northern Lebanon | Area map of Balamand |
The monastery is located at a height of 275 m on a plateau that drops sharply on three sides and is bordered on the southwest side by mountains that rise further. The plateau offers a north-facing view of the Mediterranean Sea and the coastal road between Tripoli and Chekka.
As appealing as the location may have been, it is nevertheless extremely atypical for a Cistercian abbey, as the Cistercians preferred secluded locations in valleys on flowing waters. How this unusual choice of location came about is not known, but there are some hypotheses about it. An important point that u. a. As Camille Asmar points out, it could have been the security that the plateau naturally offers, and that was more likely near Tripoli and on the coast in the time of the Crusaders.
Another aspect may have been the takeover of existing parts of the building. The architecture of the church, which is unusual for Cistercians, and its east-north-east orientation (with a deviation of 22 ° from the exact east to north) have given rise to speculations that the church may originally have been Byzantine. Another hypothesis by Camille Enlart connects the church with the order of Grandmont because of its construction. What these hypotheses have in common is the assumption that an existing infrastructure that was unused at the time of foundation made the start so much easier that it outweighed the other disadvantages.
history
Prehistory of the Cistercians
Already in 1124 Arnold von Morimond , the founding abbot of the fourth daughter monastery of Cîteaux , made a very controversial attempt to found a Cistercian abbey in the holy land.
Bernhard von Clairvaux in particular criticized in several letters that Arnold, in view of the crises surrounding the Abbey in Morimond, fled in an inadmissible manner with his trip to Jerusalem , and that he took a group of German monks with him. In his letter to Pope Kalixt II in December 1124 or January 1125, Bernhard asked whether it would make sense at all to found abbeys when soldiers fighting there were more necessary than singing or crying monks . In 1125 Arnold returned with his monks unsuccessfully and died on January 3, 1126 in Flanders.
In 1129 and 1130, Baldwin II of Jerusalem and William of Messines , who was appointed Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1130 , wrote several letters to Bernhard von Clairvaux asking him to support the establishment of a Cistercian abbey in the Holy Land. Bernhard refused, despite the gift of a relic of the Holy Cross. The reasons are not contained in Bernhard's reply, but were given orally. It is however likely that Bernhard was put off by the great distance and the uncertain situation on site, especially since the guidelines of the order obliged the abbots of a mother monastery to visit each of their daughter monasteries every year. Instead, Bernhard mediated a foundation of the Premonstratensians , which took place in 1141 near Jerusalem under the name of St. Samuel .
Cistercian times
After the death of Bernhard von Clairvaux in 1153 there was apparently no more resistance to the establishment of the Cistercians in the holy land . Thirteen monks were sent across the Mediterranean from Morimond to found an abbey in the mountains near Tripoli. The exact founding circumstances are not known, but May 29, 1157 was recorded as the founding date of Belmont as the daughter of the Morimond Monastery in the Diocese of Tripoli in the county of the same name . It seems obvious that the contacts of some of Morimond's monks, who were in Jerusalem with Arnold as early as 1124, played an important role in this. This was the first establishment of a Cistercian abbey outside of Europe. Just four years later, also starting from Morimond, the Salvatio Abbey was founded.
The development of the new monastery was very successful at the beginning, as the traditional foundations of two new houses in 1169 ( Monastery of St. John in Nemore ) and 1187 ( Monastery of SS. Trinitas de Refech ) prove. The exact location of these two daughter houses is still unknown, but it is believed that they were also in the county of Tripoli.
There is also a record of the existence of two nuns' cisterns in Tripoli and in Acre , both of which were named after St. Mary Magdalene. It is obvious that the Cistercians in Belmont provided a certain amount of care here.
On August 1, 1235, another subsidiary was founded in Cyprus with the name Beaulieu . Lekai sees this as providing an escape route, as the decline could already be foreseen at this time. The last evidence for the Cistercians from Belmont is the appointment of Peter the German as abbot on February 26, 1282 and a report about an unusual public mass by a Cistercian monk in Tripoli in 1287. It can be assumed that the last Cistercians in Belmont left their monastery around 1289 and fled to Cyprus. The Cistercians stayed there until the end of the 15th century. In 1567 the remains of the Beaulieu monastery were used by the Venetians as a quarry for the construction of a new fortification for Nicosia.
Transfer of the monastery from the Cistercians to the Greek Orthodox Church
There are two versions of the change of ownership: The Orthodox side emphasizes that the monastery property was handed over by the Cistercians to the Orthodox Church as part of their retreat to Cyprus. Documents from the time of the Mameluks are supposed to confirm the change of ownership of the monastery. On the other hand, the Cistercians claim that the monastery was never uninhabited for long. The monks are said to have returned to the monastery after the Mameluk conquest. Likewise, Aramaic non-Chaldean monks are said to have inhabited the monastery at the invitation of the Cistercians after their final withdrawal. This thesis is supported by Western historians and is based on manuscripts. The change of ownership of the monastery is not a point of contention between the Cistercians and today's monastery.
Dayr Al-Balamand as a Greek Orthodox monastery
With the flight of the Cistercians, the monastery was taken over by the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch . The name of Belmont Abbey was Arabicized and is known to this day under the name Dayr-Al-Balamand. In 1603 the monastery was rebuilt, integrating elements of Cistercian architecture in the building. The monastery then developed into a center for Orthodox theology with a large library with many manuscripts and religious books. The monks copied the manuscripts for other monasteries. The library still contains manuscripts from five centuries.
The monastery was a refuge for the people of the region in times of political conflict, epidemics and natural disasters.
In 1833 a theological institute was established next to the monastery . In 1840 this institute was closed again by the Ottoman rulers. School operations resumed in 1921, but closed again after a short time. The school has only been in continuous operation since 1960. The theological seminary was re-established in 1966 and has been called Saint John of Damascus since 1970 . In 1988 the University of Balamand was founded from this seminar .
The monastery also houses a museum that exhibits the architectural history of the monastery and sacred art.
The monastery is located in today's Al-Kura district, which is known for its mostly Christian-Orthodox population, which Balamand serves as an important spiritual and cultural center. The importance of the Balamand Monastery also results from the fact that it reports directly to the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Antioch . Patriarch Ignatius IV himself was abbot of Balamand for a few years until 1966 in addition to his work as bishop.
Declaration of Balamand
The 7th General Assembly of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church met in the Theological College of the monastery from June 17 to 24, 1993 . On June 23, 1993, it adopted the joint declaration of Uniatism - an outdated method of union - and the current search for full communion . So- called uniatism , the “missionary apostolate” of one of the members of the other church, should in future neither be viewed as a method nor as a model “for the unity of our churches that we strive for”. On the one hand, the document excludes “for the future any proselytism and any will to expand on the part of Catholics to the detriment of the Orthodox Church” and, at the same time, recognizes that the Eastern Catholic Churches “as part of the Catholic community have the right to exist and act like the spiritual ones Needs of their believers ”.
literature
- François N. Dubois: Histoire de l'abbaye de Morimond. 2nd edition. Loireau-Feuchot et al., Dijon et al. 1852, ( digitized ; in German: history of the Morimond abbey and the most prominent knightly orders in Spain and Portugal. Münster, Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung 1855, digitized translation ).
- Leopold Janauschek : Originum Cisterciensium. Hoelder in commission, Vienna 1877, CCCLIV , CCCLXV , CCCCIV , CCCCLXXXII , DCXX .
- Camille Enlart : L'abbaye cistercienne de Belmont en Syrie. In: Syria. Vol. 4, No. 1, 1923, ISSN 0039-7946 , pp. 1-22 ( digitized version ).
- Arthur Breycha-Vauthier : Deir Balamand. Témoin de Cîteaux en terre libanaise. In: Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth. Vol. 20, 1967, ZDB -ID 215108-x , pp. 7-20.
- Marie-Anselme Dimier : L'art cistercien hors de France (= La Nuit des Temps. 34, ISSN 0768-0937 ). Zodiaque, La Pierre-qui-Vire 1971, p. 36.
- Camille Asmar: L'abbaye de Belmont dite Deir El Balamend. In: Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Vol. 25, 1972, pp. 1-69.
- Louis J. Lekai : The Cistercians. Ideals and Reality. Kent State University Press, Kent OH 1977, ISBN 0-87338-201-3 , p. 54 (brief outline of the history of the Cistercians in the Holy Land).
- Souad A. Slim: Balamand. Histoire et patrimoine. Les Éditions Dar An-Nahar, Beyrouth 1995.
Web links
- Brief overview of the story from the perspective of the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Balamand, which exists today
- On the left side there are some pictures of corbels that go back to the Cistercian times
- Official website of the University of Balamand (English)
- Images (Flickr)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bernhard von Clairvaux: Letters 4, 5, 6, 7, 175, 355 and 359 (Latin / German edition Bernhard von Clairvaux: Complete Works , Volume II, Tyrolia-Verlag 1992 ( ISBN 3-7022-1772-X ) and volume III ( ISBN 3-7022-1863-7 ).
- ↑ On the dispute between Bernhard von Clairvaux and Arnold von Morimond see Peter Dinzelbacher : Bernhard von Clairvaux. Life and work of the most famous Cistercian. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-027-1 , p. 66 ff.