Bornhofen Monastery

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Pilgrimage monastery Bornhofen
Bornhofen monastery church

Bornhofen Monastery is a Franciscan monastery with St. Mary's pilgrimage church in Kamp-Bornhofen (Bornhofen district) on the Rhine in the Limburg diocese . It lies below the steep slate rock with the hostile brothers Burg Sterrenberg and Burg Liebenstein on the right bank of the Rhine approx. 20 km south of Koblenz and is one of the oldest and most important pilgrimage sites in the Middle Rhine .

Bornhofen Monastery has been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 , and is also a protected cultural asset under the Hague Convention .

History of construction and pilgrimage

Pilgrimage souvenirs Bornhofen, 2nd half of the 19th century

Around 1400, knight Johannes Brömser von Rüdesheim , bailiff of Kurtrier for the administration of Sterrenberg Castle, began building a church on the ruins of a previous building, which was presumed to have occurred during the armed conflict over the imperial pledge of the castle between Trier Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg and the previous owner Count Diether V. von Katzenelnbogen had been destroyed; The winner of this dispute was Kurtrier, who held the property until the end of the Old Empire in 1806. The coat of arms of the Rüdesheimer Brömser family (silver and black with 6 lilies) can still be seen in the choir area.

Under Brömser's son Johann, the church was completed on the eve of the Assumption (August 14), 1435; this was previously documented by an inscription on the bell tower, which was destroyed in a fire in 1949.

A miraculous image of Mary attracted more and more pilgrims and pilgrims over the years. Since the local pastors could no longer cope with the rush, the Archbishop of Trier, Johann Hugo von Orsbeck, called the Capuchins from nearby St. Goarshausen- Wellmich to help them found a monastery. In 1680 the foundation stone for the complex, which was completed in 1684, was laid.

At the same time, the archbishop commissioned additions to the pilgrimage church, which had also become a monastery church, namely a portico in front of the west facade and a special chapel on the north nave to store the image of Mary.

After the Rhenish possessions of Kurtrier fell to the Duchy of Nassau in 1806 , the monastery was dissolved and the church closed by the ducal government in 1813. In August, the organization of pilgrimages outside the municipal boundaries was also prohibited by decree. The pilgrimage church was planned for demolition. However, the population was keen to preserve the pilgrimage, the church and the miraculous image, and in 1820 they themselves acted as buyers to prevent demolition. Even against the will of the clergy, some of whom were enlightened, the pilgrimage revived. In 1823 the Catholic Church managed to allow early Sunday mass without communion. Processions, confessions, and high offices, however, remained prohibited. The newly founded diocese of Limburg , to which Bornhofen belonged and whose first bishop Brand was close to the Nassau government, initially supported this suppression of the pilgrimage.

The ecclesiastical mood regarding popular piety changed in the 1840s, also due to the tremendous rush at the Trier pilgrimage to the Holy Rock in 1844 . Especially pilgrimages from the other side of the Rhine, from the diocese of Trier, enlivened religious life in the pilgrimage church. On September 7, 1850, Bishop Blum finally left the Bornhofen monastery to the Redemptorists , who now looked after the pilgrimages and carried out popular missions in the Diocese of Limburg from Bornhofen . This settlement was the first construction of a monastery in the Limburg diocese after secularization, which, however, met with unsuccessful resistance from the state government. Thanks to the care of the Redemptorists, the pilgrimage flourished and soon numbered 20,000 pilgrims a year.

With the May Laws enacted under Otto von Bismarck in 1873, all branches of the order were again banned in the territory of the German Empire. This also affected the Bornhofen monastery, and the nine fathers and six lay brothers had to leave Bornhofen, which also represented an economic loss for the communities of Kamp and Bornhofen, whose community administrations protested to the government against the expulsion of the religious. Bishop Blum commissioned a young chaplain, the later Idstein pastor Schilo, to take care of the pilgrimage church, but he was also expelled in April 1876 by the responsible district president. After the May Laws were relaxed, the Franciscans of the Thuringian Franciscan Province ( Thuringia ) moved into Bornhofen on March 28, 1890 , who stayed until October 25, 1998; In the same year Franciscans of the Cracow Franciscan Province Immaculata Conceptionis BVM took over the monastery in Bornhofen with the organization of the pilgrimages, the pastoral work and the maintenance of the facilities.

In the facility, which had become too small before the Second World War, the roof of the pilgrimage church and the entire upper floor of the monastery burned down on the evening of November 21, 1949. After the reconstruction, the monastery complex was redesigned according to the plans of Heinrich Feldwisch-Drentrup from Osnabrück into a larger complex with a pilgrim hall built to the north, which was inaugurated on May 3, 1970 by the Limburg auxiliary bishop Walther Kampe . After the first restoration of the church and monastery in 1984, another restoration is planned for the future, for which the financial means are still being raised.

The monastery church

Exterior construction

The symmetrical two-aisled hall church , five-bay with a 5/8 choir end on a rectangular floor plan, basically makes a homogeneous late-Gothic impression despite its additions from later eras . This external cause especially the large ogival lancet with quatrefoil - tracery between buttresses on nave and in the first tower basement; On the second floor of the tower, the windows are double-arched with a pointed overhang.

The large gable roof , which was renewed after the fire in 1949, has two storeys with dormers . Pointed helmet and ball, cross and rooster as a weather vane on the tower are also new.

The west facade with portal and crucifixion group from a workshop in Trier (1889) is covered by the monumental baroque vestibule with five arcade arches on square pilasters and a dome roof . During the restoration in 1985 Art Nouveau frescoes from the end of the 19th century were uncovered.

Interior design

Dome of the Chapel of Grace with a stucco ceiling

The two naves are divided by octagonal pillars, from which ribs rest on simple consoles and lead to slender, late Gothic cross vaults . The choir is also cross-vaulted.

The baroque chapel of grace was added to the north in the years 1687–1691 according to the plans of Johann Christoph Sebastiani . The arch in the entrance is supported by a gray marble pillar and a red marble column. The dome has a stucco ceiling , designed in 1687 by the Italian artists Nikolaus Jarkin (Lugano) and Franz Rezius (Milan), which Archbishop Johann Hugo von Orsbeck commissioned as the responsible builder.

In this blanket, four pairs of putti alternate with four black crosses on a light blue background, two with and two without a crown of thorns. In between there are flower tendrils, shells and other ornaments. In the upper center is a medallion with a pair of putti holding a banner with the name “Maria” and a bouquet of roses, which is also a symbol of Mary.

Miraculous image

Bornhofen image of grace

The miraculous image is a late Gothic Pietà , presumably from the second half of the 15th century. According to the findings of the art historians, comparative studies of the robes and the facial expression of the Madonna speak for a Rhenish provenance . Subsequent coloring (1850) and restorations (most recently 1979) changed the sculpture significantly.

When and how the 115 cm high wooden sculpture came to Bornhofen is not known. What is certain is that it existed when construction began on the Capuchin monastery in 1681; the Electoral Trier visitation protocol explicitly mentions them alongside two other statues of the Virgin Mary. Presumably because of the likelihood of confusion, a little later (1688–91) a separate chapel was provided for the image of grace previously set up in the nave, in which it is still kept on an altar that was renewed in 1964.

During the secularization of 1813 the transport of the statue to the Bonifatiuskirche (Wiesbaden) was planned, but the population protested. The miraculous image remained in place until the diocese of Limburg bought the Bornhofen monastery back.

However, the Duchy of Nassau had drawn in two large silver crowns from the sculpture and melted them down. In 1854, the Redemptorist Father Eichelsbacher donated the first new crown to the monastery, which the figure still wears today. The second, more valuable replacement crown, made by a Koblenz jeweler, was placed on the sculpture by Limburg Bishop August Kilian in a ceremony with the Archbishop of Trier, three auxiliary bishops, 82 clergy and 115 lay personalities from the Rhineland . This crown, kept in the sacristy and only brought out on special occasions, fell victim to the church fire in 1949. Since Cardinal Joachim Meisner insisted that the memory of this crown not be lost, he celebrated May 9, 2005 as the 80th anniversary of the coronation act.

In the same year, Father Edwin Sekowski , the main responsible Krakow Franciscan in Bornhofen, commissioned the art historian Ludwig Tavernier ( University of Koblenz ) to research the origins of the sculpture in more detail in the course of 2007. A corresponding publication is planned.

organ

In 1894 the organ building workshop Christian Gerhardt from Boppard delivered an organ with 17 registers , which was destroyed by the fire in the church in 1949. Today's organ with electro-pneumatic action was also built by Christian Gerhardt in 1950. The instrument has 2 manuals with 22 registers and 1500 pipes, mostly made of metal.

I. Manual
Drone 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Hollow flute 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Dumped 4 ′
Fifth 3 ′
Mixture 3–4 times
Trumpet 8th'
II. Manual
Dumped 8th'
Salicional 8th'
Aeoline 8th'
Ital. Principal 4 ′
Distance flute 4 ′
Gemshorn 4 ′
Piccolo 2 ′
Small mix 2–3 times
pedal
Sub-bass 16 ′
Violonbass 16 ′
Thought bass 16 ′
Octave bass 8th'
Octave bass 4 ′
  • Coupling : manual coupler, super coupler II / II, super coupler II / I, sub coupler II / II, sub coupler II / I, pedal coupler I, pedal coupler II

Bells

In 1925, the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen cast two bronze bells for the monastery, which were lost when the bells were destroyed in the Second World War. Shortly after the war (1948), the peal was restored by casting three new Otto bells. The bells have the following chimes: g '- c' '- es''. Their diameters are: 1028 mm, 770 mm, 648 mm. The bells weigh: 675 kg, 300 kg, 175 kg.

Other equipment

The most valuable art-historical piece of equipment from the past in the end of the choir was a late Gothic winged altar (dated 1415) by master Bertholdt von Nördlingen , of which only 10 panels with passion scenes of Christ, coats of arms and donor figures in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn and another 4 panels with saints in the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt be kept.

The historical inventory has preserved:

Contemporary art-historical highlight is the celebratory altar with canteen and ambo made of bronze by Arnold Morkramer from 1986. Reliefs depict feeding motifs - the wonderful multiplication of bread , the Last Supper and the feeding of the Israelites in the desert. Morkramer also designed the interior of the pilgrim hall.

In the church there was also a burial place of the noble family Kratz von Scharfenstein . Their last offspring, Count Hugo Ernst, electoral privy councilor and Oberamtmann zu Boppard († 1718 or 1721), is also buried here.

Monastery complexes

The monastery complex to the south of the church is a simple, two-story four-wing building with a gable roof and dormers.

The rooms, which enclose a cloister, are partly closed and not open to the public.

The historical functions of the individual rooms were in the basement the bakery and utility rooms, detention center and crypt, on the ground floor oratory , consulting room, sacristy , kitchen and pantry, treasury, refectory and prince's room and on the upper floor library, guest room, sick wing and dormitory with 19 cells in the east wing.

Today only 4 fathers and 1 brother live in the closed area.

Of the library's over 8,000 books, more than half were destroyed in the fire of 1949; In the meantime, the library has been restored to its historical size through replacement measures.

Pilgrimages

St. Francis in a niche in a building on the church forecourt

A forerunner of the miraculous image of the Virgin and the first pilgrimages were hinted at in documents as early as the previous building in the 13th century. Historically, however, nothing is known.

The oldest pilgrimages from Boppard and Koblenz are documented for the years 1585 and 1610. The late Gothic miraculous image, venerated today, was consecrated by the Archbishop of Trier, Johann Hugo von Orsbeck, when the monastery was completed on July 25, 1691 . Institutional pilgrimages are regulated from this date.

Apart from interruptions during the collapse of the First German Empire at the beginning of the 19th century and in the era of the Kulturkampf after 1870, the pilgrimages to Bornhofen were of great importance to the faithful at all times. Up until the Second World War, over 100 processions with up to 50,000 pilgrims were counted each year. They reached the place of pilgrimage either on long walks or by boat across the Rhine. On October 22nd, 1944, there was a major consecration of Mary , to which 242 local families sought refuge due to the war and made a vow to celebrate the 8th of December, Mary's Conception , as an institutionalized “Bornhofen Pilgrimage Day” - a tradition that still exists.

Even in the 21st century, two ship pilgrimages starting on the Lower Rhine each year with approx. 600 participants, a number of smaller ship pilgrimages and numerous foot pilgrimages (the largest of them from Nentershausen in the Westerwald with up to 1000 participants) take place in the summer season . There is also a tourist component inherent in these contemporary pilgrimages, whether hiking or boat trips, from which the local gastronomic establishments and devotional shops in the vicinity of the pilgrimage church benefit.

Marian songs

For the Bornhofen ship pilgrimage, Guido Görres composed the song Geleite durch die Welle in 1842 . In 1846 Johann Baptist Berger gave his song Über die Berge echoes the title Das Ave-Bellchen zu Bornhofen . Both songs have long been among the most popular Marian songs in all the Catholic regions of the German-speaking area.

literature

  • Monschauer, Winfried: pilgrimage church and Franciscan monastery Bornhofen ; Regensburg: Schnell and Steiner, 2005 3 ; ISBN 3-7954-5355-0 ; former title: Marienwallfahrtsort Bornhofen; Regensburg: Schnell and Steiner, 1997 2
  • Franziskanerkloster Bornhofen (ed.): 80 years of the coronation of the miraculous image of Bornhofen. Festschrift ; Kamp-Bornhofen 2006
  • Bornhofen Monastery (ed.): The Bornhofen pilgrim. Pilgrim book ; Leutesdorf: Johannes, 1994 2 ; ISBN 3-7794-1311-6

Web links

Commons : Klosterkirche Bornhofen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Schatz: History of the Diocese of Limburg , Mainz 1983, pp. 67–68.
  2. ↑ Klaus Schatz: History of the Diocese of Limburg , Mainz 1983, pp. 135-136.
  3. ^ Klaus Schatz: History of the Diocese of Limburg , Mainz 1983, pp. 174–175.
  4. ↑ Bornhofen Monastery: Bornhofen Monastery - organ. Retrieved October 21, 2016 .
  5. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto Glocken - family and company history of the bell foundry dynasty Otto . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, here in particular 326, 327, 450, 543 .
  6. ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, here in particular 289 to 291, 488, 498, 501 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud University Nijmegen).
  7. ↑ Description of the items of equipment on the Bornhofen Monastery website
  8. ↑ Bornhofen Monastery

Coordinates: 50 ° 12 ′ 50.4 "  N , 7 ° 37 ′ 43.7"  E