Macarius the Scot

Macarius sees Pope Eugene III in Rome, how a tower of his monastery church collapses in Würzburg, copper engraving

Macarius the Scot , also called Blessed Makarius , Latin Macarius (Scotus) (from Greek Makarios : "the happy, the blessed, the blessed, the blessed") - possibly Latinized from McCarthy - (* before 1100; † January 6, 1153 in Würzburg ), was an Irish Benedictine and the first abbot in the Schottenkloster Würzburg . He is next to the holy Kilian patron of Würzburg.

Life

When the Würzburg bishop Embricho founded a Schottenkloster in Würzburg in 1139 , Macarius, who was prior in the Schottenkloster St. Jakob in Regensburg , became the first abbot . The monastery had grown out of an inn (from about 1134) for Irish pilgrims who went on pilgrimages to worship St. Kilian. The main task was the spiritual and physical care of the pilgrims. In addition, the "Scots" maintained a productive writing workshop. The first Jacob's chapel was consecrated as early as 1138, and the abbey church was built until 1156.

Prince-Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn raised Macarius' bones on March 31, 1615 and had them transferred to the choir of the Church of St. Jakob. The relics are now in the Marienkapelle in Würzburg .

The most important miracles that Macarius, who lived abstinently, are said to have performed include the transformation from wine to water and the visual experience of the collapse of a tower of his monastery church in Würzburg during a stay in Rome (see Würzburg meteorite fall ). From Pope Clement XII. he is said to have been beatified in 1734.

In 1730, emerged as Macarianische meeting a Macarius Brotherhood , which existed until the Second World War and in Wurzburg also cultivated the veneration of relics of Macarius. At the suggestion of the German-Irish Society , it was re-established in Ireland in 1990 as an ecumenical prayer community for peace.

The annual church (liturgical) day of remembrance of the Würzburg patron saint is January 23rd.

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  Reliquary of Makarius in the Marienkapelle in Würzburg

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  Cover plate of the former high grave of Makarius in the Marienkapelle in Würzburg

See also

• Makarios

literature

• Stefan Weber : Pure Main water from Kilian's wine cellar? The miracles of Macarius in the Würzburg Schottenkloster St. Jakob In: Dorothea Walz, Jakobus Kaffanke (Hrsg.): Irish monks in southern Germany: literary and cultural work of the Irish in the Middle Ages (= Latin literature in the German southwest, vol. 2). Mattes, Heidelberg 2009, pp. 229-304.
• Stefan Weber: Irish on the continent. The life of Marianus Scottus of Regensburg and the beginnings of the Irish "Schottenklöster" . Mattes, Heidelberg 2010.

Web links

Commons : Macarius of Würzburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints: Makarius the Scots

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred Wendehorst: The Diocese of Würzburg. Part 3: The row of bishops from 1455–1617. In: Germania Sacra, NF 13: The dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Mainz. De Gruyter, 1978, pp. 208 f.
2. ^ Wolfgang Brückner : Ecclesiastical styles of life in the 19th and 20th centuries (1840-1950). In: Peter Kolb, Ernst-Günter Krenig (Hrsg.): Lower Franconian history. Volume 5/2, Echter, Würzburg 2002, pp. 107–148, here: p. 127.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Weiss : The Catholic Church in the 19th Century. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 430-449 and 1303, here: p. 434.