Maria Radna
| Maria Radna Basilica | |
|---|---|
 Monastery church with monastery |
|
| Construction time: | 1723-1820 |
| Inauguration: | Alexander Rudnay |
| Style elements : | Baroque , classicism |
| Dimensions: | 56.2 × 19.8 × 20.6 m |
| Towers: |
2 |
| Location: | 46 ° 5 '56.8 " N , 21 ° 41' 9.4" E |
| Address: | 315401 Radna Lipova (Arad) Arad , Romania |
| Purpose: | Roman Catholic basilica minor |
| Diocese : | Diocese of Timisoara |
Maria Radna ( rum. : Maria Radna , ung. : Máriaradna ) is the most important Roman Catholic pilgrimage the diocese Temeswar and a Pope Basilica in Radna , a district of the town Lipova in circuit Arad in western Romania .
location
Radna and Maria Radna are 34 kilometers east of the district capital Arad on the northern bank of the Mureș . The river separates Radna and Maria Radna from the center of Lipova. Coming from the west the Pannonian Plain ends at Radna and the hill country of the Romanian Western Carpathians begins. The busy national road 7 ( Europastraße 68 ) from southern Hungary to Transylvania crosses the town of Radna and leads directly past the basilica.
history
In 1440 the place Radna was first mentioned in a document. In 1520 a pious widow had a small chapel built here. After the Banat was conquered by the troops of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Mohács in 1526 , the chapel served as a place of refuge for the faithful and the Franciscan friars who had fled from the foreign fighters.
According to legend, the Franciscans there had great treasures. That is why one night janissaries attacked the chapel, destroyed the altar and the pictures and stole the gilded chalice. In 1668 the merchant Georg Vričonosa gave the chapel a picture of the Virgin Mary printed on paper from the studio of the printer Remondini from Bassano del Grappa in Italy . In 1695, when the church was burned down by Ottoman troops, the miraculous image remained intact. Since then, believers have ascribed miraculous powers to this icon .
In 1709 the first pilgrimage to Maria Radna was organized from Arad . As a result of the plague , the inhabitants of the city of Arad promised to carry out the pilgrimage as a token of thanks for the end and rescue from the plague. In 1750 the church officially recognized Maria Radna as a place of pilgrimage.
The monastery was built in the Baroque style in 1750 and consecrated as a place of pilgrimage in a solemn service on the occasion of the birth of the Virgin Mary . Since then, large groups of believers have made a pilgrimage to this place every year on certain days of pilgrimage. The pilgrimages took place in the form of processions , on foot or by cart. Traditional customs regulated the adoption and order of the procession and the behavior at crossroads and when passing through villages, as well as the greeting and entry into the pilgrimage church. The procession concluded with a devotion on the Calvary next to the Gnadenkirche.
From 1757 to 1767, a new church was built in place of the old chapel, which still exists today. In 1820 work on the Mercy Church in Maria-Radna was finished. The Archbishop of Hungary, Alexander Rudnay von Estergom, solemnly consecrated the pilgrimage church and presented the miraculous image with two golden crowns as a consecration gift. As a result, the archbishop was given the addition of Rudnay , which means something like "from Radna". In his will, he left that his heart should be buried in the Lady Chapel after his death. It is still kept today in the side altar of Holy Mother Anna .
In 1895 the splendid Carrara marble altar and the two statues of the Virgin Mary were created on the occasion of the 200th anniversary . 1905 a new one was Wegenstein - Organ in the basilica built at Maria-Radna. From 1868 pilgrims had access to the Arad – Alba Iulia railway , which made the journey much easier, and from 1906 also the Arad – Podgoria local railway . In 1911 the two towers were increased by 30 meters to 67 meters.
After 1918, when the Banat was divided into three parts as a result of the Treaty of Trianon , the pilgrims from Hungary and Yugoslavia to Maria Radna decreased. 1921 called Bishop Julius Glattfelder to Assumption on the pilgrimage, where he delivered the homily. In 1925 between 15,000 and 18,000 believers made a pilgrimage to Maria Radna. Due to the great interest, the pilgrimages of the larger parishes were distributed over the Sundays during the warm season for logistical reasons. For example, the pilgrimage day of the Timisoara community was set on the feast of St. Anne . The largest day of pilgrimage was around the birth of Mary, on which up to 20,000 people made a pilgrimage to Maria Radna, with Franciscans from Germany helping out. In 1928 the Mount of Olives was expanded. During the tenure of Bishop Augustin Pacha around 1935, the number of pilgrims reached 73,000, building on the figures of the previous century when pilgrims from all countries of the Crown of St. Stephen moved to this place. A retreat for priests and teachers was established in the 1930s .
Under communist rule in 1948/49 the orders and congregations of the Catholic Church in Romania were dissolved. The Franciscan order was not mentioned by mistake. After the order was banned in 1949, all Franciscans in Romania were concentrated in Maria Radna under particularly difficult conditions. Pilgrimages were banned and monasteries were nationalized. In Maria Radna there remained a single priest with two brothers, and a state retirement home was built in the monastery.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989 , the number of pilgrims on pilgrimages increased again, which can be seen as a result of the newly won freedom.
In 1992 Pope John Paul II granted the pilgrimage church Maria Radna the title of Basilica minor . On this occasion, the titular archbishop Adalbert Boros , auxiliary bishop of the Timişoara diocese, gave the basilica a new altar as a token of thanks to Our Lady of Maria Radna for giving protection to the church and the diocese during the times of communist rule.
In 2003 the Franciscan Brothers left the Maria Radna Monastery after their centuries-old presence due to a lack of offspring. From this time on, the church life of the place of pilgrimage was entrusted to the diocesan clergy. Msgr. Andreas Reinholz, Canonicus Junior of the cathedral chapter of the Roman Catholic diocese of Timisoara , was appointed the first pastor.
description
Next to the pilgrimage church is the former Franciscan monastery . The Marien Chapel , built in 1892, is located in front of the entrance to the Gnadenkirche . A Way of the Cross , consecrated in 1890, leads over 14 stations and a pulpit to the Calvary .
Pilgrimage church
The pilgrimage church Maria-Radna is a single-nave wall pillar church with a drawn-in, elongated choir and trapezoidal apses . The length of the church measures 56.2 meters, the width of the nave 19.8 meters, the sanctuary is 9.3 meters wide. The height of the church in the nave is 20.6 meters. Due to its special location, slightly elevated on the northern bank of the Marosch and visible to the visitor from afar, a canonical easting of the church was dispensed with. Therefore, the choir was built in the west and the front side in the east of the complex. The chancel is equipped with a mirror vault , the nave with a barrel vault . Belt arches resting on massive wall pillars divide the nave into three bays . The massive pillars have a square floor plan and protrude far into the church. They are adorned with duplicated pilasters on three sides . The pilaster capitals were designed as Corinthian capitals with reduced foliage . There is a strongly cranked cornice above the fighters . The round niches created between the wall pillars serve to accommodate the side altars. In addition to the Ascension fresco , the vault is decorated with architectural paintings. The choir is illuminated by two arched windows and one oval window in the apse. The nave is illuminated by three arched windows cut deep into the wall on the side walls of the nave. Only a few pieces of the originally planned, closed baroque interior were implemented, including the framing of the miraculous image , the high altar , the traffic light for the eternal light and some altar leaves that were created in the 1860s.
Due to the delays in the construction period, but also influenced by a new sense of style, the front section of the Gnadenkirche presents itself as a peculiar amalgamation of baroque architectural elements and classical vocabulary of forms . The west wall of the church, designed as a show side, was built as a double tower facade . The design for this facade came about after the monastery had signed a new contract with the Arad fortress construction company and the fortification mason Carl Joseph Huber had been working in Radna from 1773. The composition scheme of the design shows a connection between a twin tower and an aedicule facade . The formal structure of the front section shows a close relationship to the Timisoara cathedral . The central section in Radna was planned as a risalit-like system, which is vertically structured by duplicated columns and closed by a triangular gable roof above the first floor. Despite the very wide middle section and the very high basement, the facade looks slimmer and more elegant than the Timisoara version. This is mainly achieved through the significantly slimmer pilasters , the narrow windows with triangular or volute gable roofs and the high-quality aedicula with volutes, pilasters and crowning vases as well as the crowning double cross. The order of the columns in the middle section shows classicist echoes, but in the overall view the facade solution is still committed to baroque traditions. The central part is emphasized by the arched portal and an arched window with a circular window above. This part is limited laterally by pilasters. The entire middle section is finished off at the edges with duplicated pilasters and a rustic zone. This rustic zone is repeated on the edges of the facade floors and on the edges of the towers. The middle section is now closed with a segmented gable and not with the intended triangular gable. The facade is divided horizontally by cranked cornices. The lower cornice divides the facade into two floors. All windows are suspected of having simple segment gables. A balustrade-like wave gable forms the current end of the central wing. The later balustrade was crowned by life-size statues of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony of Padua . These figures, like the statue of Our Lady, no longer exist today. The towers that flank the central section protrude from the floor plan. Like the central wing, they are also provided with pilasters and have Ionic capitals. There are wave gables above the arched windows. There were simple helmet roof-shaped spiers attached, which were replaced in the early 20th century by another tower basement with a colonnade and with pointed and towering spiers.
Miraculous image
The picture is a representation of a scapular - Madonna . The Scapular Madonna is one of the abundance of Baroque depictions of Mary favored by orders and brotherhoods . On the so-called legitimation pictures, Mary is represented, who presents the respective founder or donor with a sign of her grace . In fact, the Madonna of Radna is holding a belt in her hands, it is not shown to whom it is presented. In addition, the Madonna is crowned with the baby Jesus by two angels . However, one of the angels was obscured by the massive gold crowns with precious stones added to the picture in 1820. In addition, the representations at the top and on the left and right at the edge of the picture contain scenes and inscriptions of incidents in which people were saved by the grace of the Madonna. However, an actual connection to an order cannot be proven. The inscription below the Madonna “La Beatissima Vergine Del Carmine” also does not prove such a connection.
In 1779 the picture received valuable jewelry from Vienna , a silver frame, the work of the official goldsmith of the imperial court Josef Moser.
organ
The pilgrimage church of the Franciscans in Maria Radna did not have its own church music ensemble; church musicians, instrumentalists and choirs from Arad, Lipova and Timisoara were invited occasionally to higher visits and to more important festivals. On pilgrimages, the hymns were accompanied on the organ, and as the number of pilgrims increased after 1900, a larger instrument was needed.
In 1797/98 the organ builder from Timisoara, Franz Anton Wälters, built an organ with 20 registers. In the following years two members of the Franciscan order, Frater Simon Sangl and Frater Ignatius Lehnerum, took care of the maintenance of the organ. Sangl built a small organ for the pilgrimage church himself in 1818, and later worked in the monasteries of Arad and Wukowa. In 1854, organ builder Stephan Hechinger from Vienna was commissioned to repair and tune the organ.
In 1893 the organ builder Carl Leopold Wegenstein from Timisoara was entrusted with this task for the first time, and he carried out minor repairs over the next few years. Presumably this was the reason why a new organ was built by Wegenstein in 1905. The case of the organ is set in white and gold. The organ is considered to be a masterpiece by Wegenstein.
Franciscan monastery
The pilgrimage church was built on the north side of the monastery complex . The west and east sides protrude from the square floor plan of the monastery complex. The building of the monastery, consisting of 68 rooms, was built on three floors. In terms of their formal conception, they correspond to the administrative and military buildings erected in the late Mesopotamian and, above all, the Josephine period. Elongated facades are only structured by window lines and emphasized horizontally. Only a triangular gable top on the lower eaves on the outer facade of the east wing interrupts the monotony of the facade. In contrast to these simple forms, the inner courtyard was designed more elaborately. All floors were provided with arcades . The buildings had to be adapted to the rising terrain, so that the building of the east wing is 20 meters high and the west wing is only 15 meters high.
Building history
Church building
The rise of the pilgrimage to the miraculous image of Our Lady in Radna initiated the construction of a new pilgrimage church, for which the foundation stone was laid in 1756 by the provost Clemente Rossi. Mainly local builders were involved here. In addition, the brothers and especially the lay brothers of the monastery themselves worked as joiners or blacksmiths in the construction of the church. The first designs for the church and the architects are unknown. The church construction was mainly financed through donations . In addition, some of the building materials were provided free of charge by the court chamber .
The masonry work on the pilgrimage church was carried out successively from west to east. The chancel was covered until 1762, because the ceiling fresco in the chancel with the representation of the Assumption of Mary was completed in that year . Various traditions assume that the ceiling painting was made by the Vienna-born artist Ferdinand Schiessl. In 1767 the miraculous image was transferred to the new church with solemn ceremonies. In the same year the foundation stone for one of the towers was laid. After the Arad fortress construction company "Arader Fortification Entreprise et Compagnie" was commissioned with the construction work in 1773, there was a considerable intensification of the construction work in Radna.
Monastery building
In connection with the construction of the church in Maria Radna, the monastery buildings were built. The west wing of the residence was completed as early as 1727. After the residence was elevated to a convent in 1730, the south wing was built between 1743 and 1747. It was not until 1823 and 1824 that the almost square complex of the convent with a side length of around 50 meters was closed with the construction of the east wing.
EU project
The basilica was already in disrepair during the socialist era. In 2007 the architect Herbert habenicht, who specializes in monument preservation , was entrusted with the renovation of the pilgrimage church. The diocese of Timisoara had already renewed the church roof a few years earlier. After an inventory in 2008, static problems were found in the church towers. For this reason habenicht was commissioned to create an overall concept for the renovation of the Maria Radna basilica and for the monastery, which was converted into an old people's home during the socialist era. Together with the Senior Expert Service , habenicht has submitted an application for funding from the European Regional Development Fund to the European Union , which includes a marketing concept. The concept for the renovation of the church and the monastery is part of an overall project to develop cultural tourism . Among other things, an information center for tourists is planned. This is to be supplemented by a pilgrimage museum and a conference room . Those responsible hope that the expansion of the tourist infrastructure will have a positive impact on the economy and the labor market in the region.
On March 1, 2012, the Minister for Regional Development and Tourism, Cristian Petrescu, and the Bishop of Timisoara, Martin Roos , in the presence of the German Ambassador to Romania, Andreas von Mettenheim , signed a contract to finance the project “Development of cultural tourism in the West region through the restoration of the Maria Radna church and monastery and their tourist development ”. This means that EU funds amounting to 47 million lei , 34 million of which are non-refundable, are available.
The ten million euro renovation project envisages large-scale work. On the one hand, it is about the exterior renovation of the pilgrimage church, but also the exterior and interior renovation of the former Franciscan monastery, on the other hand the expansion and modernization of the square in front of the church and the construction of a tourism information center are on the agenda. A room with about one hundred seats is planned in the tourist information center, where tourists will get initial information about the basilica. The former Franciscan monastery is to house rooms for exhibitions, a library and conference rooms. The work, which began in May 2013, is expected to take 36 months.
On August 2, 2015, the solemn blessing of the renovation work on the Maria Radna pilgrimage basilica took place. To bless the renovation work, Pope Francis , Joachim Cardinal Meisner , delegated the Archbishop Emeritus of Cologne as his extraordinary envoy - missus extraordinarius. The opening was made by HE Bishop Roos , Diocese of Timisoara . Numerous bishops from all over Europe attended the opening ceremonies. Also Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister Reinhold Gall , Federal Commissioner Hartmut Koschyk , numerous Banat Swabians with their Federal Chairman Peter-Dietmar Leber and the German Ambassador Werner Hans Lauk and Consul Rolf Maruhn . Also the member of the German minorities in the Romanian parliament Ovidiu Ganț , who was very committed to promoting the renovation work with funds from the European Union. The Romanian President Klaus Johannis had also sent a personal representative to Maria Radna.
literature
- Martin Roos : Maria Radna. A place of pilgrimage in southeastern Europe , Volume I, Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1998, ISBN 3-7954-1170-X
- Martin Roos: Maria Radna. A place of pilgrimage in south-east Europe , Volume II, Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2004, ISBN 3-7954-1183-1
- Swantje Volkmann : The architecture of the 18th century in the Temescher Banat , Heidelberg 2001
Web links
- edition-musik-suedost.de , Franz Metz : From Paris via Rome to Maria Radna - The Wegenstein organ of the Basilica of Maria Radna (built in 1905)
- turismland.ro , Mănăstirea Maria Radna - Lipova (Romanian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g mariaradna.com ( Memento from December 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Claudiu Călin: History of the Basilica Maria Radna
- ↑ a b Koloman Juhasz, Adam Shift: The Diocese of Timișoara-Temeswar. Past and Present , Timișoara, 1934, ISBN 3-922046-76-2
- ↑ Gábor Barna: The sacred space of a pilgrimage site and its objects: Maria-Radna. In the S. (Ed.): Saints, Feasts, Pilgrimages, Confraternities. Saints, festivals, pilgrimages, brotherhoods. Selected Papers / Selected Writings. Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Szeged 2014, pp. 275–281, here p. 278
- ↑ a b c d e f g h archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de (PDF; 32.3 MB), Swantje Volkmann: The architecture of the 18th century in the Temescher Banat
- ↑ a b c edition-musik-suedost.de , Franz Metz : From Paris via Rome to Maria Radna - The Wegenstein organ of the Basilica of Maria Radna (built in 1905)
- ↑ renovabis.de ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), EU project for the Maria Radna pilgrimage church
- ↑ banater-schwaben.org , restoration of the church and monastery Maria Radna
- ↑ adz.ro , Raluca Nelepcu: Renovation work starts on the pilgrimage church Maria Radna , ADZ from April 19, 2013
- ↑ koschyk.de , Solemn Blessing of the renovation of the Wallfahrtsbasilika Maria Radna