Menden cross costume
The Menden cross costume (from " carrying the cross ") is a processional carrying around of a miraculous image in the form of a cross on the Way of the Cross on the Rodenberg in Menden (Sauerland) .
history
Cross costumes were introduced in northern Germany in the course of the Counter Reformation .
The first references to evening pilgrimages to the Holy Cross Chapel on the Rodenberg in Menden, which were initially private, date back to the second half of the 18th century. The custom also developed to visit the foot drop stations during Holy Week. The “Hollmannsche Chronik” mentions that in 1792 the Good Friday procession could not be held because of the bad weather conditions, “which was never remembered by old people.” Towards the end of the 18th century, so many devout prayers came to the Kreuzkapelle every year on Good Friday on the Rodenberg that the Menden pastor and archpriest Johannes Eberhard Zumbroich felt compelled to issue processional regulations because he obviously did not agree with the external form in which the procession took its course. This gave the Menden cross costume the shape it has kept to this day with minor changes.
Legend
There is a legend that the custom goes back to a vow. It is said that the mayor's wife, suffering from plague, was healed on Good Friday in 1684 and that the building of a chapel on the Rodenberg near Menden was praised, combined with an annual procession on Good Friday. The last run of the procession on Good Friday morning is also called the “bread procession”.
procedure
The Menden cross costume is unique because runners set off every hour on the 2.5 km long trail from Maundy Thursday evening 9:00 p.m. to Holy Saturday morning 6:00 a.m. Exceptions are the prayer times for the “Great Cross Costume” on Good Friday morning and at the hour of Christ's death at 3:00 p.m., when services and devotions are offered in various churches. The cross bearers each hand over a life-size wooden cross and carry it on the traditional route from St. Vincenz Church to Rodenberg and back. From the St. Vincenz Church, you walk along the Way of the Cross through the city to the St. Antonius Chapel on the Rodenberg, past 14 stations with holy houses and memorial stones. The run lasts two nights and one day.
Individual evidence
- ↑ University of Heidelberg
- ↑ pv-menden.de : The historical background of the Menden cross costume .
- ^ Regional Association Westphalia-Lippe: Westphalian Easter customs
- ↑ pv-menden.de .