Onophrios the Great

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Icon of the hermit Onuphrius (16th / 17th century)
Albrecht Dürer - Onuphrius (around 1505)

Onuphrius the Great (* around 320 in Ethiopia , † around 400 probably in Syria ) is a saint of the Ethiopian , Coptic , Orthodox and Catholic Churches ; his feast day is June 12th .

Vita

Onuphrius came from a respected, perhaps princely, family. According to legend, he was cast out by his father. After a time in the Hermopolis monastery in Thebais , he went to the desert as an anchorite , probably to Göreme in Cappadocia , but perhaps also to Egypt. Paphnutius of Egypt visited him shortly before his death; when he saw the wild figure of Onuphrius, he was frightened and fled, but Onuphrius called him back. He told him that he had lived in the desert for 70 years and had endured thirst, hunger and other inconveniences. They talked until evening when, miraculously, bread and water appeared in front of the hermit hermitage. Both spent the night in prayer; the next morning Onuphrius blessed his guest and died. Paphnutius became the author of the holy man's life .

Surname

The name Onophrios is often traced back to the Coptic origin Unnufer , which could be translated as "The Perfect", "The Ever Happy" or "The Permanently Good". Arabic name variants are Abū Nufir (ابو نفر) or Nofer (نوفر), which means a plant eater .

Worship as a saint

Fresco on the chapel in Blutenburg Castle in Munich-Obermenzing

Onuphrius worship in Munich

Heinrich the Lion (1129–1195), the legendary founder of Munich , is said to have brought the skull of the saint, whom he chose as his patron saint and that of the city of Munich, as a relic from his Wendenkreuzzug in 1147 , where it is later placed in the chapel St. Laurenz , built in 1324, was kept at the Alter Hof (a plaque commemorates her). However, after the church was demolished in 1816, the trace of the relic is lost. Another source says that an abbot of Schäftlarn is said to have brought the relic to him in Braunschweig after the end of his tenure as duke (1180)

Facade mosaic by Max Lacher at Marienplatz 17 in Munich

A story is told about the saint in Munich: from time immemorial there was a painting of a huge bearded man dressed in leaves on the facade of house number 17 on Marienplatz (south side, just before the Talbruckor , which is now the old town hall tower ) was. He wore a knotted stick and a double cross and was often mistaken for St. Christopher by the residents . According to the story, a gigantic man once entered the city through the Talbruck Gate, and he is said to have helped extinguish a fire in 1659.

The painting with the saint was affixed to his home by a man named Heinrich Pirmat in gratitude for having returned healthy from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This stood at the point where Heinrich's old castle had been until the 14th century. At that time, Munich existed in the first ring of the wall, which stretched from today's Old Town Hall (east) to the Schönen Turm (demolished in 1807, in front of today's Hirmer department store building (1914), west), in the south approximately to the Rindermarkt and in the north approximately to Maffeistraße. The rulers' castles were traditionally located on a corner of the city where they had the city walls as an outer boundary. The next castle was the Alte Hof (from 1255), then the Neuveste and finally from 1600 until the fortresses were abandoned in 1795, today's residence.

Every house that has stood in this place since then has the image of St. Onuphrius on the facade. Probably the most famous is the building that was erected by Gabriel von Seidl in the late 19th century and destroyed in the Second World War, as was the entire south side of the Marienplatz development. During the reconstruction, the building line was set back by five meters, so that the space is larger today. The present building has a mosaic of the saint as a picture . It was built around 1960. The inscription "Sanct Onuphrius" is located above the picture. The legend goes on to say that it became a popular belief that no one looking at the picture would die of sudden death on the same day.

Patronage

To St. Numerous churches are dedicated to Onuphrius, including the Oratorio di Sant'Onofrio in Palermo . The city of San Onofre in the Colombian department of Sucre bears his name.

presentation

Medieval representations of the saint are known only in the form of Byzantine icons . Pictorial representations have also been found in Western Europe since around 1500. In them Onophrius is mostly depicted as an old, naked and emaciated man, sometimes also as a giant, with long hair and a beard; his loins are covered by an apron (sometimes a fur apron). Attributes are usually a stick or a cross. Albrecht Dürer drew him several times and painted him with a bald head, a beard and a cloth.

literature

Web links

Commons : Onuphrius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Piazza II. 519-533: Onuphrios the Great. Retrieved June 5, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Onophrios the Great
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Onuphrios the Great
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian hermit and saint
DATE OF BIRTH at 320
PLACE OF BIRTH Ethiopia
DATE OF DEATH around 400
Place of death Syria