Order of the Holy Cross
Crusaders , even cross brothers or officially Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross , the members of the call Order of the Holy Cross (lat. Ordo sanctae cruets , religious symbol OSC or OCruc ).
history
Founding and expansion in the 14th century
The small Christian order of the Canon Regulars of the Holy Cross was founded according to the order's own tradition in 1211 by the canon Theodorus von Celles with four companions in Huy on the Maas . The motto of the order is: " In Cruce Salus " ("In the cross is salvation").
The Order directs its life according to the Rule of St. Augustine , so that the Knights of the Cross are among the Augustinian orders . Pope Innocent IV officially recognized the order in 1248. In doing so, the new order received the requirement to adopt the Dominican statutes , including their missals and the Liturgy of the Hours, in addition to the rule of Augustine to regulate the way of life .
In 1287, the cross brother Johannes von Eppa in Cologne acquired the remains of St. Odilia of Cologne , a companion of St. Ursula of Cologne , which made the order known in Germany. St. Odilia was made the patroness of the order and transferred to the mother monastery in Huy.
The Order of the Cross experienced an expansion in the 13th and 14th centuries through the establishment of new monasteries in the Netherlands , France and England , the Rhineland and Westphalia . The general chapter was held annually in the mother monastery in Huy. The occidental schism also split the order of the Cross.
Order reform in the 15th century
The Order of the Cross was caught early on by the reform movement in the late medieval religious system. The spiritual reform movement of the " Devotio moderna " exerted a significant influence on the Lords of the Cross. In 1410 the general chapter in Huy decided to reform the whole order thoroughly. The observance movement that this triggered gradually spread to the monasteries of the order, except for those in England.
In 1488 Pope Innocent VIII approved that the Order of the Cross should no longer be subject to episcopal jurisdiction . The Lords of the Cross became an exempted order. The order general headed the order. He was always prior of the mother monastery in Huy. He was assisted by four Definitors in the direction of the Order . Every year the collegial governing body of the order, the general chapter, met in Huy. Every prior of a Kreuzherrenkloster was a born member of the General Chapter, the monasteries could delegate other Kreuzherrn as their representatives in the General Chapter.
The Cross Lords of the 15th century practiced hardly any active pastoral care , the monasteries were predominantly contemplative . Few parishes were incorporated into the Order . A number of monasteries, however , looked after hospitals , which were often important hostels for travelers because they were located on important pilgrimage routes . Religious brotherhoods were established at many monastery churches, which were also looked after by the Lords of the Cross.
The order distinguished three classes in the convents:
- Priests- Canons - responsible for worship, pastoral care, management and administration.
- Conversation lay brothers - responsible for the manual work.
- Donaten lay brothers - also responsible for manual work; they led a way of life similar to that of conversations, but made their vows not on the general order, but on a particular monastery.
Reformation and Catholic Reform - 16th and 17th Centuries
The consequences of the Reformation brought the Order of the Cross in great distress. As early as 1524, the General Chapter stipulated that a Lord of the Cross may neither read nor possess the writings of Martin Luther . Through a powerful leadership of the order, the order general tried to ward off the Reformation influences on the rulers of the cross.
Because of the political consequences of the Reformation, twelve monasteries of the crosses were abolished in the northern Netherlands. Due to Henry VIII's abolition of the monastery , all the English settlements of the Knights of the Cross went under. In Germany, the political process of the abolition of monasteries dragged on until the Thirty Years' War . Thus the monasteries Höhnscheid (abolished in 1527), Pedernach (1552), Osterberg (1527, finally 1633) and Falkenhagen (1596) were abolished.
New attention was directed to the establishment of Latin schools, inspired by the idea of humanism .
Secularization and a new beginning in the 19th century
While the Order of the Cross had already lost several monasteries as a result of the Reformation in England, the northern Netherlands and Westphalia, almost all monasteries were abolished at the beginning of the 19th century. Emperor Joseph II had the monastery of the Knights of the Cross dissolved in what is now Belgium, and the French Revolution swept away. In the French-occupied Rhineland, the abolition of the Kreuzherrenkloster and other monasteries in the four departments on the left bank of the Rhine took place in 1802 with a decree of the French government. In 1796 the mother monastery "Clairlieu" in Huy on the Maas was closed. Between 1802 and 1814, as a result of secularization, all Kreuzherrenkloster in Germany were abolished. In 1840 only the extinct monasteries of St. Agatha and Uden in the Netherlands were left. Four Lords of the Cross lived there. From there, the order revived.
The Knights of the Cross as an International Order - 20th Century
In 1953 the Lords of the Cross returned to Germany to the Archdiocese of Cologne at the request of Cardinal Frings . First a monastery was founded in Wuppertal-Elberfeld and the Ehrenstein (Wied) monastery was repopulated. In 1964 the Kreuzherren returned to Wuppertal - Beyenburg . Parts of the relics of St. Odilia were transferred from Belgium to the Beyenburger monastery church. The founding of monasteries in the 20th century in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Ehrenstein, Bonn-Beuel, Ratingen, Neuss and Essen did not last long due to a lack of young people. Since 2008 only the Steinhaus monastery in Wuppertal-Beyenburg has been inhabited by the cross.
In the new millennium - 21st century
The order was transferred to the provinces of St. Augustine in the Netherlands (plus Indonesia , Brazil and Germany ) in 1957 , Sel. Theodorus von Celles in Belgium (plus Congo-Kinshasa ) and St. Odilia in the USA (plus New Guinea ). In 1969 Brazil became a province, in 1977 the province of Indonesia was raised. In 1981 Germany, previously a region of the Netherlands, was added as a pro-province. In 2000, the three European provinces were merged to form the Province of Blessed Theodorus von Celles (Europe), which also includes the Congo region in terms of ordinance. Without the Congo region and the Generalate in Rome, 108 crusaders belong to the European province.
In 2018 only three Kreuzherren live in Germany. There is a regional convent assigned to the Steinhaus monastery in Wuppertal-Beyenburg . A Kreuzherr lives in the monastery in Beyenburg. The other two Kreuzherren live in the Rhineland and Lower Saxony.
At the beginning of 2007 the Order of the Cross had 444 members in 53 branches, spread over Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Italy (Generalate in Rome), Indonesia, Congo (Kinshasa), the Netherlands, Austria and the USA.
In 2015, Father Laurentius Tarpin (* 1969, in Cisantana, West Java , Indonesia ) was elected as the current General General - the 58th Order General in the history of the Crusaders. His predecessor was the American Father Glen Adrian Lewandowski from 2003 to 2015. The Provincial of the European Province is Peter Snijkers.
The Universitas Katólika Parahyangan in Bandung on Java was founded in 1955 by members of the order.
Existing monasteries
Germany
- Steinhaus Monastery in Wuppertal-Beyenburg, founded in 1298, secularized in 1804, again occupied by the Cross in 1964.
Netherlands
- Sint Agatha Monastery in Cuijk
Former monasteries
- Aachen (1371–1802)
- Bentlage (1437-1803)
- Brandenburg near Aachen (1477–1784)
- Brüggen (1479–1802)
- Duisburg (1498-1814)
- Dülken (1479–1802)
- Düsseldorf (1438–1795)
- Ehrenstein (Wied) (1487–1812; 1953–1969; 1973–1998)
- Emmerich (1487-1811)
- Falkenhagen (1432–1596)
- Glindfeld near Medebach (1499–1804)
- Helenenberg (1485-1802)
- Hohenbusch near Erkelenz (1302–1802)
- Höhnscheid near Ippinghausen (1468–1527)
- Cologne , Streitzeuggasse (1307–1802)
- Marienfrede near Dingden (1444–1812)
- Osterberg near Osnabrück (1432–1527 / 1633)
- Pedernach near Rhens (1497–1552)
- Schwarzenbroich near Langerwehe, Düren district (1340–1802)
- Wegberg (1639–1802)
- Wickrath (1480–1802)
- Bonn-Augustinushaus (1964–1969)
- Bonn-Beuel / Limperich (1960-2005)
- Essen pigtail (1974–1989)
- Essen-Kettwig (1972–1996)
- Neuss (1967–1977)
- Ratingen-Breitscheid (1960–1985)
- Ratingen-Lintorf (1968-2006)
- Wuppertal-Elberfeld / St. Laurentius (1970–1995)
- Wuppertal-Elberfeld / St. Ursula (1953-2005)
- Wuppertal-Hahnerberg (1955–1985)
Sources / literature
- Annales Canonicorum Regularium S. Augustini Ordinis Sanctae Crucis , Vol. 1-3, ed. by CR Hermans, s'Hertogenbosch 1858.
- 50 years of the Kreuzherren in Germany 1953–2003 , ed. by Martien Jilesen u. Heinz van Berlo, Bonn 2004.
- Stefan Bringer: Ehrenstein . In: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche Vol. 3, Column 511, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993.
- Stefan Bringer: Lords of the Cross . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church Vol. 6, columns 459-460, Freiburg im Breisgau 1997.
- Stefan Bringer: Lords of the Cross . In: Orders and Monasteries in the Age of Reformation and Catholic Reform 1500–1700 vol. 2 (Catholic life and church reform in the age of religious schism vol. 66), pp. 175–192, Münster 2006.
- Ralf Georg Czapla / Harald Horst / Franca Victoria Schankweiler: Hohenbusch and the Order of the Cross. A research bibliography. In: Ralf Georg Czapla / Harald Horst (ed.): Knowledge transfer between handwriting and cradle print. Studies on the library of the Hohenbusch Kreuzherrenkloster. Erkelenz: Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande, 2013 (Writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande, 27), pp. 173–182.
- Paul Fabianek: Consequences of secularization for the monasteries in the Rhineland - Using the example of the monasteries Schwarzenbroich and Kornelimünster . 2012, Verlag BoD, ISBN 978-3-8482-1795-3
- Robert Haaß : The Cross Lords in the Rhineland , Bonn 1932.
- Hans-Ulrich Weiss: The Kreuzherren in Westphalia , Diest 1963.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Fabianek: Consequences of secularization for the monasteries in the Rhineland - Using the example of the monasteries Schwarzenbroich and Kornelimünster . Verlag BoD, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8482-1795-3
- ↑ http://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=12233