Philipp von Zell

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St. Philip, depiction in the Zeller Brotherhood Book, around 1450

Philipp von Zell (* in England ; † after 750 in Zell ) was an Anglo-Saxon priest and is venerated as a saint in the Diocese of Speyer . He is considered the patron of children's blessings.

Life

St. Philip von Zell is one of the Palatinate's early messengers of faith . His grave was once their most important place of pilgrimage . Zell and the entire Zellertal derive their names from that "Cellula", the cell of St. Philip of Zell, an Anglo-Saxon who was on his way back from Rome at the time of King Pippin (751–768), where a pope made him a priest had consecrated , settled here as a hermit, built a chapel and hermitage consecrated to St. Michael in place of a pagan place of worship and planted an orchard. Soon companions appeared.

In the nearby Großbockenheim , St. Philip built a Christian chapel, according to the legend, on the site of a pre-Christian spring shrine, to which pilgrimages continue to this day . It is known there as St. Peter's or Holy Church .

Philip was already venerated as saintly during his lifetime. Many miracles have come down to us from him. A stream of pilgrims to him began that never stopped even after his death. His vita informs us about Philip's life , written down by a monk who is not named by name around the year 850, who cites as a witness to the inhabitants of the place and to the priest Horoskolf , student and companion of St. Philip of Zell, who was his spiritual Father long survived and reached a very old age. In addition to the vita, two other small tracts report on Philip's admiration.

Adoration and history of pilgrimage

Philippskirche 1516, with an exhibited reliquary of the saint and pilgrims
Pilgrimage Church of St. Philipp, Zell
Zell pilgrimage church, interior shot
St. Philipp von Zell, figure from the former high altar of the Speyer Cathedral, by Gottfried Renn 1853; since 1972 in the pilgrimage church in Zell
St. Philipp von Zell, ceiling painting in the pilgrimage church in Zell. Right behind him, baptizing, the priest Horoskolf, his companion and student. In gratitude for the commission, the painter gave St. Philip the facial features of the pastor of Zell, Peter Pfaff

The chapel in Zell, which was located in the Archdiocese of Mainz and next to which the town of Zell gradually developed, was subordinated to the Hornbach Abbey in the southwestern Palatinate after Philip's death . The abbey owned rich land and several own churches in the immediate vicinity of Zell . 850 you got the bones of the saints, and put them at the newly built Salvatorkirche; the Archbishop of Mainz Rabanus Maurus (847–856) wrote the altar inscriptions. St. Philip was officially honored as a saint. The cult site was devastated in the Hungarian invasions of the 10th century and rebuilt in the 970s on the orders of Duke Otto by the Hornbach abbot Adalbert .

A collegiate monastery had existed in Zell since the end of the 10th century . The canons provided pastoral care in the surrounding Hornbacher churches. In contrast to a monastery, canons do not live in seclusion and have private assets. After the end of the Vita communis (initially the canons lived under one roof), the foundation's assets were divided into benefices so that each canon could live in their own house with courtyard and useful buildings. The canons came together for common prayer in the collegiate church , they founded the first school in the wide area and they operated agriculture and viticulture, which is why Zell is considered the oldest wine-growing community in the Palatinate. A weathered cross with a black body led to the vineyard location "Zeller Schwarze Herrgott" near the sermon rock of St. Philip, one of the most famous vineyards in the Palatinate.

At the end of the 9th century, the Hornbach monastery, with the Zell monastery, was under the control of Count Werner (Salier) , father of Konrad the Red . Count Werner V's successor was Duke Otto I (Carinthia) , also known as Otto von Worms, son of Conrad the Red in 975/976 .

In view of the impending battle with his adversary Albrecht of Austria, King Adolf von Nassau set up his headquarters in Zell Abbey on July 1, 1289, attended mass there on the morning of July 2, and then moved to Göllheim , where he participated in the battle of Göllheim found death.

In its heyday, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the collegiate church with the saint's grave had three naves with nine altars and a large number of votive offerings, the most valuable of which were about 100 solid silver, gold-plated children. After a personal pilgrimage of the Palatinate Elector Ludwig IV and his wife Margarethe of Savoy led to the birth of the longed-for heir to the throne ( Philip the Sincere - after St. Philip) in 1447, under the canon dean Peter von Grünstadt , the Palatinate saint became more and more the Patron and helper in the case of childlessness. Among the numerous pilgrims who came here for this reason, three famous ones deserve special mention: On August 8, 1480, Count Schweickhart VIII von Sickingen and his wife Margarethe came here and prayed for the birth of a son who was born to them as Franz von Sickingen in 1481 . Among other things, the parents gave the pilgrimage church a valuable chasuble. Maria Bianca , the second wife of Maximilian I, visited Zell no less than four times in 1495/96 with the same concern - their marriage was childless. Electress Sybilla von der Pfalz, wife of Elector Ludwig V , also came to the grave of St. Philip in 1517 because she had no descendants.

Many prayer requests were made from afar, without a personal pilgrimage, and well-known people were usually also enrolled as members of the Philipps Brotherhood in Zell. Among other things, the following were registered as members: Elector Ludwig IV of the Palatinate and his wife Margarethe, Ruprecht , German King and Elector of the Palatinate, Elector Ludwig III. von der Pfalz, Elector Friedrich I of the Palatinate, the Victorious and his brother Ruprecht , later Archbishop of Cologne, Countess Palatine Sybilla, Margrave Philipp of Baden, Elector Friedrich II of Brandenburg and his wife Catherine of Saxony, Duke Friedrich the Peacemaker of Braunschweig, Count Friedrich VIII. Von Leiningen (1397–1437).

The Counts of Leiningen were the monastery’s guardians until around 1480 and did a great job of doing so. The Philip relics were solemnly exhibited every seven years and attracted thousands of pilgrims. The exhibition cycle coincided with the Aachen Sanctuary Tour , the largest medieval pilgrimage in Germany, which also took place every seven years. Many pilgrims who moved to Aachen made a detour to Zell on the way.

The papal nuncio Cardinal Sebastian Pighi visited Zell in 1550 and found that most of the canons already adhered to Luther's new teaching, the church was closed and dilapidated, there were no more services and the entire monastery was in a ruinous state. Pilgrims had also complained that the canons no longer allowed them to go to the church at the Philip's tomb, as they supposedly “couldn't find the church keys ” . The Palatinate Elector Friedrich II asked the Pope to incorporate the Philippsstift and its rich estates into the University of Heidelberg , supposedly to save the cult and at the same time to improve the poor financial situation of his university. Pope Julius III agreed to this procedure in 1551 in order to give the pilgrimage a chance of survival.

But just five years later, the new Elector Ottheinrich himself introduced the Reformation in the Electoral Palatinate , at the same time banning the Catholic cult everywhere and dissolving the religious monastery. The rich property was administered by his university in Heidelberg , which installed a secular bailiff in Zell , the collector, and had a castle-like house built for him in the baroque era, the so-called collection. The valuable Zell Abbey Library with manuscripts from the 10th and 11th centuries as well as the famous brotherhood book was incorporated into the Electoral Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg. This captured Elector Maximilian of Bavaria in the Thirty Years War and gave it to the Pope. Later the King of Bavaria received a large part of these books from the Vatican as a gift, which meant that they were returned to the House of Wittelsbach . Also included was the immensely precious, illustrated Zeller Brotherhood Book, which is currently in the Munich State Library .

The collegiate church fell into disrepair and disappeared completely, nothing remained of the treasury and the votive offerings of pious pilgrims, the bones of St. Philip are lost. When the rulers of the Palatinate became Catholic again after 200 years, Elector Karl Theodor obliged the University of Heidelberg , which had received all of the financial profit from the dissolved monastery, to build a new pilgrimage church in 1745 . This is the baroque church that still exists today.

Since the completion of this pilgrimage and parish church in 1749, the cult of Philip has revived and St. Philip has been named patron of the University of Heidelberg. In 1780 the rector of Heidelberg University asked the bishop's chair in Worms for permission to hold a pilgrimage festival, which took place for the first time that year and attracted 2,000 pilgrims. Since then, the pilgrimage, which is held with a festive procession, has not been canceled. The pilgrimage festival with procession takes place every year on May 3rd (feast day) or on the following Sunday. The cult of saints lives today purely from the thousand-year tradition, since there are no more Philip relics.

St. Philip and the Zeller Stift are also described by the so-called Bollandists of the 17th century in the volume “May” of the Acta sanctorum collection , written by Godefridus Henschenius (1600–1682) and Daniel Papebroch (1628–1714).

Today's admiration

As before, St. Philip is traditionally invoked as the patron of wishes for children, and pilgrims still come with this request. In addition, he is considered the regional "weather patron" for good weather, but reports the vita - and this was as a constant folk tradition z. B. also taken over into the profane Palatinate legends - that in "bad weather" one carried the body of the saint (the relics) from Zell to Kaiserslautern (Lutra), and wherever one went the rain stopped. In Zell, the locals report that it has not rained during the annual Philipps procession since time immemorial. Another story from the Vita, namely that thieves once stole two oxen from the saint, but got lost with the animals and were back at the place of their crime in the morning, where they were kindly welcomed and entertained by St. Philip, caused him to be called as patron against theft. The coat of arms of the municipality of Zellertal also shows it .

literature

  • Decastichon in peregrinationẽ ad sanctum Philippũ confessorem . Printed by Jakob Köbel, Oppenheim 1516.
  • Magnus Jocham : BAVARIA SANCTA - life of the saints and blessed of the Bavarian region . Freising 1861 ( heiligenlegende.de - copy).
  • Peter Bruder: St. Philip of Zell, in the Palatinate (brochure, 16 pages) . Jäger'sche Buchdruckerei, Speyer (approx. 1915).
  • Peter Bruder: The liturgical veneration of St. Philip of Zell, in the Rheinpfalz (brochure, 24 pages, special print from "Pastor Bonus", magazine for ecclesiastical science and practice) . Paulinus printing works, Trier 1920.
  • Adolf Hofmeister u. a. (Ed.) Scriptores (in Folio) 30.2: Supplementa tomorum I-XV. Leipzig 1934, p. 796 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  • Jakob Knauber : The hermit Philipp von Zell, a saint of the Palatinate . Pilger Verlag, Speyer 1938.
  • Adam Fath: Investigations into the oldest history of what was later to become the cell of the cell in the northern Palatinate . In: Archive for Middle Rhine Church History . tape 1 , 1949, p. 3-29 ( dilibri.de ).
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Hebel : Palatine sagas, new edition (Article No. 36: The miracles of St. Philip of Zell) . Crusius Verlag, Kaiserslautern 1958.
  • Peter Moraw : The St.Philipp zu Zell monastery in the Palatinate . Carl Winter University Press, Heidelberg 1964.
  • Ekkart Sauser :  Philipp von Zell. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 1240-1241.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive  on 2007-06-29)
  • Joachim Specht: St. Philipp von Zell, Patron of the North Palatinate (full-page newspaper article) . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Local part of Kirchheimbolanden. May 8, 2004.
  • Richard Antoni: A very holy man named Philipp . In: Archive for Middle Rhine Church History . tape 61 , 2009, p. 315-364 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mainz magazine. Verlag des Mainzer Altertumsverein, born in 1966, p. 93; Excerpt from the source
  2. ↑ On the history of the Holy Church in Bockenheim, with mention of St. Philipp von Zell
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Metz: Miscell the history of the Widonen and Salier. In: Historical yearbook. 85th year, Munich / Freiburg 1965, p. 7.
  4. ↑ Klaus Herbers, Peter Rückert: Pilgrim saints and their memoria. 2011, ISBN 3-8233-6684-X , p. 156 Scan from the source, to the Zeller Kindlein
  5. ^ Institute for Austrian Art Research, Vienna: Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte. Volume 44, 1991, p. 95; Excerpt from the source
  6. ^ Godefridus Henschenius and Daniel Papebroch: Acta sanctorum. (New edition), Volume 14, Appendix, pp. 18-22; Scan from the source
personal data
SURNAME Philipp von Zell
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic priest, saint in the Diocese of Speyer and patron of children
DATE OF BIRTH 7th century or 8th century
PLACE OF BIRTH England
DATE OF DEATH 8th century
Place of death Zell (Zellertal)