Rochus Chapel (Bingen)

Rochus Chapel, west side

The Rochus Chapel from the banks of the Rhine

Sculpture "Christ taken down from the cross"

The St. Rochus Chapel is a pilgrimage church that is located southeast of Bingen am Rhein on the Rochusberg . It has been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 .

history

A first chapel was built at the time of the crusades by returning crusaders. In 1417, the Archbishop of Mainz, Johann II of Nassau, combined the foundations associated with the Bethlehem Chapel with the St. Martin Basilica (Bingen) , which was completely impoverished by a large fire. The chapel then fell into disrepair and was forgotten.

The first Rochus Chapel was built after the plague year in 1666.

“... that the entire town voted to build a chapel on the Hesselingen in honorem S. Rochi. every year on the day of St. Rochus to lead a procession there and celebrate half the day. "

- the Binger bailiff Baron Frey von Dehren on July 16, 1666 to the Mainz cathedral chapter

Altar painting of St. Roch by Louise Seidler (donated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), around 1816

In 1795, during the French occupation of the Rhine Valley, it was destroyed by fire from German and Austrian troops and exploited by the French occupying it. The second building was built in 1814 after a typhus epidemic that had been triggered by returning soldiers. The Rochus Brotherhood bought the entire interior of the abolished Eibingen monastery for this building . In that year, the relics of St. John, which Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar also brought back from the Eibingen monastery , were in the chapel . Rupert von Bingen and his mother, St. Berta von Bingen , transferred to the chapel, where they rest to this day.

The Rochus Festival of that year was described in detail by Goethe . In early 1816, Goethe commissioned Louise Seidler for an altarpiece of "Saint Roch", which was to be made according to the design by Johann Heinrich Meyer and which he donated to the Rochus Chapel in Bingen, which he presented in "Am Rhein, Main und Neckar" in 1814 vividly portrayed. Goethe wrote:

“A picture of St. Roch, which is not at all bad, but at most is of the kind that it can do miracles, will hopefully reach Bingen to edify the believers on the great day. It came about in a strange way. The sketch is from me, the carton from Hofr. Meyer and a tender, dear artist did it. You will hardly steal it from the Rochusberg in your collection. But it is effective in its place and so it is right and good. "

- Letter to Sulpiz Boisserée dated June 24, 1816

In 1889 lightning struck the roof turret and the chapel burned down to the brickwork.

Rochus Chapel

Interior view of the Rochus Chapel

Today's building was built according to plans by the Freiburg cathedral master builder Max Meckel from 1893 to 1895 in neo-Gothic style and was built with the participation of the stonemason company Zeidler & Wimmel (Berlin). The eight-day “Rochus Octave” is still celebrated here on the last two weekends in August, accompanied by the festival mentioned above.

The Rochuskapelle's furnishings include pieces from the 15th to 19th centuries. The baroque statue of Rochus above the high altar is the only part that was saved from the burned down structure. Alexander Linnemann created the glass windows .

organ

Since the pilgrimage chapel also has an outside choir, the organ (without a prospectus ) is in a chamber above the south aisle. Rejection flaps can be opened either to the church interior or to the outside choir. The organ was built by B. Schlimbach & Sohn , Würzburg and has 19 stops on two manuals and a pedal .

I main work C – f 3 Quintatön 16 ′ Principal 8th' Hollow flute 8th' Gamba 8th' Octave 4 ′ Reed flute 4 ′ Cornett IV Mixture V Trumpet 8th'

II subsidiary work C – f 3 Flute Principal 8th' Flute amabile 8th' Salicional 8th' Dumped 8th' Dolce 8th' Flute dolce 4 ′

Pedal C – d 1 Sub-bass 16 ′ Principal bass 16 ′ violoncello 8th' tuba 16 ′

• Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
• Playing aids : Fixed combinations (pp, f, tutti)

The small Bethlehem Chapel from the same year is located in front of the hill; it is reminiscent of the chapel that stood here at the time of the Crusades (the Rochusberg was then called Hesselberg), and which was donated to the Martinsstift in 1417. The polygonal , openwork sandstone building on the wide terrace in front of the Rochus Chapel gives light to the grotto.

Bells

In 1895 , the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen supplied a total of eleven bronze bells for St. Martin 's Church in Bingen and the St. Rochus Chapel , six for St. Martin and four for the Rochus Chapel. All bells fell victim to the bell confiscations of the two world wars.

The Rochus Chapel as a place of pilgrimage

Procession to the Hildegardesfest

Rochus Chapel with Bethlehem Chapel

As already described above, Rheinhessen was repeatedly threatened by the plague and other epidemics . So pilgrimages developed out of the gratitude of the surviving population :

• Jakobsberg near Ockenheim : The fourteen helpers pilgrimage. Main pilgrimage: July 24th (Christopherus) and July 13th (Saint Margaret), on the Sunday closest to the feast day.
• Laurenziberg near Gau-Algesheim : Laurenzi pilgrimage, always on the Sunday before or after the feast of St. Laurence (10 August)
• Rochusberg near Bingen: Rochus pilgrimage, on the Sunday after the feast of St. Rochus (August 16) according to the diocesan calendar of the diocese of Mainz .

literature

• Helmut Mathy (editor): Bingen - history of a city on the Middle Rhine . City of Bingen, Bingen am Rhein 1989, p. 203, ISBN 3-920615-10-7 .
• Sascha Muders, Fr. Josef Krasenbrink OMI: A tour of the pilgrimage chapel St. Rochus, publisher: Basilikapfarramt St. Martin, Bingen am Rhein 2010 p. 20

Web links

Commons : Rochuskapelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Sankt-Rochus-Fest zu Bingen in the Gutenberg-DE project
• Rochus Chapel in pictures and texts, with Goethe's description of the Rochus Festival

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hildegard von Bingen. Places of activity , series "Hagiography / Iconography / Folklore", Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg, 4th edition 2008, ISBN 978-3-7466-2522-5
2. ↑ Source on the transfer of relics from St. Rupert and St. Berta, 1814
3. ^ From a trip on the Rhine, Main and Neckar in the years 1814 and 1815. In: Goethe's posthumous works. Stuttgart & Tübingen 1833, vol. 3, p. 247ff digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3DEhtfisNxADkC~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA247~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D
4. ↑ Goethe's Works, IV. Department, Weimar 1887-1912, Vol. 27, p. 65
5. ↑ World Heritage Middle Rhine Valley Catholic St. Rochus Chapel, accessed on April 21, 2009
6. ↑ Information on the organ of the Rochus Chapel
7. ^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, in particular pages 246, 247, 507 .
8. ↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, especially pp. 228-231, 474 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).
9. ^ [1] Josef Krasenbrink : History of the Binger Rochus pilgrimage and the Rochus chapel, accessed on December 23, 2015
10. ↑ Hans Tönjes Redenius ( Memento of the original from December 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Josef Krasenbrink: The bell story of the St. Rochus Chapel in Bingen from 1666 - 1958: in Josef Krasenbrink: Von Menschen und Heiligen, Bingen 2003 (see sample) 

Coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 0.1 ″  N , 7 ° 55 ′ 33.8 ″  E