Station service

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A station service is understood to be a late antique - medieval and modern organizational form of Christian worship .

Historical form of liturgy

Of space (space question) and organizational (unity of the church of a city) reasons, gathered the community a city to led by the bishop or his representative in the set for the day Station Church to celebrate the main service. On days of repentance , all participants also gathered beforehand in an assembly church (“Collectakirche”) and from there went in a procession to the station church. The order of the individual, sometimes more than 40 meeting places ( stationes ) is determined by the local ward order.

The station service (missa stationalis) represents the solemn form of the episcopal mass celebrations in the Roman Catholic Church . The ceremonial for the bishops recommends that such celebrations be held during Lent at least in larger cities, in accordance with Roman custom. The congregation gathers at a starting point where the bishop or the celebrant speaks an oration and places incense. Then the deacon invites the assembled to the procession to the church with the cry “Let us go in peace”. On the way there the litany of All Saints is sung. In the church, the altar is incensated and then the daily prayer of the mass is said, Kyrie and the other parts of the opening are omitted. The mobile form of worship also lives on in other processions .

The station service has its origin in the church of the city of Rome. The cultic unity of the town church - beyond the plurality of worship services in the various churches - was expressed in the custom of the station worship service. The beginnings of this practice are obscure; In the 7th century, station services can be proven to have been a long-standing practice. The station service is also known from Syria, Armenia, Palestine, Egypt and the Gaulish-Franconian region. The episcopal city "multiple church scheme", which is recognizable in this liturgical form of organization, has led to the development of church families as a building principle for urban and monastic church buildings since the Carolingian period .

Form of worship in the diaspora (20th century)

In the diaspora , especially in the area of ​​the former GDR , after the Second World War, worship meetings without priests were called ward worship , because this form was practiced especially on the "outstations" of a parish. If in the numerous outstations - around 3000 in the dioceses and jurisdictions of the GDR - a holy mass with a priest could only take place fortnightly, monthly or even less often , it was considered important that the faithful on site nevertheless on each Sunday as “Primeval Day of Christianity” gathered for a prayer and word service. The bishops made suggestions for “lay and domestic devotions” available to the lay people commissioned for this purpose ; so the term station service became established .

At the request of the Berlin Ordinarienkonferenz , the Holy See granted permission for a European country for the first time for a year on April 21, 1965, so that Holy Communion could be donated by suitable lay people ( communion celebration ). This regulation meant a great upswing for this form of worship, so that the permit was extended on December 20, 1966 and, with the Instructio de cultu mysterii eucharistici of May 25, 1967, extended to the entire Roman Catholic Church. The station service was not viewed as a "private matter" but as a service of the church. The regular meeting with the bishop's delegate should take place “to hear the word of God, to receive the bread of life, to intercede for all in prayer, and then to walk the path of love and testimony in everyday life”. (Pastoral Synod for the jurisdiction areas in the GDR 1973-1975. Decision "faith today," No. 47) "Each station service connects the Christians in the Diaspora with the parish by being the sacred gift ex hac altaris participatione (by participating in Eucharistic celebration at the church location) ”.

literature

  • Johann Dorn: Station services in early medieval episcopal towns. In: Heinrich M. Gietl (Ed.): Festgabe für A. Knöpfler. Freiburg 1917, pp. 43-55.
  • John Francis Baldovin: The urban character of Christian worship: the origins, development, and meaning of stational liturgy (= Orientalia Christiana analecta. Vol. 228). Pont. Is. Orientale, Rome 1987.
  • Heinzgerd Brakmann: Synaxis Catholic in Alexandreia. To spread the Christian station worship service. In: Yearbook for Antiquity and Christianity . No. 30, Aschendorff Verlag , Münster 1987, pp. 74-89.
  • Caeremoniale episcoporum ex decreto Sacrosancto Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum , auctoritate Ioannis Pauli PP. II promulgatum. Editio typica. Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis MXMLXXXIV. Caput I: de Missa stationali episcopi dioecesani.
  • Angelus Albert Häussling: Monks' convention and Eucharistic celebration. A study of the mass in the western monastic liturgy of the early Middle Ages and the history of the frequency of measurements. Münster 1973, ISBN 3-402-03842-2 , pp. 186-202.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. herder.de: Service. Dictionary. Station liturgy .
  2. The term comes from Edgar Lehmann . See on this and the whole: Angelus Albert Häussling: Monks' convent and Eucharistic celebration. A study of the mass in the western monastic liturgy of the early Middle Ages and the history of the frequency of measurements. Münster 1973, ISBN 3-402-03842-2 , pp. 186–202, here p. 201, note 125.
  3. Michael Matscha : Mündl. Information from the archive director of the Diocese of Erfurt, verified on the basis of the original document A. Card. Ottavianis, approved by Paul VI.
  4. ^ Hugo Aufderbeck : Station service. Communion celebration. Texts for Sunday services without priests in the diaspora outstations . St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1979, p. 3ff. and 9.
  5. ^ Hugo Aufderbeck : Station service. Communion celebration. Texts for Sunday services without priests in the diaspora outstations. St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1979, p. 11f. and 16.