Wendelin Hinterkeuser

Wendelin Hinterkeuser (first name Augustin Hinterkeuser ; born October 10, 1851 in Menden near Bonn , † September 20, 1921 in Tiberias ) was a German Franciscan who worked in the Holy Land .

Life

Augustin Hinterkeuser was the son of Matthias Hinterkeuser and his wife Christina Frey. As a lay brother he became a member of the Franciscan Order, was given the name of the order "Wendelin" and went to Jerusalem on behalf of the order . There he developed a strong archaeological interest in the search for the remains of buildings named in the New Testament as places in the history of Jesus. However, he was not satisfied with the search, but actively worked as an architect in the reconstruction of the ruins. From 1888 to 1900 he resided in Jerusalem in the Salvator Church as a “machinist and blacksmith” and as an “architect” (1891–1899). In the years 1901–1902 he can be found as an “architect” in the convent of St. Catherine in Alexandria (Egypt). From there he returned to Jerusalem in 1906 as an "architect".

In the following years he worked on the reconstruction of the so-called condemnation chapel . According to legend, the condemnation chapel is the place where Jesus was condemned by Pontius Pilate ( John 18.28-39  EU ; Mk 15.1-15  EU ; Lk 23.1-25  EU ; Matt 27.11-26  EU ).

The flagellation chapel is located in the same courtyard on Via Dolorosa . Wendelin Hinterkeuser found the foundation walls of a Byzantine church there and interpreted them as the place of the flagellation of Jesus Christ . Since Byzantine times , Antonia Castle, destroyed in the uprising against the Romans in AD 70, has been a place of condemnation. The royal palace on the west hill of Jerusalem, which was also destroyed, comes into question as an actual location.

From 1907 to 1911, Wendelin Hinterkeuser lived in the residence of the Franciscans of St. Petrus in Tiberias . From here he worked on the reconstruction of the synagogue of Capernaum . According to the Bible, Jesus lived here, preached and healed the sick ( Mt 4.12-13  EU ; Mt 8.5-15  EU ). The location of the synagogue had long been forgotten. An anonymous pilgrim from Piacenza reported around 570 AD about the "House of St. Peter, which is now a basilica". During the Middle Ages, when visiting the place on the Sea of Galilee was associated with great difficulties, the memory of the exact location disappeared. The Arabic name of the place, Talhum, kept only a vague memory of the ancient Hebrew name. In the 13th century, a pilgrim named Burchardus noted that “the once famous city of Kafernaum is now a sad sight; it only consists of seven poor fishermen's huts. ”In 1838 the American Edward Robinson identified the place as the old Capernaum. In 1866 the Englishman Charles William Wilson excavated the synagogue in Capernaum / Talhum. It was apparently destroyed by an earthquake. In 1894 the Franciscan order acquired the ruins; Further excavations were carried out by the German archaeologists Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger (1905), by Wendelin Hinterkeuser (1906–1915) and, after his death, by Gaudenzio Orfali . The synagogue, which some researchers say to the 1st, others to the 2nd – 3rd Century AD, was completely cleared of rubble and partially rebuilt. In the vicinity of the synagogue, an octagonal church dedicated to St. Peter and which was decorated with mosaics from the Byzantine period (5th – 6th centuries). From 1968 to 1992 the excavations and further restorations were carried out by the Franciscans Virgilio Corbo and Stanislao Loffreda .

literature

• Franz Stelljes: Family book Menden / Meindorf 1706–1875. Self-published, St. Augustin-Meindorf 1988.

Web links

• Il costruttore della chiesa: Fra Wendelin Hinterkeuser