Willebold from Berkheim

Reliquary in St. Konrad Berkheim

Willebold von Berkheim (* in Calw ; † 1230 in Berkheim ) (old German of bold will ) was a Christian pilgrim who died under unexplained circumstances on his return journey from the Holy Land in Berkheim. The official day of remembrance is November 2nd. He is the patron saint of the Illertal . The body of the saint is in a reliquary of the Church of St. Konrad in Berkheim in Upper Swabia . Every year on the Sunday after July 16, the municipality of Berkheim celebrates the Willebold Festival in the form of aProcession and Eucharistic celebration in honor of the saint.

Legend

According to legend, the future saint was born in Calw in what is now Baden-Württemberg . He is said to have been of a noble family. Like many others of his time, he made himself a pilgrim , other sources speak of a crusader on his way to the Christian sites in the Holy Land , the then Kingdom of Jerusalem . When he returned from this pilgrimage in 1230, he died exhausted in a barn across from the inn at the Krone in Berkheim. When he died, the bells of the parish church supposedly ringed by themselves. At the same time, the air was filled with heavenly, delicate music and fragrances surrounded the deceased when he was buried.

After his death, great veneration began. In 1273 his body was transferred to the parish church of St. Konrad von Berkheim by the later provost Berthold von Marchtal. The saint's mortal remains are kept in a reliquary on the front right side of the church.

Adoration

St. Willeboldbrunnen Berkheim

The Red Abt will Bold hero left him after the church fire on May 31, 1785 to build a new sarcophagus made of stucco marble. Michael von Jung wrote a play on the story of the saint called the Willeboldspiel , which is performed every ten years in the Berkheim community. The fact that his veneration has remained very lively to this day is largely thanks to the Premonstratensian monastery in Rot an der Rot . Willebold is considered the patron saint of the Illertal. Until 1780 his feast day in Berkheim was every year on November 26th. The parish of Berkheim currently celebrates the Willibold Festival every year on the Sunday after July 16 with a Eucharist and a procession . The reliquary is also carried during the annual Corpus Christi procession . The artist Josef Wehrle designed the Willebold fountain for the small square in front of the St. Willebold barn in the immediate vicinity of the parish church of St. Konrad .

literature

• A. Kalbrecht: Willebold , Munich 1930.
• O. Wimmer; R. Melzer: Lexicon of names and saints. Edited and supplemented by Josef Gelmi , Innsbruck-Vienna 1988.
• V. Schauber, HM Schindler: saints and namesake in the course of the year , Augsburg 1992; 385.
• V. Schauber: Pattloch name day calendar. Documentation by HM Schindler , p. 211.
• Ekkart Sauser :  Willebold. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 13, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-072-7 , Sp. 1315-1316.

Web links

Commons : Saint Willebold  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Willebold from Berkheim