Stones Are Talking History

Steine, die Geschichte erzählen was the title of an excursion to Worms the Catholic Academy Freiburg had organized on October 9/10.

My readers will be spoiled with a blog trilogy dealing with

- Worms and its churches,

- the exhibition "Here I stand" commemorating the 500th anniversary of Luther appearing in front of Emperor Charles V and the seven Electors at the 1521 Imperial Diet at Worms,

- the Jewish life in Worms, a place that belonged to the three SchUM cities.

Around Christ's birth, Worms was a Roman military base that existed until 85 AD. An associated civilian settlement developed urban structures and became known as Civitas Vangionum.

Still visible today: The old city wall

The actual starting point of Worms was constructing a city wall and a cathedral in Romanesque style.

Bishop Burchard of Worms. Statue near the cathedral.

Bishop Burchard had the old cathedral from Merovingian times demolished and built a new, much larger structure on the old foundations. Following the collapse of this Worms cathedral, it was quickly rebuilt. It was consecrated in 1018 in the presence of Emperor Henry II, still during Burchard's lifetime, 

But Burchard's new cathedral had structural damage. 

The new, new Worms Cathedral in Romanesque style

So his successor Bishop, Burchard II, had the Burchard I cathedral demolished and started a completely new building from scratch in 1130. 

Our guide explains the details of the cathedral standing behind a bronze model.

This construction was consecrated in 1181 and still impresses the visitor.

The visitors' south entrance

The mighty west choir from the outside

The west choir from the inside

Reliefs from the demolished cloister now adorn the north wall of the nave.

Annunciation of Our Lady. God the Father above all. On the left is St. Paul.
On the far-out right, carpenter Joseph, the Child's foster father

The Tree of Jesse with Mary and the Child on top.
St.Peter, Bishop Burchard, and St.Paul venerate the messianic tree.
Note: Most of Jesse's descendants wear crowns and no Jewish hats.

The Nibelungen portal

A pivotal episode from the Saga of the Nibelungs occurred at the north portal of Worms Cathedral with the Queen's Quarrel. According to the legend, the rivals Brünhild and Kriemhild were arguing about which of their husbands had the higher rank and which of the two queens was allowed to enter the cathedral first.

Entrance to the St. Nicolas chapel
The tympanum shows scenes of the saint's life.
Still today, many children expect their treats on Nicolas Eve

The altar of the chapel.
St. Nicolas to the left, and the man with the gridiron,
St. Lawrence to the right frame St. Mary with the Child.
Note the modern stained glass.

Here is another modern stained glass window
showing examples of human sinfulness.
At the bottom, two pivotal scenes from the Book Genesis are shown.
The two windows above address
the dance around the Golden Calf on the right-hand side, and
mankind plays with the nuclear fire on the left-hand side.

There is no medieval stained glass in Worms cathedral or elsewhere in the vicinity. The reason isn't the last Worldwar but a national disaster known as the Oppau explosion.

Published in Popular Mechanics

100 years ago, on September 21, in the early morning, approximately 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored in a tower silo exploded at the BASF plant at Oppau, now part of Ludwigshafen.

According to official figures, 559 people were killed or remained missing due to the explosion, and another 1977 were injured. The detonations damaged buildings as far as 75 km from the accident site and could be heard as far away as Munich and Zurich. In terms of the number of victims, it was the most significant accident in the history of the German chemical industry to date and the most significant civil explosion disaster in Germany.

During the nuclear age, some people looked at the stained glass window and took offense at depicting the nearby Biblis nuclear power plant (now  decommissioned) as a modern "Tower of Bablis."

St. Martin in the evening sun.

In the evening, our group visited St. Martin, another Romanesque church. There we were treated to an orgue concert performed by Freiburg's Minster organist, one of the participants in the excursion.         

Via Sancti Martini

Red Baron knew about the Pilgrims' Road of St. James but learned about the Via Sancti Martini at Worms. Allegedly St. Martin of Tours was incarcerated at Wormatia in 396 because, when facing the Roman emperor, he refused military service.

Aren't there any churches built in the Gothic style at Worms? 

Church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche)

Way out in the vineyards - the Liebfrauenmilch (Beloved lady's milk) is one of the cheap sweet German wines - we visited the Church of our Lady, built as a pilgrims' church and finished in 1465. The French Wikipedia calls the building the most important Gothic church between Strasbourg and Cologne. 

The tympanum shows the death and coronation of St. Mary

The sanctuary

Modern stained glass (see above) showing
the multiplication of the loaves.

No, this is not St. Mary with the Child but Anna Selbdritt
(St. Anna with daughter Mary and baby son Jesus)
The baby got lost.

On the outside

A weathered pieta on the war memorial for the fallen of the First World War. The inscriptions read,  "They became strong and were prepared to die for their laws and homeland" (2 Macc 8.21) and "They receive great honor and an everlasting name" (1 Macc 2.51 and not 8.7). 

 Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori? Never again.

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