The attentive reader will likely note that though we have been posting about our visit to Rome, yet I have also been writing concurrently about visits to Munster and now Cologne, almost as if they were occurring at the same time. In fact, these visits occurred earlier, at the end of May and beginning of June and preceded my arrival in Rome. I apologize for the confusion.
After my return from Munster, Fr. Lammen had a more open day, and so he and I were able to see a bit of the environs where he lives and works as well as some of the other churches of his parish. As you might remember from my last post, that part of Germany, unlike for example in Catholic Bavaria, had historically been a patchwork of Catholic and Lutheran towns as per the Peace of Augsburg that Charles V signed in 1555. We saw that Ferdinand II’s attempts to do away with this accord ended in failure in the dismal, drawn-out defeat that was the Thirty Years’ War. Therefore, the region kept its variety of religious allegiances, and even today, one can identify which village was historically Catholic and which was historically Protestant. Fr. Lammen’s village, Borgloh, was Catholic, but some of the churches in his parish are in towns that were Lutheran. These Catholic churches were constructed later when there was a blurring of the historical divisions and when, such as in the 1960s and 1970s, there were some waves of immigration from places such as Italy. Most of the churches I saw were constructed in the last fifty years, and the oldest was, I believe from the 1920s or so.
The next day was the day we set off from Fr. Lammen’s parish and set our course for Cologne. Cologne is a city with a long history in Germany. Its was established as a Roman city in lower Germania, a province on the northeastern edge of the empire. It marked the boundary between the frontier of the Roman lands and the “barbarian” territory to the east.
During the early Middle Ages, Cologne was part of the Merovingian (Frankish) empire. This was the state that covered what is mostly modern-day France. The Merovingians after the fall of the Roman empire in Gaul had managed to unite the Gallic and Germanic tribes in Burgundy, Aquitane, Austrasia, and Neustria (again, modern day France and western Germany) into one, albeit decentralized, empire. The Merovingians were themselves united by Clovis I, their first king and the first to convert to Catholicism. This was thanks in large part to his holy wife, Saint Clotilde. Thanks to him, the Franks became Nicene Christians, shifting away from the Arians who were quite prevalent at the time. During this time, Charles Martel, famous for his defeat of the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Poitiers, fought a battle near Cologne. This battle resulted from a rival king driving Charles from the city in a challenge to his throne. Charles, nicknamed “the hammer,” spent some lean months in the mountains shoring up his support before falling on the overmatched king and successfully retaking the city of Cologne.
Through the next few hundred years, Cologne became particularly notable for its archbishops who became quite empowered due to the suspicion of Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor, for the secular nobility. The archbishops came to assume the secular rule of the city and became so powerful that they even became one of the seven electors who chose the Holy Roman Emperor when needed. It was during this time that construction on the famed Cologne Cathedral officially started. This church is an incredible achievement of Gothic architecture and one of the tallest churches in the world. In 1248, the foundation stone was laid by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden. This came not long after the city received from Italy the relics of the wise men who visited Jesus. These were such treasured relics that it was decided they would be housed in the new cathedral. It continued through the next few centuries, with the main nave completed by the sixteenth century, but then work ground to a halt, and a huge crane used in the building process was never taken down for four hundred years, itself becoming a feature of the city’s skyline. Also important to mention is that not long after the construction on the cathedral began, what is commonly regarded as the first Eucharistic procession occurred in Cologne. This was not long after Pope Urban IV instituted the Feast of Corpus Christi.
During the time of Napoleon, the old Holy Roman empire came apart after the Corsican general defeated both them and Prussia at the Battles of Luneville and Jena-Auerstedt. Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Austria split apart, though the Habsburgs continued to rule over the Kingdom of Austria. Cologne spent the years of Napoleon’s invasion under French control, which ended at the Treaty of Vienna in 1815 after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.
Prussia was a power that emerged in the early eighteenth century after the electorate of Brandenburg (one of the key players in the Thirty Years’ War against Ferdinand II) split away from the Holy Roman Empire and formed its own Protestant German state. It had rapidly gained in power and influence throughout the eighteenth century, and it was essential to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. At Waterloo, Prussia was cut out of the spoils of the reorganization even though they had contributed much to defeating Napoleon. Europe was reorganized into spheres of influence, and Austria was given regional control over the central European states. This did not sit well at all with the Prussians since, not only were they mostly Protestant and the Austrians mostly Catholic, but the two sides had been on the opposite side of German politics really since the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. They were usually on opposite sides of the balance of power, and throughout the eighteenth century the two leaders, Maria Theresa of Austria and Frederick the Great of Prussia continued this complicated chess match that included the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War, and the War of the Bavarian Succession.
Then came 1848. This was a year that profoundly changed not just German but European politics. It is one of the most important years in the modern history of the continent, and it saw widespread protests, riots, and even rebellions in the name of liberalism, of nationalism, and of universal male suffrage. The old monarchies of Europe were under siege and battered severely. For Austria and Prussia, this concretely saw the rise of German nationalism and the feeling, particularly among the young university-educated intelligentsia, that the German states were at heart one people and ought to be so politically. For too long, so the narrative went, German states had been taken advantage of by the other European great powers, played off against each other like the expendable pawns in a chess match, always on the losing end of whatever war was being fought, always looked down upon, always seen as nothing more than a jumble of hopelessly divided confederations ready to be exploited by everyone else. Indeed, there was much truth to this story. And it became the rallying cry for German unification that was to continue until its eventual fulfillment in 1867. This unification came about through the politicking and negotiations of a genius of realpolitik named Otto von Bismark. Bismark managed to engineer a series of alliances and disputes that culminated in the Austro-Prussian war in 1867 that enabled the Prussians to seize a large chunk of Austrian lands and unify their territories as the North German Confederation. This was the birth of Germany.
You may wonder why I wished to embark on such a long divergence, but I feel that to truly know a place one must understand the context in which it exists, and so the story of Germany which was explored not just in this post but in the last aims to do just that.
During this period in Cologne, interest renewed in finishing the cathedral and moving on from the by now centuries old crane that had long rusted into place. The nineteenth century was a period in which interest in old medieval architectural styles was renewed. While the sixteenth century had been marked by Renaissance and Mannerist churches, the seventeenth century by Baroque churches, and the eighteenth by other variations such as Rococo, the nineteenth saw a reversion to older techniques. Neoromanesque, Neogothic, and Neobyzantine all came into being. Interest flamed in restoring old structures, particularly thanks to preservationists like Victor Hugo. Simultaneously, the movement for German unification that I documented above was coming into full swing in the 1840s. Taking both of these together, one can understand why in the 1840s, the Prussian state (Protestant as you likely know if you have read this far) financed a large chunk of the building costs needed to finish the cathedral and the Central-Dombauverein, a civic organization, funded the rest. It was fundamentally from their perspective an elegy to German culture and history as well as a progressive welcoming of Catholics into the nationalist movement.
When it was completed in 1880, Kaiser Wilhelm I attended the consecration ceremony. It was the tallest building in the world at the time.
When Fr. Lammen and I arrived, we immediately proceeded to the Maternushaus, a hotel run by the Archdiocese of Cologne where we had booked rooms. We left our bags and then proceeded down the large Mass and Eucharistic procession celebrated in front of the Cathedral. Despite the cold and rainy conditions, there was a large crowd, and it was beautiful to see the devotion among the faithful gathered. Cardinal Woelki was the main celebrant, and the readings and intentions were read in Portuguese, German, Hungarian, Tagalog, Chinese, Italian, and Spanish. Every language, it seemed, except English. There was then a procession through the streets ending with a short ceremony in the Cathedral itself. The choir was spectacular, and I took some video that, when one combines the beautiful chant in Latin, the majestic stone cathedral, and the incense slowly rising to the arched ceiling, is sublime.
We then explored the city a bit more, stopping at St. Ursula’s, which houses the relics of that very saint. Her story is a bit difficult to parse apart given that the sources I have read all seem to agree that legend and history mingle a little too liberally for historians to be completely sure about all the details. However, the legend as it comes down to us states that Ursula was a British princess who went off to the continent to marry a foreign warrior who had asked for her hand in marriage. Having vowed chastity, however, she set off for Europe with a band of young maidens trained in the art of fighting. They arrived in Cologne and resolved to live together virtuously and live chaste lives. It happened that they were attacked by a band of Huns and all died to prevent being carried away in forced marriages. The traditional estimate of how many maidens died places them at 11,000, and while, as I said earlier, it is nearly impossible to verify that historically, the Church of St. Ursula is built on a Roman graveyard with masses of bones in it, which would line up with the scores of slain. Further, St. Anne Catherine Emmerich, known for writing down visions in which she was related parts of the life of Jesus and the early saints, related that according to her visions, Ursula set out with far fewer companions and was joined along the way by more.
However one figures the details, what is certain is that Ursula is a dear figure to Cologne, much as St. Genevieve is to Paris. She is an inspirational figure to this day.
After St. Ursula’s, we participated in a guided tour of St. Gereon’s Basilica, a beautiful Romanesque church that is dedicated to a late Roman soldier who was killed with his companions for his faith. The church is Romanesque and dates from the 700s. It has, however a decagonal shaped apse, which is itself Gothic.
We wrapped up the evening with a period of adoration organized by the conference we were attending.
Having become acquainted with the rich cultural and historical nature of Cologne, the next day the conference began, and we made the transition from Romanesque churches and medieval history to dynamic worship songs and strobe lights in a conference center.
The opening Mass was energizing and powerful, and the rest of the day was a wonderful combination of periodic Adoration and inspirational talks (mostly in German but with English translation provided through a headset for everyone else). However, for me, the main attraction was not the talks, well delivered though they were. For me, it was the networking.
At this conference were present hundreds of people from the Catholic world from all over Germany and Austria. There were many priests, bishops, and laypeople, all wanting to know how to reinvigorate their parishes and fall in love with Jesus. The energy was contagious, and I found myself loath to leave when the event was over. Fr. Ansgar had to leave on Thursday evening, and I left on Friday at midday.
I took the train to Munster, where I met up with Fr. Charbel again and visited two of his Maronite parishes, one nearby and one in Enschede, Holland, where I spent the night. Fr. Charbel introduced me at the end of both Masses, and I delivered short remarks on the Children’s Rosary. I was so grateful for Fr. Charbel’s support of the initiative. He and I had the opportunity to speak a bit together while we were driving in the car, and he struck me as a very thoughtful and deep thinker. He is just finishing up a dissertation on the importance of celibacy to the priesthood.
The next day I took the train to Amsterdam. What became of me and what I saw there I will leave for the next post.
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE
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