In Werningshausen Like At Home

A few weeks ago, publishing the photos we took in St. Wigbert Priory in Werningshausen, Germany, we promised we would soon devote a longer post to that community and our stay there. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a good occasion to recall the few days we spent in this ecumenical monastery.

“For you the stay here was like coming back home”, with these words concluded Br. Bodo, who takes care of the guests in Werningshausen, a long conversation we had with the brothers in the refectory. During the previous days we would usually spend the time on our own. Of course, we took part in the common prayer, the conventual mass, the service for the end of the year, and in the solemn celebration of the Feast of the Holy Name , on January 1st, but we hadn’t actually have a chance to get to know our hosts better. Only on the last day we could talk with one another for a longer time. And it’s hard to deny that the conclusion Br. Bodo drew from that conversation was simply correct. We both felt a need to end the old year and start the new one in a way different than usually, in an atmosphere of reflection and prayer. The brothers from Werningshausen are really excellent hosts, able to maintain the delicate balance between care for the guests and giving them the highest degree of freedom. The picturesque beauty of that place had its significance too. Yet the most important thing was that the conversation has confirmed the sense that had accompanied us from the very beginning, when we were praying together the canonic hours and taking part in the Eucharist. The sense of closeness, spiritual communion, breathing the atmosphere in which differences are not wiped off, but truly important is what unites. However it may seem paradoxical to many (not to us, actually), the visit to the Lutheran monks was a good lesson of catholicity in the word’s original and broadest sense: catholic – universal.

Let’s start from the beginning, though. In the second half of the 1960s in Thuringia, which was then a part of the GDR (East Germany), there was established a circle of Protestant men whose purpose was common prayer and service to the people. The leader of the group was Franz Schwarz, a church musician and a theologian from the former East Prussia. Creating a religious order within the Lutheran church was not what would come to mind as first. After all, the anti-monastic sentiment was a part of the spirit of the Reformation. From the 16th century monasteries were being dissolved and the purpose of it was certainly not to establish new ones in the future. And yet, in 1967 the first members of the group took the monastic pledge. Their common life and their common service were arousing interest, but also controversy. The brothers regularly pray the hours of the church, often celebrate the Eucharist, make the sign of the cross, use “Catholic” vestments, incense and kneel during the services – all these customs disappeared in German Lutheranism. Today only very few realize that their disappearance is more a result of the changes that took place in Enlightenment and in the 19th century, than of the Reformation itself. Practicing them again, the Lutheran monks became an unwanted remainder of what had been lost through the centuries. The doubts of the church authorities were being skillfully fueled by the Communists, who didn’t want, of course, for such a spiritual centre to be established. After all, Christianity, even if tolerated to some degree in the GDR, was supposed to disappear gradually. Establishment of a new vivid religious community was clearly contrary to that goal. In 1970 the church authorities decided to dissolve the community. Only Franz Schwarz and two other brothers remained faithful to the original ideal. Finally, a sympathetic church leader allowed them to choose a parish out of three. They chose Werningshausen.

In Thuringia you can find traces of the old Benedictine presence everywhere. It suffice to look at the names of places you pass by while driving on the motorway, which often refer to the names of the old monasteries, to realize the monastic communities’ importance for the cultural and economical development of this part of Europe. In 1529, however, this area got under the influence of the Reformation, the monasteries were dissolved and their role forgotten. Also to Werningshausen came a preacher devoted to the ideas of the Reformation and the local parish became Lutheran. In the 18th century ministered there Philipp Christian Bach, the great composer’s grandnephew. In the same century was built the church, forth on that place, that serves the community until now; only the tower was built a few decades later.

When in 1973 the three brothers came to Werningshausen, the church building was on the verge of collapse, and the religious life had fallen into complete stagnation. Everything needed to be rebuilt, literally and metaphorically. The brothers started the reconstruction, and Fr. Franz Schwarz began intense pastoral work. That’s why after only a few years there were more than twenty young people to be confirmed in Werningshausen. In 1974 the rebuilt church was reconsacrated, and 10 years later the monks together with the parishioners built the Mary’s Chapel. It was there that the Orthodox soldiers from the Soviet Army stationed at the nearby Haßleben air base were later praying. In 1989 commenced the construction of today’s monastery in the traditional Thuringian style, yet surmounted with a small tower similar to the Orthodox church architecture. That’s also how the Werningshausen brothers demonstrate their devotion to the idea of the unity of the church. Finally, in 1987 the Landesbischof, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Werner Leich, officially approved the establishment of St. Wigbert Priory which lived according to the rule of St. Benedict. Currently there are eight monks in the community. Two of them are Roman Catholics. In the past there were also temporarily some Orthodox monks. Although no one is questioning what the brothers achieved no more, the High Church character of the community still arouses controversy from time to time. Fr. Franz Schwarz was for example temporarily suspended as pastor for having been consecrated as bishop by a bishop in apostolic succession in its pre-Reformation understanding. Eventually the situation was clarified, the conflict resolved, and Fr. Franz, though already retired, is still ministering in the parish.

Where did our interest in the Priory come from, however? Everything started actually from a different place and a different community. In 2006 Pradusz attended the Old Catholic Congress in Freiburg in Breisgau. Since it was the 75th anniversary of the Bonn Agreement, which established intercommunion (later called full communion) between Anglicans and Old Catholics, the stay provided an occasion to meet many interesting Anglicans and Old Catholics from different parts of the world. It was then, among other things, that Pradusz had a chance to talk to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which makes him very proud. There was also a group of Cistercian monks from St. Severin Abbey in Kaufbeuren , Bavaria. This community, which draws inspiration from the Port Royal spirituality, very important to every Old Catholic, had been then for a short time a part of the German Old Catholic Church (the communion with that church has now been broken). The Old Catholic Cistercians immediately aroused Pradusz’s interest, which resulted in a long conversation. Of course, he got the idea to visit Kaufbeuren, but the brothers didn’t have then an appropriate place for the visitors. Already at home, going through the Abby’s website, Pradusz came across the link to St. Wigbert Priory. From that time on, we have been following the community’s life through the internet, but it was only after four years that we finally managed to visit it.

You can believe us that we didn’t agree with the monks from Werningshausen on advertising them. Nevertheless, we would like to encourage anyone who happens to be in Thuringia to come to the monastery. There are many reasons for which it is worth visiting this place and meeting its inhabitants. The most important ones, at least from our point of view, are difficult to be expressed in words. How can one describe that sense of spiritual communion we mentioned at the beginning, or the discreet yet attentive care of Br. Bodo? How can one express the atmosphere of the conversations we had with the hosts, but also with the other visitors, among them with a Roman Catholic priest from Italy, a convicted Marxist who came there in order to study Karl Marx’s original writings at the Erfurt University? How can one express the atmosphere of a discussion between an idealistic Italian leftist intellectual and people who had experienced Real Socialism in the past? And most important of all, how can one express the experience of common prayer, common participation in the Eucharist? Actually you can’t put it better than by saying: Try it yourself! We ourself, Deo volente , certainly will come back to Werningshausen.