News around the globe
The painter and sculptor Johann Martin von Wagner (1777-1858) is buried on the Campo Santo Teutonico. He was an art agent of Ludwig I of Bavaria. Since 2011, Prof. Dr. Hannelore Putz has been co-editor of the edition of the correspondence between King Ludwig and Wagner. Wagner made the University of Würzburg his main heir. The Wagner Museum on Residenzplatz with objects worth seeing goes back to this.
The importance of Joseph Görres (1776-1848), the eponym of the Görres Society, for the self-confidence of Rhenish Catholicism vis-à-vis the French and Prussians can be seen in the completion of Cologne Cathedral in the middle of the 19th century. No wonder, then, that the cathedral also has a Görres window (right aisle). On the website of Cologne Cathedral there are brilliant illustrations including historical explanations.
This is the theme of the 18th International Congress of Christian Archaeology in 2024. The Serbian National Committee under President Dr. Prof. Vujadin Ivanisevic and Vice-President Dr. Snežana Golubović has published the first circular letter with the invitation to the International Congress of Christian Archaeology in Belgrade, which will take place from 2 to 6 September 2024.
from Stefan Heid
Hans Georg Thümmel: a wonderful man, curious, bubbly, always in a good mood, indestructible, a poet, at the same time like a rock in the surf during the GDR regime, for whose dumb officials he was far too intelligent. Because of the communists he could not become anything, but undaunted he held fast to his Lutheran confession. In preparation for my "Personenlexikon zur Christlichen Archäologie", I also came to Greifswald around 2010, and he offered me hospitality and advice. We even hiked to the windy Baltic Sea, where some nasty industrial plant was to be built, which of course he was against.
Until the end of February, the large Norman exhibition can be seen in the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim. The identification and history of the Normans is tangled and extends to Scandinavia, Normandy and other parts of Europe. It is at the same time a story of the Christianisation and acculturation of a warrior people, which reaches its conclusion in the High Middle Ages. The Normans by no means left behind only weapons to be admired.
The opinion that there were such things as house churches and family Eucharist in the New Testament and in early Christianity persists not only in the academic world, but also in the various denominations and churches. Curiously, no one ever spoke of house churches until the 20th century. Until then, they do not seem to have existed. Where did the sudden interest come from? How did one even get the idea that there had been such a thing as house churches? A fact check leads to the first traces.
Model house church? A lecture in Heiligenkreuz
Prof. Dr. Michael Matheus (Mainz), long-time director of the DHI and member of the RIGG Board of Directors, was awarded the Cross of Merit of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate on 6 December. Congratulations!
The review "Der Sonntag" from Wien brings a series of articles on Christian archaeology. In the first episode, Stefan Heid tells journalist Agathe Lauber-Gansterer about the history and current significance of this field of research..
For many years now, the Paul Maria Baumgarten Institute for Papacy Research, directed by Prof. Dr. Jochen Johrendt, a student of Rudolf Schieffer, has existed at the University of Wuppertal. The institute is named after the enigmatic and certainly tragic figure of Baumgarten (+ 1948), a convert born in Wuppertal-Barmen in 1860, who was associated with the Campo Santo Teutonico throughout his life and, in addition to his journalistic and church-political activities, was above all an expert on the Curia. The Institute is very well networked in Italy. The current assistant of the RIGG, Nicola Gadaleta, completed parts of his studies in Wuppertal.
The publishing house Schnell & Steiner offers numerous books at drastically reduced prices, among them by Stefan Heid:
Furthermore, a whole series of highly interesting and quality books.
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
