News around the globe
from Johannes Grohe
Benedict XVI: "History comes to the aid of the Church in a certain way through the vari-ous periods of secularization, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform".
The Protestant theologian Christoph Markschies (Berlin), who held the Joseph Ratzinger-Pope Benedict XVI Visiting Professorship in Regensburg in 2017, comments on Pope Benedict XVI's ecumenical legacy.
from Paolo Liverani
Hugo Brandenburg left us at the age of 93 on the night of 25-26 December: he was one of the leading scholars of late antique and Christian archaeology.
After his studies at the University of Bonn with Andreas Rumpf, he worked at the Franz Joseph Dölger Institute until his transfer as referent for Christian Archaeology at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, which was to become his home of choice. He qualified in Cologne with Heinz Kähler with a Habilitationsschrift on early Christian sarcophagi.
In 1982, he was called to the chair of 'Klassische Archäologie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Spätantike' at the University of Münster. In 1993, he finally obtained the teaching of Christian Archaeology at that university. In the following year, he became professor emeritus, but his scientific activity did not stop and even intensified: almost half of his scientific contributions were published after this date.
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!
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
