Confirmation
In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of Christianity created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. In some denominations, such as the Anglican Communion and Methodist Churches, confirmation bestows full membership in a local congregation upon the recipient. In others, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Confirmation "renders the bond with the Church more perfect", while a baptized person is a member, "reception of the sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace". Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Churches view confirmation as a sacrament. In the East it is conferred after baptism. In the West, this practice is followed when adults are baptized, but in the case of infants not in danger of death it is administered, ordinarily by a bishop, only when the child reaches the age of reason or early adolescence.
Among those Catholics who practice teen-aged confirmation, the practice may be perceived, secondarily, as a "coming of age" rite. In traditional Protestant denominations, such as the Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed Churches, confirmation is a rite that includes a profession of faith by an baptized person, it is required by most Protestant denominations for full membership in the respective Church, in particular for traditional Protestant churches, in which it is recognized secondarily as a coming of age ceremony. Confirmation is not practiced in Baptist and other groups that teach believer's baptism. Thus, the sacrament or rite of confirmation is administered to those being received from those aforementioned groups, in addition to those converts from non-Christian religions; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Church do not practice infant baptism, but baptize only after the "age of accountability" is reached. Confirmation occurs either following baptism, or on the following Sunday.
The baptism is not considered complete or efficacious until confirmation is received. There is an analogous ceremony called confirmation in Reform Judaism, it was created in the 1800s by Israel Jacobson. The roots of confirmation are found in the Church of the New Testament. In the Gospel of John 14, Christ speaks of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. After his Resurrection, Jesus breathed upon them and they received the Holy Spirit, a process completed on the day of Pentecost; that pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit was the sign of the messianic age foretold by the prophets. Its arrival was proclaimed by Apostle Peter. Filled with the Holy Spirit the apostles began to proclaim "the mighty works of God." After this point, the New Testament records the apostles bestowing the Holy Spirit upon others through the laying on of hands. Three texts make it certain that a laying on of hands for the imparting of the Spirit — performed after the water-bath and as a complement to this bath — existed in the earliest apostolic times.
These texts are: Acts 8:4-20 and 19:1-7, Hebrews 6:1-6. In the Acts of the Apostles 8:14–17 different "ministers" are named for the two actions, it is not deacon Philip, the baptiser, but only the apostles who were able to impart the pneuma through the laying on of hands. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them, they laid hands on them and they received the holy Spirit. Further on in the text, connection between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gesture of laying on of hands appears more clearly. Acts 8:18-19 introduces the request of Simon the magician in the following way: "When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands..." In Acts 19, baptism of the disciples is mentioned in quite general terms, without the minister being identified. If we refer to 1 Cor 1:17 we may presume.
But Acts 19:6 expressly states that it was Apostle Paul who laid his hands upon the newly baptised. Hebrews 6:1-6 distinguishes "the teaching about baptisms" from the teaching about "the laying on of hands"; the difference may be understood in the light of the two passages in Acts 8 and 19. In the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, known as Chrismation, is one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ for the conferral of sanctifying grace and the strengthening of the union between individual souls and God; the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its paragraphs 1302–1303 states: It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. From this it roots us more in the divine filiation which makes us cry, "Abba! Father!". Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you with his sign.
Trier
Trier known in English as Treves and Triers, is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. Trier lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the important Moselle wine region; the German philosopher and one of the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx was born in the city in 1818. Founded by the Celts in the late-4th century BC as Treuorum, it was conquered by the Romans in the late-1st century BC and renamed Trevorum or Augusta Treverorum. Trier may be the oldest city in Germany, it is the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. In the Middle Ages, the Archbishop-Elector of Trier was an important prince of the church, as the archbishop-electorate controlled land from the French border to the Rhine; the Archbishop-Elector had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. With an approximate population of 105,000, Trier is the fourth-largest city in its state, after Mainz and Koblenz.
The nearest major cities are Luxembourg, Saarbrücken, Koblenz. The University of Trier, the administration of the Trier-Saarburg district and the seat of the ADD, which until 1999 was the borough authority of Trier, the Academy of European Law are all based in Trier, it is one of the five "central places" of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Along with Luxembourg and Saarbrücken, fellow constituent members of the QuattroPole union of cities, it is central to the greater region encompassing Saar-Lor-Lux, Rhineland-Palatinate, Wallonia; the first traces of human settlement in the area of the city show evidence of linear pottery settlements dating from the early Neolithic period. Since the last pre-Christian centuries, members of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri settled in the area of today's Trier; the city of Trier derives its name from the Latin locative in Trēverīs for earlier Augusta Treverorum. The historical record describes the Roman Empire subduing the Treveri in the 1st century BC and establishing Augusta Treverorum in 16 BC.
The name distinguished it from the empire's many other cities honoring the first emperor Augustus. The city became the capital of the province of Belgic Gaul. In the 4th century, Trier was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire with a population around 75,000 and as much as 100,000; the Porta Nigra dates from this era. A residence of the Western Roman Emperor, Roman Trier was the birthplace of Saint Ambrose. Sometime between 395 and 418 in 407 the Roman administration moved the staff of the Praetorian Prefecture from Trier to Arles; the city was not as prosperous as before. However, it remained the seat of a governor and had state factories for the production of ballistae and armor and woolen uniforms for the troops, clothing for the civil service, high-quality garments for the Court. Northern Gaul was held by the Romans along a line from north of Cologne to the coast at Boulogne through what is today southern Belgium until 460. South of this line, Roman control was firm, as evidenced by the continuing operation of the imperial arms factory at Amiens.
The Franks seized Trier from Roman administration in 459. In 870, it became part of Eastern Francia. Relics of Saint Matthias brought to the city initiated widespread pilgrimages; the bishops of the city grew powerful and the Archbishopric of Trier was recognized as an electorate of the empire, one of the most powerful states of Germany. The University of Trier was founded in the city in 1473. In the 17th century, the Archbishops and Prince-Electors of Trier relocated their residences to Philippsburg Castle in Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz. A session of the Reichstag was held in Trier in 1512, during which the demarcation of the Imperial Circles was definitively established. In the years from 1581 to 1593, the Trier witch trials were held the largest witch trial in European history, it was one of the four largest witch trials in Germany alongside the Fulda witch trials, the Würzburg witch trial, the Bamberg witch trials. The persecutions started in the diocese of Trier in 1581 and reached the city itself in 1587, where it was to lead to the death of about 368 people, was as such the biggest mass execution in Europe in peacetime.
This counts only those executed within the city itself, the real number of executions, counting those executed in all the witch hunts within the diocese as a whole, was therefore larger. The exact number of people executed has never been established. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Trier was sought after by France, who invaded during the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Grand Alliance, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession. France succeeded in claiming Trier in 1794 during the French Revolutionary Wars, the electoral archbishopric was dissolved. After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, Trier passed to the Kingdom of Prussia; the German philosopher and one of the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx was born in the city in 1818. As part of the Prussian Rhineland, Trier developed economically during the 19th century; the city rose in revolt during the revolutions of 1848 in the German
Polabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic tribes who lived along the Elbe river in what is today Eastern Germany. The approximate territory stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae in the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes in the south, Poland in the east, they have been known as Elbe Slavs or Wends. Their name derives from the Slavic po, meaning "by/next to/along", the Slavic name for the Elbe; the Polabian Slavs started settling in the territory of modern Germany in the 6th century. They were conquered by Saxons and Danes since the 9th century and were subsequently included and assimilated within the Holy Roman Empire; the tribes were Germanized and assimilated in the following centuries. The Polabian language is now extinct. However, the two Sorbian languages are spoken by 60,000 inhabitants of the region and the languages are regarded by the government of Germany as official languages of the region; the Bavarian Geographer, an anonymous medieval document compiled in Regensburg in 830, contains a list of the tribes in Central Europe to the east of the Elbe.
Among other tribes it lists the Uuilci with 95 civitates, the Nortabtrezi with 53 civitates, the Milzane with 30 civitates, the Hehfeldi with 14 civitates. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia classifies the Polabian Slavs in three main tribes, the Obotrites, the Veleti, the Lusatian Sorbs; the main tribes of the Obotritic confederation were the Obotrites proper. Other tribes associated with the confederation include the Linones near Lenzen, the Travnjane near the Trave, the Drevani in the Hanoverian Wendland and the northern Altmark; the Veleti known as the Liutizians or Wilzians, included the Kessinians along the lower Warnow and Rostock. The Redarier were the most important of the Veleti tribes; the Rani of Rügen, not to be confused with the older Germanic Rugians, are sometimes considered to be part of the Veleti. South of the Rani were the Morici along the Müritz. Smaller tribes included the Došane along the Dosse, the Zamzizi in the Ruppin Land, the Rěčanen on the upper Havel. Along the lower Havel and near the confluence of the Elbe and the Havel lived the Nelětici, the Liezizi, the Zemzizi, the Smeldingi, the Bethenici.
The middle Havel region and the Havelland were settled by the Hevelli, a tribe loosely connected to the Veleti. East of the Hevelli lived the Sprevane of Spree rivers. Small tribes on the middle Elbe included the Moriciani, the Zerwisti, the Serimunt, the Nicici. South of the Hevelli lived the ancestors of the modern Sorbs, the Lusici of Lower Lusatia and the Milceni of Upper Lusatia. Near these tribes were the Besunzanen; the Colodici, Siusler and Glomaci lived along the upper Elbe, while the Chutici, Gera, Tucharin and groups of Nelětici lived near the Saale. On the middle Oder lived the Leubuzzi, who were associated with medieval Poland. Small groups of West Slavs lived on the Main and the Regnitz near Bamberg and in northeastern Bavaria. A Polabian prince was known as a knez, his power was greater in Slavic society than those of Danish or Swedish kings in their kingdoms, although it was not absolute. He was the general leader of his tribe and was foremost among its nobles, holding much of the forested hinterland and expecting reverence from his warriors.
However, his authority extended only to the territory controlled by his governor, or voivod. Each voivod governed small territories based around fortifications. Princely power differed between tribes; the Obodrite prince Henryk was able to maintain a sizable army ca. 1100 at the expense of the towns, the importance of knez within the Obodrites only increased after his death. The prince of the Rani, on the other hand, was limited by the local senate, led by the high priest at Cape Arkona; the power of the prince and his governors was restricted by the river towns, known to chroniclers as civitates within the territory of the Veleti. Polabian towns were centered on small earthworks arranged in ovals; the gord was situated at the highest altitude of the town and held a barracks and princely residence. It was protected by a moat and wooden towers. Below the gord, but still within the town walls, was the urbs or suburbium, which held the residences for the nobility and merchants; the towns held wooden temples for Slavic gods within the urbs.
Outside of the walls were homes for the peasantry. With the exception of Arkona on Rügen, few Polabian towns on the Baltic coast were built near the shore, out of concern for pirates and raiders. While not populated compared to Flanders or Italy, the Polabian towns were large for the Baltic region, such as in comparison to those of Scandinavia; the majority of Polabian Slavs we
Olga of Kiev
Saint Olga was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Svyatoslav from 945 until 960. She is known for her obliteration of the Drevlians, a tribe that had killed her husband Igor of Kiev. Though it would be her grandson Vladimir that would convert the entire nation to Christianity, her efforts to spread Christianity through the Rus’ earned Olga veneration as a saint. While her birthdate is unknown, it could be as early as AD 890 and as late as 5 June 925. Saint Olga, the first Rus saint of the Orthodox Church, is the patron of widows and converts. According to the Primary Chronicle, Olga was from Pskov; the Primary Chronicle gives 879 as her date of birth, unlikely, given the birth of her only son some 65 years after that date. She married the future Igor of Kiev arguably in 903, but as early as 901-902. After Igor's death in 945, Olga ruled Kievan Rus as regent on behalf of their son Svyatoslav. In 947, Princess Olga launched a punitive expedition against the tribal elites between the Luga and the Msta River.
Following this successful campaign, a number of forts were erected at Olga’s orders. One of them is supposed to be Gorodets in the Luga region, a fortification dated to the middle of the 10th century; because of its isolated location, Gorodets does not seem to have been in any way associated with the pre-existing settlement pattern. Moreover, the fort produced another example of square timber frames designed to consolidate the rampart, seen at Rurikovo Gorodische; the same building technique was in use a century in the Novgorod fortifications. Olga remained regent ruler of Kievan Rus with the support of her people, she changed the system of tribute gathering in the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. She continued to evade proposals of marriage, defended the city during the Siege of Kiev in 968, saved the power of the throne for her son; the following account is taken from the Primary Chronicle. Princess Olga was the wife of Igor of Kiev, killed by the Drevlians. At the time of her husband's death, their son Svyatoslav was three years old, making Olga the official ruler of Kievan Rus' until he reached adulthood.
The Drevlians wanted Olga to marry their Prince Mal, making him the ruler of Kievan Rus', but Olga was determined to remain in power and preserve it for her son. The Drevlians sent twenty of their best men to persuade Olga to marry their Prince Mal and give up her rule of Kievan Rus', she had them buried alive. She sent word to Prince Mal that she accepted the proposal, but required their most distinguished men to accompany her on the journey in order for her people to accept the offer of marriage; the Drevlians sent the best men. Upon their arrival, she offered them a warm welcome and an invitation to clean up after their long journey in a bathhouse. After they entered, she locked the doors and set fire to the building. With the best and wisest men out of the way, she planned to destroy the remaining Drevlians, she invited them to a funeral feast. Her servants waited on them, after the Drevlians were drunk, Olga's soldiers killed over 5,000 of them, she placed the city under siege. She asked for three sparrows from each house.
They were happy to comply with the request. Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, ordered them to attach by thread to each bird a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth; when night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, the sparrows under the eaves; the dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house, not consumed, it was impossible to extinguish the flames because all the houses caught on fire at once; the people fled from the city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, captured the elders of the city; some of the other captives she killed. The remnant she left to pay tribute. According to Clements, the story is most a myth. Seven Latin sources document Olga's embassy to Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 959; the continuation of Regino of Prüm mentions that the envoys requested the emperor to appoint a bishop and priests for their nation.
The chronicler accuses the envoys of lies. Thietmar of Merseburg says that the first archbishop of Magdeburg, Saint Adalbert of Magdeburg, before being promoted to this high rank, was sent by Emperor Otto to the country of the Rus' as a simple bishop but was expelled by pagan allies of Svyatoslav I; the same data is repeated in the annals of Hildesheim. Olga was the first ruler of Rus' to convert to Christianity, done in either 945 or 957; the ceremonies of her formal reception in Constantinople were detailed by Emperor Constantine VII in his book De Ceremoniis. Following her baptism, Olga took the Christian name Yelena, after the reigning Empress Helena Lekapene; the Slavonic chronicles add apocryphal details to the account of her baptism, such as the story of how she charmed and "outwitted" Constantine and spurned his proposals of marriage. In actuality, at the time of her baptism, Olga was an old woman, while Constantine had a wife. Olga was one of the first people of Rus' to be proclaimed a saint for her efforts to spread Christianity throughout the country.
Because of her proselytizing influence, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, an
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises church families that developed outside the Occident, with major bodies including the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Eastern Catholic Churches, the denominations descended from the Church of the East. The Ukrainian Lutheran Church is an Eastern Christian church that uses the Byzantine Rite; the term is used in contrast with Western Christianity, although its scope has been one of continual discussion. Eastern Christianity consists of the Christian traditions and churches that developed distinctively over several centuries in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Malabar coast of South India, parts of the Far East; the term does not describe religious denomination. Some Eastern churches have more in common and theologically with Western Christianity than with one another; the various Eastern churches do not refer to themselves as "Eastern", with the exception of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East.
The terms "Eastern" and "Western" in this regard originated with geographical divisions in Christianity mirroring the cultural divide between the Hellenistic east and Latin West, the political divide between the Western and Eastern Roman empires. Because the largest church in the East is the body known as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the term "Orthodox" is used in a similar fashion to "Eastern", to refer to specific historical Christian communions; however speaking, most Christian denominations, whether Eastern or Western, consider themselves to be "orthodox" as well as "catholic", as two of the Four Marks of the Church listed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed: "One, Holy and Apostolic". There are several liturgical rites in use among the Eastern churches; these are the Alexandrian Rite, the Antiochene Rite, the Armenian Rite, the Byzantine Rite, the East Syriac Rite and the West Syriac Rite. Eastern Christians do not share the same religious traditions, but do share many cultural traditions.
Christianity divided itself in the East during its early centuries both within and outside of the Roman Empire in disputes about Christology and fundamental theology, as well as national divisions. It would be many centuries that Western Christianity split from these traditions as its own communion. Major branches or families of Eastern Christianity, each of which has a distinct theology and dogma, include the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox communion, the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church. In many Eastern churches, some parish priests administer the sacrament of chrismation to infants after baptism, priests are allowed to marry before ordination. While all the Eastern Catholic Churches recognize the authority of the Pope of Rome, some of them who have been part of the Orthodox Church or Oriental Orthodox churches follow the traditions of Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy, including the tradition of allowing married men to become priests.
The Eastern churches' differences from Western Christianity have as much, if not more, to do with culture and politics, as theology. For the non-Catholic Eastern churches, a definitive date for the commencement of schism cannot be given; the Church of the East declared independence from the churches of the Roman Empire at its general council in 424, before the Council of Ephesus in 431, so had nothing to do with the theology declared at that council. Oriental Orthodoxy separated after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Since the time of the historian Edward Gibbon, the split between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church has been conveniently dated to 1054, though the reality is more complex; this split is sometimes referred to as the Great Schism, but now more referred to as the East–West Schism. This final schism reflected a larger cultural and political division which had developed in Europe and Southwest Asia during the Middle Ages and coincided with Western Europe's re-emergence from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
The Ukrainian Lutheran Church developed within Galicia around 1926, with its rites being based on the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, rather than on the Western Formula Missae; the Eastern Orthodox Church is a Christian body whose adherents are based in the Middle East and Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, with a growing presence in the western world. Eastern Orthodox Christians accept the decisions of the first seven ecumenical councils. Eastern Orthodox Christianity identifies itself as the original Christian church founded by Christ and the Apostles, traces its lineage back to the early Church through the process of apostolic succession and unchanged theology and practice. Distinguishing characteristics of the Eastern Orthodox Church include the Byzantine Rite and an emphasis on the continuation of Holy Tradition, which it holds to be apostolic in nature; the Eastern Orthodox Church is organized into self-governing jurisdictions along geographical, ethnic or linguistic lines. Eastern Orthodoxy is thus made up of sixteen autocephalous bodies.
Smaller churches are autonomous and each have a mother church, autocephalous. All Eastern O
Merseburg
Merseburg is a town in the south of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on the river Saale, approx. 14 km south of Halle and 30 km west of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Saalekreis district, it had a diocese founded by Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg. The University of Merseburg is located within the town. Merseburg has around 33,000 inhabitants. Merseburg is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. Czech: Merseburk, Meziboř French: Mersebourg German: Merseburg Latin: Merseburga Polish: Międzybórz Sorbian languages: Mjezybor Venenien was incorporated into Merseburg on 1 January 1949; the parish Kötzschen followed on 1 July 1950. Since 30 May 1994, Meuschau is part of Merseburg. Trebnitz followed later. Beuna was annexed on 1 January 2009. Geusa is a part of Merseburg since 1 January 2010. Merseburg was first mentioned in 850. King Henry the Fowler built a royal palace at Merseburg. Thietmar, appointed in 973, became the first bishop of the newly created bishopric of Prague in Bohemia. Prague had been part of the archbishopric of Mainz for a hundred years before that.
From 968 until the Protestant Reformation, Merseburg was the seat of the Bishop of Merseburg, in addition to being for a time the residence of the margraves of Meissen, it was a favorite residence of the German kings during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. Fifteen diets were held here during the Middle Ages, during which time its fairs enjoyed the importance, afterwards transferred to those of Leipzig. Merseburg was the site of a failed assassination attempt on Polish ruler Bolesław I Chrobry in 1002; the town suffered during the German Peasants' War and during the Thirty Years' War. From 1657 to 1738 Merseburg was the residence of the Dukes of Saxe-Merseburg, after which it fell to the Electorate of Saxony. In 1815 following the Napoleonic Wars, the town became part of the Prussian Province of Saxony. Merseburg is where the Merseburg Incantations were rediscovered in 1841. Written down in Old High German, they are hitherto the only preserved German documents with a heathen theme. One of them is a charm to release warriors caught during battle, the other is a charm to heal a horse's sprained foot.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Merseburg was transformed into an industrial town due to the pioneering work done by Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius, who laid down the scientific fundamentals of the catalytic high-pressure ammonia synthesis from 1909 to 1913. Enterprises, blazed a trail in the course of the transformational process. A chemical park emerged at nearby Leuna, one of the most modern sites of its kind in Europe with high ecological standards. Merseburg was badly damaged in World War II. In 23 air raids 6,200 dwellings were or destroyed; the historic town centre was completely destroyed. Part of Saxony-Anhalt after the war, it was administered within the Bezirk Halle in East Germany, it became part of Saxony-Anhalt again after reunification of Germany. Like many towns in the former East Germany, Merseburg has had a general decline in population since German Reunification despite annexing and merging with a number of smaller nearby villages. Population of Merseburg: Data source from 1990: Statistical Office of Saxony Anhalt 1 29 October 2 31 August 3 3 October 4 14 July 2008 Among the notable buildings of Merseburg are the Merseburg Cathedral of St John the Baptist and the episcopal palace.
The cathedral-and-palace ensemble features a palace garden. Other attractions include the Merseburg House of Trades with a cultural stage and the German Museum of Chemistry, Merseburg; the Merseburg Palace Festival with the Historical Pageant, the International Palace-Moat Concerts, Merseburg Organ Days and the Puppet Show Festival Week are events celebrated every year. Merseburg station is located on the Halle–Bebra railway. Leipzig/Halle Airport is just 25 kilometers away. Merseburg is connected with the Halle tramway network. A tram ride from Halle's city centre to Merseburg takes about 50 minutes. Merseburg is twinned with: Châtillon, France Genzano di Roma, Italy Bottrop, Germany Thietmar of Merseburg and chronist Johannes Knolleisen, theological professor Ernst Haeckel, philosopher, physician Lucian Müller, classical scholar Klaus Tennstedt, conductor Elisabeth Schumann, singer Karl Adolph von Basedow, physician Jawed Karim, YouTube co-founder Szymon Bogumił Zug and designer of gardens Uwe Nolte, artist This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed..
"Merseburg". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 173–174. Official website
Abbot
Abbot, meaning father, is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may be given as an honorary title to a clergyman, not the head of a monastery; the female equivalent is abbess. The title had its origin in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, spread through the eastern Mediterranean, soon became accepted in all languages as the designation of the head of a monastery; the word is derived from the Aramaic av meaning "father" or abba, meaning "my father". In the Septuagint, it was written as "abbas". At first it was employed as a respectful title for any monk, but it was soon restricted by canon law to certain priestly superiors. At times it was applied to various priests, e.g. at the court of the Frankish monarchy the Abbas palatinus and Abbas castrensis were chaplains to the Merovingian and Carolingian sovereigns’ court and army respectively. The title abbot came into general use in western monastic orders whose members include priests.
An abbot is the head and chief governor of a community of monks, called in the East hegumen or archimandrite. The English version for a female monastic head is abbess. In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was but loosely defined. Sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well. Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid. By the Rule of St Benedict, until the Cluniac reforms, was the norm in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one community; the rule, as was inevitable, was subject to frequent violations. Monks, as a rule, at the outset was the abbot any exception. For the reception of the sacraments, for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church; this rule proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at a distance from a city, necessity compelled the ordination of some monks. This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem universally to have become deacons, if not priests.
The change spread more in the West, where the office of abbot was filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century. The ecclesiastical leadership exercised by abbots despite their frequent lay status is proved by their attendance and votes at ecclesiastical councils, thus at the first Council of Constantinople, AD 448, 23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops. The second Council of Nicaea, AD 787, recognized the right of abbots to ordain their monks to the inferior orders below the diaconate, a power reserved to bishops. Abbots used to be subject to episcopal jurisdiction, continued so, in fact, in the West till the 11th century; the Code of Justinian expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight. The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot from episcopal control is that of Faustus, abbot of Lerins, at the council of Arles, AD 456; these exceptions, introduced with a good object, had grown into a widespread evil by the 12th century creating an imperium in imperio, depriving the bishop of all authority over the chief centres of influence in his diocese.
In the 12th century, the abbots of Fulda claimed precedence of the archbishop of Cologne. Abbots more and more assumed episcopal state, in defiance of the prohibition of early councils and the protests of St Bernard and others, adopted the episcopal insignia of mitre, ring and sandals, it has been maintained that the right to wear mitres was sometimes granted by the popes to abbots before the 11th century, but the documents on which this claim is based are not genuine. The first undoubted instance is the bull by which Alexander II in 1063 granted the use of the mitre to Egelsinus, abbot of the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury; the mitred abbots in England were those of Abingdon, St Alban's, Battle, Bury St Edmunds, St Augustine's Canterbury, Croyland, Glastonbury, Gloucester, St Benet's Hulme, Malmesbury, Ramsey, Selby, Tavistock, Westminster, St Mary's York. Of these the precedence was yielded to the abbot of Glastonbury, until in AD 1154 Adrian IV granted it to the abbot of St Alban's, in which monastery he had been brought up.
Next after the abbot of St Alban's ranked the abbot of Westminster and Ramsey. Elsewhere, the mitred abbots that sat in the Estates of Scotland were of Arbroath, Coupar Angus, Holyrood, Kelso, Kinloss, Paisley, Scone, St Andrews Priory and Sweetheart. To distinguish abbots from bishops, it was ordained that their mitre should be made
