Day Five-Part One Oberammergau

(I apologize for the delay as our hotel in Oberammergau did not have a wireless conntection. Pictures will be added on Friday, hopefully).

Although we’re no longer following the pope, it is hard to go anywhere without hearing stories of him. Today, we left Traunstein and headed to Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps. The setting for this tourist-reliant town is stunning (see pictures above). We visited the monastery and school at Etal, which are subsidized mostly by surrounding restaurants and shops owned by the monastery and, of course, its amazing brewery. Although I couldn’t confirm it, the monastery is said to brew nine types of beer, one dark version of which I sampled for myself (and it was outstanding). One interesting note about the church at the center of the grounds is that it was a place where priests and Protestant pastors were held by the Nazis in World War II. Although the church was not a prison in the sense of the concentration camps we know, the priests and pastors were not allowed to write to anyone or have much contact with the outside world. Among those held there were Blessed Rupert Mayer, a Jesuit (1941-45), and Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1940-41). Blessed Mayer survived the war but died shortly after its end while celebrating Mass. Rev. Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis at another prison eight days before the war ended.

Many of the churches we are building are a mix of classical and baroque styles. They often have hard, wooden pine pews and kneelers with no padding. Wealthier churches usually have oak pews. The monastery at Etal was one of several that were emptied and taken over by the government for almost the entire 19th centuty. Interestingly, it was a Protestant who saved many of the monasteries and restored them to the Catholic places of importance they are today. Theodor von Cramer-Klett was a rich Christian from Nuremburg who loved monks. He spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of German marks to gain complete ownership of the monasteries, which he promptly returned to the orders. As a result, the schools opened their doors to non-Catholics. Today the school at Etal has 400 students, including girls, and a great number of boys who board there. The faculty is comprised of nine monks and 23 lay teachers.

From there, we headed to downtown Oberammergau to visit with a woodcarver who sculpted an approximately 5-foot-high statue of the Virgin Mary that was the state of Bavaria’s gift to Pope Benedict earlier this week. Woodcarving is one of the major industries of the town. Tobias Haseidl spoke to us about the 14-18 hours a day he spent from the end of July until literally last weekend finishing up the statue. In all, he spent 700 hours on it.

Of course, we visited the site of the legendary Oberammergau Passion Play, a production so large that it is held once every 10 years. We were taken backstage and saw the hundreds of props and costumes that await the next crop of actors when rehearsals start sometime in 2009 for the next play, which will run from May until late September/early October. There are 3,500 residents in Oberammergau and more than 2,000 are part of a revolving cast that does 110 shows on an open-air stage in a theater that holds nearly 5,000 people (the seats are covered). The play, which is performed rain or shine, began in 1634 as a prayerful plea from the town after it took a major hit from the Black Plague the year before. For the next couple centuries, the play was held every 10 years, but to avoid confusion for pilgrims, the year was changed to the beginning of each decade, with the year ending in zero, in the early 20th century. The town takes the play so seriously that participating men are issued a notice to start growing their hair and beards Ash Wednesday of the year before the play. Public positions such as policemen get dispensations to do so. When the play finally takes place, many of the smaller-part actors will maintain their regular jobs but be allowed to leave the office for an hour to go say their line or two and then come back for the rest of the work day. Pope Benedict attended the play as a cardinal, and they proudly display behind the stage a picture of him with the cast from the 2000 show. Tobias, the talented woodcarver we met, plays a French horn in the orchestra. The shows go on sale nearly two years in advance and are always sold out once the play nears. Tickets for the 2010 play go on sale in the spring of 2008, and can be purchased through their Web site.