Just glorious to pray inside this church during the reign of a German Pope.
The church was constructed and decorated before the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and thus the double-headed eagle motiff. Such magnitude of events with the extinction of the Holy Roman Empire, the heir and representative of the Caesars.
Czech pilgrims sometimes pray before this image of St. John of Nepomuk.
And in the sanctury is buried the last German Pontiff, Adrian VI. Then came 455 years of Italian popes until the year of three popes when the Pole was elected and then in that year of grace AD 2005 another German was elected, now gloriously reigning, Benedictus XVI.
Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!
ReplyDeleteAhem... Adrian VI was DUTCH!!
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, but the Low Countries belonged to the Empire until 1648. Surely it is not a coincidence that he is buried in the German national church? I guess in the 16th century you could still be Dutch and German at the same time.
ReplyDeleteDutch ~ "Deutsch"
ReplyDeleteGermany existed, Germany did not exist... it was divided into hundreds of Länder: bishoprics, kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, imperial towns, abbeys and so on. Some were tiny, of not more than a square mile, but still being as sovereign as Spain or France, each with their own measurements, currency, taxes... All that formed "Germany". Utrecht most definitely was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. Consequently, Adrian must be considered to be German--not in the era of national states, though.