Meet the Blog Authors- David Schneider

I am an American of German descent.

My ancestor, John Schneider was born on October 8, 1851 in a town called Guma. I have searched extensively for this location but have yet to find it. On account of the frequent shifting of national borders from the 1700s to 1945, the original location of Guma could lie anywhere between eastern France, Hungary, and Russia.

Further complicating the issue is that German place names are sometimes shortened in everyday speech. Dr. Hans Rudolph Nollert, German professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, suggested that "Guma" may be colloquial for Gummersbach. Or just as easily might represent Gummlin, Gummanz, or Gumbsheim. John Schneider arrived in the U.S. around 1861 or ’62, before the receiving facilities at Ellis Island were constructed. He settled in Clark County, Ohio where he married Elizabeth German in April of 1877. John established a blacksmith shop in Springfield and was a founding member of St. John's Lutheran Church. The current church building was erected in the 1890s and is inscribed with Evangelische-Lutherische St. Johannes Kirche on the stone facing. St. John’s continues to have an active congregation and its own private grade school. St. John’s also has a collection of antique German Bibles donated by local families.

There are 85 Schneider graves located in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Springfield, Ohio. Among them are Ruth Huffman and Harry Edward (my grandparents), and my uncle Stephen E. Schneider. May their memory be eternal.

St. John's Lutheran Church in Springfield http://www.stjohns-springfield.com

I have very little connection to Germany. I lived for several years in Ohio where there were many opportunities for a child to hear the German language. That education was briefly practical when I visited Munich and Heidelberg in 1982. My elders had a more visceral experience with Germany. Harry Edward Schneider, my grandfather, served in the U.S. Army in World War II and repaired the bombers that limped back to England after air raids on Germany. His job was to get them air-worthy again for their next mission. My family still has his fleece-lined bomber suit. My great uncle on my mother's side was one of the first to enter the gates of Nazi prison camps as American forces liberated Germany. He refused to talk about what he saw in those camps.

Good Friday in Germany

From this informative page:

The German name for Good Friday (Karfreitag) comes from the Old High German form kara, which has the same meaning as the English word 'care'. This gives the meaning of 'Sorrowful Friday to the day when Christians remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is also known as 'Quiet Friday' (Stiller Freitag) for obvious reasons. On this very solemn day no church bells are rung in Roman Catholic churches. Some children believe that the bells are sent to Rome at this special time to be consecrated. Consequently the male members of the communities make up for the lack of noise with the 'Good Friday rattles' - in appearance rather like football rattle - which not only provide them with pleasurable task of making a lot of noise but also summon the villagers church services. In Swabia a loud-mouthed person is rebuked with saying: 'You have a mouth like a Good Friday rattle' (Dui hot e Meul wie e Karfreitigrätsch).

In former times there were far more restrictions on individual behaviour on this day of mourning than there are today. The drinking of alcohol was strictly forbidden in order to bring to mind the fact that Jesus Christ was thirsty whilst on the Cross. No one was allowed to kill an animal and the blacksmith was not allowed to use either hammer or nails, since these were employed in the Crucifixion. In some homes the crockery which had been specially polished during the Green Thursday spring clean was kept covered up in baskets until Easter Saturday, since it was considered unfitting for anything sparkling to be on view on Good Friday.There are special church services on Good Friday, some lasting for three hours, and Bach's St. Matthew's Passion is performed in many churches. Passion Plays used to be popular on Good Friday but are rarely performed today. The Passion Play in the Eifel mountains was banned around the year 1800, because it was considered to have become too worldly and to be too distracting. Many families eat the familiar Lenten food on Good Friday, choosing fish in preference to eggs or meat, and in some areas the bread eaten on Good Friday has the sign of the cross marked on the crust. Twigs from the sloe tree and buchthorn are sometimes brought into the house as an Easter decoration, reminding the householders of the crown of thorns which Jesus Christ was made to wear. Furthermore, a symbol of new life and future growth is to be found in the blossoms the branches bear, in the same way as Jesus Christ in his resurrection was the first fruit of believers.

Göttingen Scholar to speak on Syriac Christianity

The Canadian Society for Syriac Studies is hosting Professor Martin Tamcke of Göttingen University, Germany. His presentation is entitled

The Correspondence between Mar Thoma V of India and Professor Karl Schaaf (18th Century)

8 pm: Wednesday April 15, 2009
Hosted at the University of Toronto's
Koffler Institute for Pharmacy Management
Room 108, 569 Spadina Avenue
University of Toronto

Karl Schaaf (1646-1729) was a professor of Aramaic and Syriac and was responsible for a series of definitive lexicons and grammatical works on the Syriac language. Schaaf also corresponded with the Syriac Bishop of Malabar.

Orthodox German: Hieromonk Clement (Sederholm)

From Orrologion:

Thanks to Ручьёв of the Incendiary blog, I have found a book I have long been looking for. Of course, it's in Russian - which I don't read - but I at least know that the book has been published in this century rather than the turn of the last (like, 1902).

Православный немец. Иеромонах Климент (Зедергольм) [Orthodox German: Hieromonk Clement (Sederholm)] was published in 2005 by Московское подворье Свято-Введенской Оптиной Пустыни [the Moscow dependency of the Holy-Entry Optina Hermitage].

It contains letters to his father (a Lutheran pastor, thus my interest), two biographies of Fr. Clement (one of which was written by Konstantin Leontiev and is available online here and here [also, John Hogg has begun an English translation of it in the combox here]) and six other articles of his. Two works of his have appeared in English - Elder Leonid of Optina and Elder Anthony of Optina - both published by St. Herman Press.

I am eager to see this text translated into English and would be thankful for any help at all in even a rough translation into English.

I shall also append Leonard Stanton's brief overview of Fr Clement's life in his wonderful book, The Optina Pustyn Monastery in the Russian Literary Imagination (NY: Peter Lang, 1995), p. 152:

The author [of the Life of Elder Leonid of Optina], Karl (later Father Kliment) Zedergol'm, died in 1878, before Dostoevsky's last visit to Optina. Zedergol'm was a cantakerous man of great culture and learning. He was at home both in a monastic setting and in the inner circles of Russia's literary beau monde. He graduated in classics from Moscow University in 1853, having written a master's thesis on Cato the Elder that [Konstantin] Leont'ev, his biographer, called both stimulating and controversial. In the same year, Zedergol'm converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy. (His father was the head Lutheran pastor in Moscow at the time.) Zedergol'm was at home in the brilliant Moscow salons, particularly Mrs Elagin's with its erudite ferment of German Romantic thought and Slavophilism. He was a protégé of Ivan Vasil'evich Kireevskii, Russia's first original philosopher, and counted among the friends of his youth some of the leading lights of the Moscow literary intelligentsia, including Tertii Filippov and the 'young editors' of The Muscovite. After a brief career as a layman working in the Holy Synod, Zedergol'm entered Optina Pustyn in 1862 and soon became a monk and a priest as well. He was never himself an elder, nor was he possessed of a sufficiently irenic disposition ever to have been considered for elderhood. He devoted himself to literary endeavors at Optina, as a translator of spiritual works from Latin and Greek into Russian, as the author of the elders' biographies, and as secretary to Elder Amvrosii.

St Rupert of Salzburg

Today, 27 March on the old Orthodox calendar, we celebrate the memory of St Rupert (c. 660-718), Bishop of Salzburg (other forms of his name are Ruprecht, Hrodperht, Hrodpreht, Roudbertus, Rudbertus, and Robert). According to one Life of St Rupert:

He was gentle and chaste, simple and prudent, devout in praise of God, full of the Holy Spirit. He was also circumspect in his decisions and righteous in his judgement. He possessed great spiritual discernment, and his good deeds formed his flock into true images of Christ, for he inspired them not only with his words, but by the example of his works. He often kept vigil, weakened himself with fasting, and adorned his works with compassion. He gave away his riches that the poor might not go hungry, believing himself to be one who should clothe the naked and help the destitute.

Traditionally believed to have been one of the Merovingians, very little is known about St Rupert’s early life. At some point he was a made Bishop of Worms, a position he held until about 697, when he was invited by Duke Theodo II to Bavaria to do missionary work. St Rupert was greeted by the Duke at Regensberg, and ‘set out immediately on a journey along the Danube, preaching in towns and villages as far as Hungary’ (Butler’s Lives of the Saints, New Full Edition: March, rev. Teresa Rodrigues [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1999], p. 261). He went to Lorch, and built a church dedicated to St Peter on the Wallersee, later becoming the town of Seekirchen.

At St Rupert’s own request, Duke Theodo gave him about two square miles of the old ruined Roman town of Juvavum. According to the previously quoted Life:

Some very reliable men came to the blessed hierarch and told him of an amazing phenomenon which had taken place when they had gone into an unnamed wilderness area now called Bongotobum (Pongau). Three or four times they had seen heavenly lights shining like bright lamps in the sky and they had also experienced a wonderful fragrance in the same place. The pious bishop sent the priest Domingus to Bongotobum because of the reports which he received concerning these lights. It was his desire that the priest would verify the authenticity of these wonders by erecting in that location a wooden cross which the holy one had made and blessed with his own hands. When Domingus arrived, he at once began the First Hour with the monks who had come with him. They saw a bright heavenly light which descended from the sky and lit up the entire region with the brightness of the sun. Domingus saw this vision on three nights in a row, and experienced the wondrous fragrance as well. He erected the blessed cross in that place, and it was miraculously transported to a spot above the dwelling of St Rupert, confirming the truthfulness of what had been reported to him! St Rupert took word of the miraculous occurrence to Theodo and then he himself went into the wilderness to the very spot, and seeing that it was suitable for habitation, began to cut down aged oaks and brought in building materials that he might build a church with dwellings for a monastic community.

Here he built a church and monastery dedicated to St Peter (the Archabbey of St Peter), which St Rupert himself served as abbot, as well as a women’s monastery dedicated to the Theotokos (Nonnberg Abbey), and where he installed his niece, St Erentrude, as abbess. Both are still functioning monasteries under the Benedictine rule, and the latter was made famous as the monastery of Maria von Trapp’s novitiate. St Rupert is said to have encouraged the development of salt mining at his new see, and it is from this industry that the city acquired the name by which it is still known today: Salzburg, or ‘Salt castle’ (I have blogged about this beautiful city a little bit before, in connection with St Rupert’s successor, St Vergilius). For this reason, St Rupert is often depicted holding a container of salt (see here, for instance).

Despite his attachment to a particular see, St Rupert continued to travel throughout the area, ‘preaching the Faith and founding many other churches and monasteries’, until finally, ‘After a life of strenuous activity he left his helpers to carry on the work and returned to Salzburg, certain that he was about to die. He died on Easter Sunday, probably between 710 and 720’ (Butler, p. 262). According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

. . . [H]e died at Salzburg, aided by the prayers of his brethren in the order; his body reposed in the St Peterskirche until 24 September 774, when his disciple and successor, Abbot-Bishop St Virgil, had a portion of his remains removed to the cathedral. On 24 September 1628, these relics were interred by Archbishop Paris von Ladron (1619-54) under the high altar of the new cathedral. Since then the town and district of Salzburg solemnize the feast of St Rupert, Apostle of Bavaria and Carinthia, on 24 September.

One can read more about St Rupert in German here and here, and about Nonnberg Abbey here. The second link includes the following hymn for Ss Rupert and Vergilius:

Lied zum Fest der Heiligen Rupert und Virgil

Melodie: Gotteslob 639 (Ein Haus voll Glorie schauet)

Ein Jubellied erschalle,
dem heiligen Bischofspaar,
das hier in unserem Tale
einst Hirt und Lehrer war:
Singet Preis und Lob
Gott, der sie erhob
auf Salzburgs Bischofsthron
und uns zum Schutzpatron.

Sankt Rupert hat verkündet
das Evangelium,
den Bischofssitz gegründet
als Hort dem Christentum.
Gottes Wort und Macht

ist in dunkler Nacht

uns Schirm und unser Licht

bis Christi Tag anbricht.

Sankt Virgil trug die Lehre

des Glaubens in die Fern;
dass er das Land bekehre,
war Auftrag ihm vom Herrn.
Hütet Gottes Geist,
der den Weg uns weist,
dem Volk auf Pilgerfahrt,
das um das Kreuz sich schart.