Wormbach church and churchyard

Schmallenberg-Wormbach, Alt Wormbach 2 (51.167282 | 8.257041)

Living death

Romanesque pilgrimage church with depictions of the signs of the zodiac that are unique in Europe. Surrounded by one of the last uniformly designed cemeteries in the Sauerland.

If you want to enter the church, you have to cross the cemetery. And it is full of life. Its surrounding wall with its crevices and niches is a biotope for moss and wall-breakers, spotted ferns and stonecrops. 300-year-old lime trees stand in a circle as if in reverence. A fire salamander crawls in slow motion to its place in the sun, which sends its first warming rays. It extends the wooden crosses, which stand in finely circled rows, by long shadows. Now, as the sun rises, it becomes apparent that all the graves face east. They are not in a cemetery outside the village, but right next to the church. The dead and the living are neighbors. Simple elegance on the graves: a priest once ended the beauty contest to see which farmer had the thickest gravestone and ordered simple wooden crosses. Everyone, rich or poor, has to fall in line. Everyone is equal before death.

A tree of life rises between the graves, like a symbol of the peaceful coexistence of life and death. On Easter Sunday 1945, one of the last days of the war, when the church was full, the tree acted as a lifesaver. An Allied plane dropped a 500 kilogram bomb. It hit the tree and its branches cushioned the explosive charge. It landed in the soft earth between two graves without exploding. The tree of life also survived. Today, it makes up for the war injury with three spikes.

As a boy, Johannes Tigges used to walk through the cemetery on his way to school every day. At the end of the 1950s, high scaffolding in the church aroused his curiosity. Painters and artists were working under the cross vault. One day they beckoned to him and allowed him to climb up. He witnessed how paint was being removed with fine spatulas. Underneath, the symbol of the scales was revealed. A magical act. "I was gripped by this church back then," recalls Tigges. He has been guiding people through the church of St. Peter and Paul for more than 20 years, telling stories of true events and great mysteries.

It has been proven that the current church was built around 1250. Late Romanesque architectural style, earth-colored paintings. However, there were much older predecessors on the same site. And the trail leads to uncertain territory: was the original church of the Sauerland located in Wormbach? A wooden building erected by the missionary Boniface in the eighth century? Was there already a place of power here in Celtic times? Maybe: "Back then, the missionaries' motto was: Build the churches on the cult sites of the Germanic tribes." Clever move, reinterpreting pagan places in Christian terms and continuing to use their power.

Johannes Tigges has been fascinated by the twelve zodiac symbols ever since his experience on the painter's scaffold. He suspects an influence from the Benedictines from the nearby Grafschaft monastery. Their wealth of knowledge included astronomical knowledge. They may even have wielded the brush themselves. The constellations seem to proclaim a message. They are arranged in a way that suggests they are a kind of calendar. With the help of the position of the sun and the incidence of light through the windows, it was possible to read the date of the most important Christian festival, Easter as a movable feast day.

The church has always been located at the crossroads of important routes. Bodies were sometimes transported over many kilometers on the so-called death routes to be buried in Wormbach earth. On the Heidenstraße, which led from Cologne to Kassel, Christian converts made their way into Germanic territory. Today, the yellow shell on a blue background adorns long stretches of this route, symbolizing the Way of St. James.

What is the truth behind all the speculation and riddles? "For me, it is proven that Wormbach was already a very important place in pre-Christian times." Cult site, crossroads, cultural asset, today identified as a "place of the soul". Johannes Tigges recounts a spiritual experience he recently had in the church. "I sat down in one of the pews with four others late at night. It was pitch black except for the eternal light. We had agreed not to make the slightest noise for half an hour." He is still amazed today at what happened next. Gradually, the contours of the pillars and vaults emerged from the blackness, "the church became light in the dark."

During the Spiritual Summer, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus and Muslims came together in the church alongside Christians. They talked about the meaning of light in their respective religions. "They were wonderfully harmonious moments, I thought that was powerful." I experience Johannes Tigges as one of those tolerant, inviting storytellers who can make places of the soul shine. You need background knowledge to understand such a place. But you can also leave something open. Unanswered questions. A few secrets. Unsolved riddles. That gives the imagination room to play.