Salzburg celebrates its national saint from Wednesday
On Wednesday, September 21st, the traditional festival of the annual Rupertikirtag begins in Salzburg. This is the cathedral consecration festival on St. Rupert’s Day, which is always held for several days around St. Rupert’s name day (September 24th). In addition to many social and culinary suggestions on the squares in downtown Salzburg around the cathedral, numerous spiritual program items are also planned. The highlight is on Saturday, September 24, the high festival of the diocesan and state patrons Rupert and Virgil with a statio in St. Peter at 9.30 a.m., followed by a procession to the cathedral and from 10 a.m. there a from Archbishop Franz Lackner led festive service.
On Sunday, the celebration of the anniversary of the consecration of the Salzburg Cathedral follows with a festive mass at 10 a.m., set to music with Mozart’s “Piccolominimesse”. Already on Thursday, September 22, at 7 p.m. in St. Peter, the consecration of the collegiate church there will be celebrated; Haydn’s “Youth Mass” will be heard. Liturgies with top-class music also take place on Friday and Saturday in St. Peter’s and on Sunday in the Franciscan Church.
Rupertikirtag, which goes back to St. Rupert of Salzburg (around 650-718), Bishop of Worms in the early Middle Ages as well as first Bishop of Salzburg and abbot of St. Peter’s Abbey, is one of the most traditional folk festivals in Austria and is visited by more than 100,000 people every year.
Today’s Salzburg shaped by state patrons
The Archdiocese of Salzburg’s website says about their patron saints, Rupert and Virgil (around 700-784), Rupert’s successors as bishop and abbot, that the two saints directed their lives towards God in a special way “and Salzburg as we do today know, shaped”. Rupert, who came from Worms, was of noble origin and was closely related to the Merovingian royal family. At the beginning of the 7th century he came to Bavaria as a missionary and then to Salzburg, where in 696 he founded the oldest monastery in Austria, St. Peter. This led to the emergence of today’s city on the ruins of Roman Juvavum, so that Saint Rupert is often referred to as the founder of Salzburg. He also founded the oldest German Benedictine abbey on the Nonnberg, today the world’s oldest continuously existing Christian convent. Rupert’s niece, Erentrudis, became his first abbess and later a diocesan saint.
On the occasion of the Rupertikirtag, there are also several “guided tours in the footsteps of the diocesan patrons Rupert, Virgil and Erentrudis” with Salzburg tourist guides, as well as guided tours in the cathedral and in the art-historically significant “DomQuartier” (Info: https://eds.at/rupertusfest/fuehrungen).
A varied supporting program offers elements such as “herbal salt in a mortar”, “salt barrel shooting”, break dance in honor of the three diocesan patrons, holiday music on the organ of St. Peter and a special Rupertus bread. The city of Salzburg provides information about these and other program items on the website www.salzburg-altstadt.at/de/rupertikirtag/programm.
Source: catpress