English Summaries

ZfR 2020; 28(1): 195–206

English Summaries

https://doi.org/10.1515/zfr-2020-2008

The Study of Religious Architecture: An Introduction apl. Prof. Dr. Peter J. Bräunlein: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Institut für Ethnologie,

˗ Herzberger Landstr. 2, 37085 Göttingen, E Mail: [email protected] Dr. Sabrina Weiß: Universität Leipzig, Religionswissenschaftliches Institut, Schillerstr. 6,

˗ 04109 Leipzig, E Mail: [email protected]

The introduction of this special issue deals with the topics of religion and architecture in the field of religious studies over the past decades. The point of depar- ture is the observation that architecture has repeatedly been the subject of theoretical approaches and methodological considerations in the history of religious studies, but that no comprehensive methodology of religious studies has been developed on this subject so far, and that architecture is still a desideratum as a source and object of religious studies. Instead, religious architecture acted as a blueprint in recent debates on spatial and migration-related issues. Although religious architecture is often considered an important research topic—for example, as a contact zone, or in its space forming and structuring function—, how it produces meaning is still a central question that has not been adequately investi- gated. At the interface between material turn and spatial turn, religious architecture is now increasingly becoming the focus of numerous projects in the huma- nities—particularly in the disciplines of religious studies, sociology, art history, and architectural theory. By way of example, the introduction highlights selected disciplines (art history, architectural history and theory, and architectural sociology) that offer suggestions for dealing with religious architecture, and sees itself as an impetus for stimulating the debate on this topic. The first section is dedicated to art history, as it has the longest tradition of exploring sacred architecture. A change in the 20th century is proving to be central, in which art historians (such as Sedlmayr, von Simson, Panofsky, Warnke) examine medieval sacred architecture with the help of hermeneutics, and seek to understand church buildings not only as expressions of architectural style and form but also as carriers of meaning. The consideration of geometry as well as principles of construction and the search for symbolic analogies in theological source texts are characteristics of this time. Art-historical research on sacred architecture shows ways in which spiritual visions and the spirit of the times have 196 English Summaries merged into architectural design. Art history also offers methods and analytical instruments for analysing sacred architecture. On the one hand, the study of religion is dependent on art-historical concepts and analytical instruments, but on the other, this poses a challenge to comparative research in the study of religion and offers the opportunity to broaden art-historical perspectives. It is further sta- ted that there is an urgent need to develop and reflect one’s own value orientation in the study of sacred architecture, to become aware of, e. g., an ideological atti- tude. This is particularly necessary against the background of a culturally and religiously pluralizing society and in a social climate of increasing ideological polarization. In the second section, the question is asked how European—especially Ger- man speaking—architectural history and theory deal with religious architecture. It turns out that the distinction between sacral and profane architecture still dom- inates research in this discipline on religion and architecture, and that the architectural-historical view is often Eurocentric. In addition, an example of the traditional science of architecture and housebuilding shows that the establishment of an architectural theory has the potential to become an instrument for the revitali- zation of ideological concepts. It concludes that an analysis based on religious history can help to reveal such processes. The third section introduces architectural sociology, the latest discipline,

which also deals with religious architecture. Since the 1970 s, architectural sociology has been devoted to exploring the importance of architecture as a constitutive and transformative medium, as an assemblage, a cultural technique or as material and symbolic mode, which are related to societies and individuals. Architectur- al sociology thus examines socio-architectural constellations, and sacred architecture is seen as a symbolic expression of religion. Examples show how religious studies take up this impulse. The special issue thus brings together religious-historical and systematic con- tributions that approach this broad subject on various occasions.

Train Station and Cathedral in Cologne: Arrival and Advent, Technical Feasibility and Unfulfilled Eschatology

Dr. Christoph Auffarth: Universität Bremen, Wellerscheid 102, 53804 Much,

˗ E Mail: [email protected]

In the 19th century, the Gothic cathedral of Cologne—up to then a ruin for 400 years, except for the chancel—was completed by building the nave and the massive twin towers. Side by side with the medieval sacral architecture, the most English Summaries 197 modern secular technical buildings were constructed: the bridge over the Rhine River and the main station for the railway. At first sight, this seems to be a clash in the city’s space in the vicinity of the same square: the utmost opposite between secular and sacral, medieval and modern, technology and piety, functionality of arrival just in time, and eschatology, materiality, and religion. The vicinity, however, was intended by the town planners. The filigree Gothic constructions were seen as the ability to build halls of light and paramount altitude that architects were not able to build again prior to the Crystal Palace, which housed the World Expo in 1850, made from steel and glass; and towers that scraped the sky, like the Eiffel Tower, or even reached heaven. Completing the cathedral, the architects used the same constructive elements as the planners of the bridge and the railway station: steel for the roof framework, an Eiffel Tower as ridge turret, glass in the nave. Vice versa, the bridge made from steel was disguised as a Gothic stone bridge. The article discusses the material religion of cathedral and railway bridge/ train station with the methods of the aesthetics of religion as a connective concept (A. Grieser). This is necessary to connect (1) the notions of contemporary actors, both the Prussian colonial rulers as Protestants, who accomplished the Catholic cathedral as a monument to German national unity / the Reich, and the Rhenish Catholic subalterns, who gathered in a society that collected money for the construction of the cathedral (Domverein) as a monument to Catholic resistance against the Prussian monarchy. Scientific research has to consider the different, even contradicting notions given by the actors in historical place and time. (2) It discusses the issue whether Kunstreligion (religion of fine arts aesthetics) is intended to replace traditional religions. This question is seen as part of a more comprehensive discussion about desacralisation and, in the long run, the discussion of so-called secularization. The rationalization of the Enlightenment and the French revolution elicited a new definition of what sacrality and religion mean. Fine arts as religion, nation-religion in states that are not homogeneous in terms of confessional and ethnic identity anymore. Technical progress and revolution in some cases served as contradiction to traditional religions, in most cases, however, both of them could be integrated into one another. (3) A fundamental change in the aisthesis (perception) of material religion is a further issue of the research: the ‘point of view’ is no more static, but moving, by travelling in railway trains. The moving pictures seen through the windows of the train lead the viewer to the monumental building on the horizontal level, and also let them raise the view to the towers in a vertical direction. (4) Travelling by train, the most modern form in the 19th century of moving from home to business, visiting relatives, and city tours, the railway station next to the cathedral provides yet another form of religion. Religion in the cathedral is not restricted to the performance of the ser- 198 English Summaries vice orchestrated by the clergy anymore, but provides the opportunity for a short pilgrimage between two connecting trains. The cathedral becomes a road shrine for individual prayer and lighting a candle for beloved relatives: an individua- lized form of religion followed by many people. Concerning the thematic focus of this issue of the journal, sacral architecture, the case under scrutiny shows two fundamental methodological rules: (1) The choice of ‘sacral’ buildings must not single out other functions and meanings of the building. The cathedral is serving not only to attend church, but it is an em- ployer for stonemasons, roofers, guards, and clerics as well. It also attracts tour- ists who need a bed for the night and a restaurant for lunch, etc. The cathedral of Cologne becomes the idea of a monument of building and accomplishing the Ger- man nation in 1871; it is a monument of resistance against Prussian protestant supremacy (‘Einheitskultur’) as well. (2) Sacrality is not an essential attribute (‘phenomenon’) to be evaluated before research. The aesthetics of architecture follows the diachronic line of medieval church-building, but the Gothic style was evaluated as the most modern way of building, which architects could not reach before the mid-19th century, now using steel and glass in expositions, bridges, the Eiffel Tower, the railway stations and the cathedral of Cologne. Aesthetics of religion is part of common contemporary aesthetics.

Mediating Transcendence into Immanence: The Reception of Gothic Architecture in Strasbourg and Cologne around 1800

Tilman Hannemann: Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg, Fakultät IV, Institut für Philosophie, Ammerländer Heerstr. 114–118, 26129 Oldenburg,

˗ E Mail: [email protected]

This article develops the notion of sacral architecture as a historically variable framework of perception (Wahrnehmungsraum) during the gothic architecture revival. According to Mohn (2012), these frameworks provide social coping strate- gies in times of change that employ contextually charged symbols, mythical narratives, and ritual body techniques. The classical approach in phenomenology of religion, established by Rudolf Otto (1917), considered Gothic architecture an ex- emplary and timeless model that mediates the experience of transcendence into emotions of the sublime. While the latter posits at the outset a substantial rela- tionship between the symbolic signifier—architectural art—and the signified transcendental object, Mohn emphasises cultural knowledge and attribution processes as inevitable preconditions of any subjective experience that provides fac- tual evidence. English Summaries 199

During the eighteenth century, the religious ‘Sturm und Drang’ milieu was the first to associate a cipher of the Munster’s tower in Strasbourg with a transcendent ‘truth’ of religious nature. In their encounter with Gothic architecture, the actors favoured the notion of an emotional peak experience that produces a total sensory effect beyond explanation (Goethe). Between 1770 and 1780, the German literary movement emotionally coded the Munster cathedral into their own religio-aes- thetic space and established a related pilgrimage practice. This practice, including both the ascension and the visual experience of the tower, helped to explore the specificity of religious sentiment that developed into an increasingly important notion at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1804, Friedrich Schlegel reframed the gothic architecture revival by considering the cathedral architectures of Strasbourg and Cologne as opposites in terms of the German national movement. Religious sentiment was expected to relate to contemporary theories of experience and insight via intuition (Anschauung). Carefully composed impressions should prefigure and trigger specific emotions—just like mechanical instruments. The knowledge about these processes was called the ‘art of emotional excitement’ (Gemütserregungskunst). How did Schlegel consider and categorise elements of Gothic architecture that would cause an emotional experience of transcendence? While the arabesque style of the Strasbourg cathedral evoked the imagery of an ‘artificial clockwork’, viz., a representation of the materialistic confusion of the French revolution, the Cologne cathedral suggested a total effect that disas- sembled architectural space in following a ‘setting of infinite abundance of meaning and relations’. The supporting symbols represented vegetabilia—not merely imitating the model of nature, but rather expressing the ‘basic idea [...] of romantic architecture’. Both the abandonment of spatial orientation and the unifying idea of nature contribute to a notion of transcendence that relates to the fragmen- ted German nation and to Schlegel’s wish for its reconciliation with the subject— the citizen—who encompasses the ‘infinity of representation’ in absence of political unity. Goethe, Schlegel, and others provided narratives that introduced the experience of transcendence into most standard explorations of sacral architecture. However, their introductions to the gothic architectural revival were far from es- tablishing substantial notions of that experience. They applied basic concepts of early romantic perception theory to empirical objects in the world. The fragility of social attributions to emotional experiences explains how, over the course of three decades, the architectural art of the Strasbourg cathedral could evolve from a sublime symbol of religious truth into a mere representation of materialism. This study indicates that the shifting contextual notions of transcendence might not only involve various cultural or political attributions, but also depend on changing techniques of both perception and bodily expressions. 200 English Summaries

Hindu Temples in South Asian Style in Germany

˗ Brigitte Luchesi: Breisgauer Str. 8, 14129 Berlin, E Mail: [email protected]

At present, about one hundred thousand South Asian Hindus are living in Ger-

many. They are partly Hindus from India who started to arrive in the 1950 s and often settled for good. A significant number came as refugees from Sri Lanka and

Afghanistan in the 1980 s and 1990 s. The Sri Lankan Hindus who fled the escalat- ing civil war in their homeland formed the largest group of asylum seekers. Among the many changes they were initially forced to experience in Germany was the lack of temples and priestly services, which back home was an undisputed part of their daily life. Places of worship founded by Hindus from India were prac- tically non-existent. The Tamils had to worship their gods at home; if they wanted to celebrate certain religious festivals in a larger group, they had to hire rooms for

the days in question. By the middle of the 1980 s, many Tamil Hindus organised themselves into religious associations. They collected money among the members so that they could rent permanent places for worship. These were usually housed in modest and inconspicuous places. On the outside, nothing pointed to the use of

the rooms inside the building. This changed in the 1990 s, when a number of larger, better situated premises were rented or even bought to be used as temples, as they were commonly called. Some proclaimed themselves through boards and colourful decorations outside. By the year 2003, 25 places of worship existed, at present (2019) there are about 45. An important further development started in 2002, when the completely new temple for the goddess Kamadchi was consecrated on the outskirts of the city of Hamm. It was the first Tamil Hindu place of worship that was planned and constructed as a temple right from the outset. The most striking aspect was that the edifice declared itself as a religious Hindu building by its exterior architectural design. Its prominent features are two towers, a small one in the middle of the roof and a 17-meter-high one above the entrance, both covered with a large number of sculptures depicting Hindu deities. The temple aroused considerable media interest, and the yearly temple festivals in the following years attracted large numbers of visitors, including non-Hindus. Meanwhile, two more temple commit- tees followed the Hamm example. In Hannover, the Sri Muthumariamman temple, housed for many years in a former factory building, moved into a newly constructed home on privately owned ground in 2008. In Berlin, the Sri Murugan temple, since 1991 accommodated in a basement, moved to its own building in Berlin-Britz. It was inaugurated in 2013. Like the goddess temple in Hamm, both temples are outwardly furnished with architectural elements and decorative de- signs that are markedly South Indian. Lately, a Tamil Hindu community in Bre- English Summaries 201 men started to construct its own temple. In Berlin, a Ganesha temple is currently under construction; it belongs to an association that sees itself as representing Hindus from all parts of India. The plan for this temple arose in 2004, but administrative obstacles and financial difficulties deferred speedy progress. As yet (2018) only the 17-meter-high towered gateway has been completed. All five temples have or will have certain features in common, which are evocative of traditional temples that can be found in Sri Lanka and South India, the most striking being the towers that are richly adorned with sculpture. The task of fabricating these exterior decorative parts as well as those inside the temple is assigned to special South Indian artisans, who are brought to Germany for this work. As the construction of these temple buildings is a troublesome and expensive undertaking, we may ask why temple organisations decide for this option, especially when taking into account that the places of worship in already existing buildings are usually excellently equipped. Three conceivable answers are: 1. The consecrated temple with their towers and outer design may impress the non-Hin- du environment. They stand for the visibility—i. e. the social recognition—the Tamil community in Germany has gained after years of a rather covert existence as refugees. 2. They are what owners and devotees consider to be proper temples, as distinct from mere prayer halls. Understood as vessels for sacred images, they are erected with due regard to manifold traditional specifications, which are meant to sacralise them, too. 3. “Real” temples with an outer design that can be traced back to South Asian prototypes are believed to have a positive impact on the devotees themselves. They do not only convey a certain sense of home, but are said to evoke a number of positive feelings like joy, well-being, contentment and pride. These answers lead to the following conclusion: When Hindus from South Asia who live in Germany plan a “real” temple, they do not only visualise a place of worship in a building of their own, but also a particular architectural design, which is closely connected with certain rules of construction. This means that such an edifice should be constructed by qualified experts according to principles and guidelines that are handed down to them by their forefathers and turned into suitable abodes for the gods by learned priests. 202 English Summaries

Sequence Analysis and Visual Hermeneutics in the Analysis of Religious Atmospheres: A Methodical Tool for the Analysis of Socio-Spatial Arrangements

Vertr.-Prof. Dr. Martin Radermacher: Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien (CERES), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstr. 90a, 44789 Bochum,

˗ E Mail: [email protected]

Although both religious and analytic language make use of the term “atmosphere”, this concept has received relatively little scholarly attention in the study of religions so far. Given a number of turns and theoretical developments in the last five decades, however, this article argues that the study of religion is prepared to conceptualize and examine religious atmospheres. Based on existing concep- tual and methodological approaches to the phenomenon of atmospheres, this paper suggests one of several necessary methodical building blocks to studying religious atmospheres, which is grounded in the comparative study of religions and cultures and based on the methodology of sequence analysis. The suggested approach is illustrated by a concrete visual protocol (a photo) taken from the field of Catholic youth initiatives in Germany. It needs to be stressed that the term “atmosphere”—as understood in this paper—is neither used in an ‘esoteric’ sense, hinting at the genius loci or the ‘spiritual feeling’ of a space, nor it is used in the common sense way as a vague and subjective impression people have when entering a space. On the contrary, atmospheres are understood as socially and culturally constructed potentiality of socio-spatial arrangements to realize certain semantically charged situations. These trigger and afford feelings and perceptions in individuals, which in turn may be uttered in concrete communication. The methodological approach in this paper is based on sequence analysis and claims that pictures are a useful source to reconstruct the latent structural patterns of a socio-spatial arrangement. Interviews with participants in these settings are necessary, too, but contribute to the understanding of other aspects of atmospheres, i. e. their production and reception. The paper argues that the structural logics of a visually documented arrangement may be reconstructed by approaching a visual protocol sequentially, i. e. following the rules of sequence analysis, a method that has been developed in the context of objective hermeneutics. The advantage of this approach is (a) that the intuitive understanding of a photo is methodically slowed down, which allows due attention to the ways in which this understanding is produced, and (b) that the implicit structural patterns of the documented socio-spatial arrangement may be reconstructed by comparing single elements of the situation with other meaningful contexts. English Summaries 203

Regarding the case analysed here, the paper concludes with a few hypoth- eses: The atmosphere in the documented situation deals with the opposition of tradition and change and, at the same time, covers this potential conflict by creat- ing an atmosphere that is translatable into popular cultural practice.

Specific Cultural Dualism in Translating Greek Philosophy into the Chaldean Oracles

Prof. Dr. Christoph Elsas: Philipps-Universität Marburg, Leinstr. 43,

˗ 31535 Neustadt, E Mail: [email protected]

This article was written in honour of Carsten Colpe (1929–2009) and starts with considerations about dualism in Iran according his research. Ethnology knows the “trickster” as the source of all evil, but with the Gâthâs of the Zoroastrian Old Avesta, Iranian dualism seems to have a more ethical and spiritual form. The world’s creation results from a treaty between the Wise God Ahura Mazdâ and his adversary, the Evil Spirit Angra Mainyu. Teaching for every material (gêtîk) ap- pearance a spiritual (mênôk)) equivalent either in the good, light heaven or in the evil, dark abyss, Zoroaster was terrifying the unjust mighty ones with hell and annihilation. 1. The “Chaldean Oracles” are handed down only as Greek fragments in Neo- platonic and Christian commentaries. Known since the Renaissance as “Wisdom of Zoroaster”, the Chaldean Oracles attracted attention for their criticism of Chris- tianity and Christian philosophy. By processes of imparting old holy knowledge to Syria in the first centuries, they had been the “Pagan Bible”. In the meantime, they were promoting ways of tradition in Christianity and Islam for a potential of cosmic mystic criticism. That is actually important today in the face of egoistic misuse of mysticism and of globalization. Here, for thousands of years humans were expressing impressions of vital significance, also in verbal traditions with changing interpretations. Tradition is a framework to reflect upon and classify personal experience and to legitimize one’s own insight. The elitist character of deeper insight asserts to be entitled to special traditions from an authoritative source, but science takes the formative power of the social context for granted. What is handed down as vital wisdom by a community in myths and rules is often regarded as a secret not allowed for outsiders as potential enemies. But there are efforts to open a proven tradition to the public— also with translation into other languages and other cultures. Provided it is about an intersubjective discussion with arguments for cultural cooperation including all humans, that tradition will be significant for Intercultural Philosophy, too. 204 English Summaries

2. It is possible to show mutual influencing between the Chaldean Oracles and the Platonic religious philosophy of Numenios of Apameia, about 180 AD, in the face of (a) possibilities of understanding dualism the Iranian and the Greek way, as well as (b) on the side of Numenios orientalism, and (c) on the side of the Theurg Julian, affinity to Homer and Plato. The vital dualistic experience must be proved for each level of tradition every time in the historic social context. We have to combine the respective symbols in the forms of its expressions from different interrelations to ascertain their meaning. The goal should be an understanding picking up and not a simple appropriation in the adoption. The convergence takes place on the basis of difference. In late phases spirituality results, here, in possibilities of general- isation—together with developing a new entity in transference. In such proceed- ings, Comparative Religion meets with Intercultural Philosophy. With regard to each tradition, we have to prove the original intention as well as present circum- stances. Tradition should be included only in a changed form, neither going against early days nor inconsistent with the present. 3. Therefore, even the fragments handed down as the Chaldean Oracles are no parts of original documents—but adaptations. In Mesopotamia, there was the science of the priests observing the celestial signs for the king of the empire (with consultation of divinities and astral magic in divination associated with Ištar, the goddess connecting all contrasts). In the archives of the temples, these documents in Assyrian cuneiform script with Sumerian word characters have been handed down until the time of Roman rule in Asia. For in the Near East, from the start, the word has the dignity and the value of an attestation. When the Persians conquered Mesopotamia, they used Aramaic as the empire’s Semitic administrative language into which they translated also the written traditions from the archives. Thus, it was possible for the Zoroastrian priests, the Magi, to combine them with their Indo-Iranian liturgies passed on by word of mouth (and associated, too, with Anâhitâ, the goddess of the waters connecting the spaces of heaven and earth, like Ištar). Translating the names that’s just comparing the strange religious experience to one’s own tradition. When the Greeks and the Romans conquered Syria, there was a continuation in the identification with the female divinity (as Hecate) combining, by magic, the spaces of heaven and earth—and in philosophical interpretation of mythology in the identification with the principle breathing life as soul into world and human. English Summaries 205

Analyzing the Frontiers of the Religious Field: An Invitation to a Discussion in the Tradition of Pierre Bourdieu

Prof. Dr. Karsten Lehmann: Spezialforschungsbereich ‚Interreligiosität‘, Institut Forschung und Entwicklung, Kirchliche Pädagogische Hochschule Wien / Krems, Mayerweckstr. 1,

– ˗ A 1210 Wien, E Mail: [email protected]

Throughout the last two decades, the Academic Study of Religion has increasingly been focusing on the analysis of the borders of the religious field. The debates on the concept of the secular have triggered a new interest into its relation- ‘ ’ ship with the religious ; and new fields of analyses (e. g. with regards to religion and politics, migration or new religious movements) have pushed these discussions even further. The article at hand wants to contribute to these discussions by presenting a three-fold argument: First, it proposes to have a systematic look at meso-phenomena at the borders of the religious field. Second, it argues that these borders should not be conceptualized as lines of demarcation but rather as complex and dynamic frontiers / Grenzstreifen. And finally, it makes the point that the empirical analysis of phenomena on these frontiers open up new areas of research for the Academic Study of Religion that are of particular significance in public discourse. To make this argument, the article starts from references to Bourdieu’s theory of the religious field. Section 2 highlights Bourdieu’s concept of the polyvalent center of the religious field (dominated by prophets, priests, magicians and the laity) as well as his idea of an increasing dissolution of the borders of the religious field. The section further includes references to more recent criticism on Bour- dieu’s sociology of religion that also help to assess the limitations of this approach. Against this background, the third section of the article presents two more recent German contribution to these discussions—first, Christoph Bochinger’s and Katharina Frank’s discussions of a ‘Triangular for the Study of Religions’ that pushes the analysis of borders towards the margins of the academic agenda and, second, Christoph Kleine’s proposal to use Luhmann’s ‘Systems Theory’ to identi- fy clear-cut borders between religion and the secular. To further develop his argument, the author refers to aspects of his own empirical research dealing with the construction of human rights discourses within religiously affiliated Non-Governmental Organizations (so-called RNGOs) in the context of the United Nations (section 4). Exemplified by two episodes of Pax Ro- ’ mana s activities within the UN-context (one from the 1940 s and another one from the 1960s), Lehmann argues that Pax Romana’s UN activities can inter alia be interpreted as an increasing integration of human rights discourses. 206 English Summaries

This brings the article back to the initial idea of a broader concept of ‘frontier / Grenzstreifen’ that puts particular emphasis on the dynamic complexities of the borders of the religious field in relation to other social fields (section 5). It links this idea to the more recent suggestions to use the metaphor of sedimenta-

tion to better understand the construction of the religious field (that has e. g. been put forward by José Casanova and Linda Woodhead). The author makes the point that a complex concept of the frontier will help to better understand how the religious field has been established through the shifting of frontiers. He concludes with the proposal that a concept of sedimentation based upon Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of the religious field might help to better integrate these processes into the overall conceptualization of religion.