A Guided Tour of the Abbey Church of St Hildegard
The Abbey Church of St Hildegard was built between 1900 and 1908 under the auspices of Prince Karl zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1834-1921), one of the leading figures in German catholicism in the 19th century. Prince Löwenstein, who had made it his task to revive the monastic tradition of St Hildegard at the historic site, commissioned Fr Ludger Rincklage (1850-1927), a monk of the Abbey of Maria Laach and an architect by profession, to build the church. The foundation stone was laid on July 2nd, 1900; the church was consecrated on September 7th, 1908. Between 1907 and 1913 the interior of the church was painted, a project led by Fr Paulus Krebs (1849-1935) of Beuron, a student of the famous artist-monk Fr Desiderius Lenz (1832-1928), the founder of the Beuron School of Art. The abbey church at Eibingen is considered his most important work and one of the best complete compositions of the Beuron School of Art. The Abbey Church of St Hildegard was modelled on the old basilicas in the Romanesque style. The nuns' choir adjoins the presbytery of the church to the North, where the Benedictine nuns meet seven times a day for the Divine Office. The choir, as well as the South wall facing the choir, were altered in the 1960s. The wall paintings in this part of the church were whitewashed so that the murals in the interior of the church are no longer complete in their original form.
The visitor's first impression upon approaching the abbey church will be that of the mighty twin towers, 45m in height. They are built of quarried stone, as is the church itself and all the monastic buildings, which was taken from the hill above the site. On the pediment between the two towers one can see the Crucifixion carved in red sandstone, showing Christ on the cross with Mary, his mother, and the beloved disciple John. Above the cross, as well as on the gable of the porch, and in the mosaic of the front wall of the entrance hall one can see the Cross of St Benedict, which immediately identifies the church as a Benedictine monastic church to the visitor. One also finds the same cross in the panels of the main entrance door to the church, which is made of bronze. The letters CSPB stand for "Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti" - the Cross of our Holy Father Benedict.
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