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Saturday, December 5, 2020

Something About the Church of Saint Jacobi

St. Jacobi, Werther
A saint by any other name -

I cleaned out a few drawers in the kitchen recently and came across a number of implements of uncertain origin or use. One was a tweezers-like thing; on one end was a small, postage-stamp-sized plate perpendicular to the tip. This plate slid into a narrow slit running along the other leg. Neither Dalcy nor I knew what to do with but I think we’ll give it away a gift this holiday season. Check your mailbox!

It reminded me what I read recently about Saint Jacobi, a Lutheran church in Werther, Germany. Whither Werther? It's where grandfather and grandson ate their Werther's Original caramels, for one. But that’s not important now. What is important is this bit of trivia from Wikipedia:
It took until 2009 to find confirmation in the archives that the original dedication was to Jakobus the Elder (James the Great), and not to Jakobus the Younger (James, son of Alphaeus).
Further reading yielded more of this strange story:
[On] The legal certificates on donations of land to the church in Werther from the years 1462 and 1407 - the oldest surviving document of the Church parish - St. James is explicitly named as the church patron mentioned. The crucial clue as to which James it is now acts, finally gave us a church register from the end of the 17th century in the abundance of evidence spanning centuries. After 1748 there is an "inventory of Werther church equipment" has been added. The first entry is “1. The Church of St. Jacobi Majoris called, is a royal patronage church. ”This has now proven beyond doubt that it is the patron of the Wertheran church is about James the Elder.
So I don’t know the name or purpose of something in the kitchen drawer and this church, seemingly, didn’t know for whom their church was named for 200+ years. It’s not the same thing, I know, but just a curious bit of trivia – the sort Bellairs would likely get a kick out since he penned the story of a church being built over 1,000 years.

That's all for now ... another drawer is calling.

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