Speech in celebration of the Kapitelsaal’s induction in Salem in March 3rd 2009, Martin Kölling
Dear guests, dear “birthday child”,
Even at the mellow age of 300 years you still haven’t lost your youthful freshness. Although it is uncertain how old you are exactly. The number 1697 that is written above the door leading into the admissions office marks the beginning of the rebuilding. Because of an overheating oven the whole basic inventory of the convent burnt down. Apparently the first monks held meetings here from 1707 to 1710. At this time Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Weimar, the Cello- Suits you are hearing so masterly this evening originated only 10 years later.
For 300 years you have been shining in your splendour. I admit that I have only learned to appreciate you in the past few weeks. With this fire- proof floor as your secure fundament and the restful white of your walls and ceiling and their simple elegance you invite everyone to come in and concentrate here. The transverse arches and the groin vaults ending in four reflected ceiling plans constitute a strict order that is enlivened by Akanthusstucco. And your perfect style only hints that you may also appeal to our senses. That is why the transverse arches and the groins meet with ten mouldings decorated with putti. Only the outer reflecting ceiling plans are decorated with flower and fruit wreaths.
Also all of the 38 monks with their prior and their abbot that lived here in your first years have come here today: over there on the wall chart, on the red picture.
You were the only room in the inside of the convent where speaking was allowed. Here they abdicated their highly trained finger- language. I often walk along the cloister, past the abbots’ gallery and- and can not understand their gestures, inviting me to meditate. You heard many extraordinarily educated people, many in leading positions in this convent state that is also worldly very important. Do you remember in what kind of atmosphere the abbot regularly took the two chapters, the main books, of the bible and the order’s constitution in his hands, how the monks strengthened their faith and found their inner balance while reading together? Dou you remember the rituals strengthening the community when the monks had to decide about the inclusion of someone new, or new members reached to their inner freedom after years of being taught? And do you remember the five festive highlights during the 100 years until the convent was closed down when the monks gave their loyalty oath to the abbots that were elected for lifetime?
How loud must it have been here, how deafening must the silence have been when some monks rebelled against the baroquely reigning abbot Anselm, when he was degraded and then appointed again and four paters were expelled? Yes, you also remember cooperating transactions between chapter and abbot. Here they discussed the selling of goods in order to externally ensure the community for the long run.
For centuries this triad influenced the atmosphere of this room: you were a centre for personal self- assurement, for the inner strengthening of the convent’s community and its outer securing. Again and again the monks struggled to bring their life back to its substance. Gaining their inner freedom by subordinating themselves to the rules in the convent, gaining their outer freedom by running a self supply economy that also helped the people in the area.
“Ora et labora” cohered. Also Salem’s “school- state” had this tradition. Especially Prince Max reminded Hahn who in the beginning had the idea of isolated “fortresses” in mind: “Never forget you re standing on holy cistercian ground. The Cistercians worked here as farmers, foresters, craftsmen, doctors, teachers and advisors in every area of life. If you want to do good to the surrounding you have to receive good things from the surroundings. The youth growing up in Salem should carefully explore this divinely gifted region, its history its nature, its work of art, its social circumstances. More important than the crafts class in school is the contact with the good craftsmen of the region in their workshops…Salem wants to help build a bridge between the world of thoughts and the world of action.”
And so you bloomed again. You became the main chapter in the new school- state, the school parliament. Did the Colour- Bearers assembly know how much they stood in the many centuries old tradition of the convent? Where the convent with appointed guards communicated with the leadership about the existence of inner value and the community life, where the values of truthfulness, of courage and of the sense of community by the self chosen subordination to common rules were consciously experienced and protected, where the Colour- Bearers strengthened the community by being self- disciplined models and taught the “novices”.
And as well as the monks made their vow to the values and rules of the order after many years of probation, the elected students acknowledged: “The Colour-Bearers” have to watch over Salem, so that it stays unharmed in its honour and civilized behaviour. They protect Salem’s rules and shall demand more from themselves than from others. It is their task to protect the weaker and to detain the violent. Salem has to be able to count on them as they “wear the colours” and are the representatives of the school to the out- and inside. If someone who is offered these colours believes that he is not able to face the constant effort to fulfil these demands, he shall refuse the offer.”
The time from 1933 to 1934 in which the school was challenged and had to prove itself, in which the number of pupils who left almost halved the school’s enrolment and in which the HJ tried to split the school, displayed what an political strength the “Farbentragenden- assembly” developed through their inner strength, in order to protect their freedom and their basic values. Bravely Salem stood up against the bad spirit of that time. In this room you were able to hear a pin drop: “I refuse to accept “the colours” as long as I don’t know what happens to the “Farbentragenden” who are not completely Aryan.”
Patiently you endured the silence in your walls from 1973 until last year. The school’s library moved in. Now it wasn’t the securing of the self chosen values that stood in the centre but the self- enlightenment by studying that made this possible. What did a republican contemporary say during the French revolution: “The noble looking Father Librarian argued very sensibly about the beautiful art’s objects…here every book shall be read: Here one is tolerant towards every idea.” Yes, dear Kapitelsaal, Salem has stayed a spiritual centre in dual respect. In the past the first Cistercian printer generally was in this convent. 60.000 books stood in the library. Today the library has moved to the Langbau, is connected to the learning centre and by computer connected to the libraries of the school and to the knowledge of the world. In former times Salem sent its monks to the best universities and had its own Gymnasium with 80 to 100 students. The Junibau was a school- and a stock for wine. The latest building of the convent, the Rentamt that was built in 1791, was a modern boarding school Gymnasium. Even here the parallels are obvious.
Now dear Kapitelsaal, with interest you realize: The times of silence are over. In this room people are discussing and debating again.
You, with your centuries- old experience, do you believe Dr. Bueb is right when he says again and again that Salem is a worldly order for time. “Worldly” because it gets along without “spiritual” confession, “order” because it connects its form of life so closely to values and rules and “for time” because Salem makes itself unnecessary by being a rearing and teaching institution and the outer influencing forces of the school have become a part of the inner self- determination, when the students have grown up? Or do you think Salem is a cosmopolitan, generation- spanning, international community. Its ductility insists especially of the negotiation of the variety that meets here, that strengthens the individual by probation and acknowledgment. This way the value of this community would be experienced and commonly appreciated, in order to eventually, cultivated by this, protect them. Is Salem rather gardener than potter? You shake your head- wrong contrasts. Rather mutual conditions, they way they have been centuries before. We as Cistercians were able to develop, because the tradition and the renewal stood in a fertile field. The life we lived by our order’s rules was so attractive that new seasoned people joined the convent, strived for this and strengthened and unified new Cistercians. This way we became a dynamic European movement of single- communities. We were connected by regular congresses, visits and strengthened by our own experience in the convent. We Cistercians were therefore neither elitist nor unworldly.
The similarity with Hahn’s founding of schools is evident. In 1954 Hahn said Salem is not a school, but a movement. Its worldwide success you may look at in the rare cabinet. And even the constitution that was developed out of the monk’s experiences finds its parallels within Salem’s rules. Hahn wrote these down in 1930 in order to raise scholarships in the US. That is why he let them be bound onto illustrated tomes. Over there in the cabinet are two of them. Salem’s rules developed themselves out of the experience of living together. The rules, this too is an experience from Salem’s history as a school, do not become effective by normative practice, but by constantly new acquirement. They shape the living together in Salem, Gordonstoun, Louisenlund and at the United World Colleges.
Hahn called his schools laboratories for valuation by acting responsible. They should serve, as the convents did, the public. His workshops reacted to the historic breaks, in a radical and courageous way, with new concepts that secured the previous basic rules by their experience. 1919 Salem’s school state responded to the political failure of the old elite in hopes of temperamentally leading citizens. Hahn deepened this approach in Gordonstoun in 1933. He relied on the experimental and peaceful force of the services in close collaboration with the region. The forces of pity that were aroused by this were supposed to be stronger than violent conflict resolution. Taking on responsibility in times of need should overcome the nationalistic contrasts. From the year 1945 on Hahn developed this approach, by facing the cold war in the minds of his students by educating them to international citizens in United World College’s networks. What would he have done with the year 1989, or 2001?
We aren’t aware enough that new Cistercians arose and are arising, for example in view of the IB, the United World Colleges, the Round- Square- and Outward- Bound- Schools, or in view of the awards for accomplishments. Many of these ideas originate in Salem. Often they returned, advanced as concepts, enrichingly back to Salem. Do you know how many of them were negotiated and evaluated here with you? I want to name only two examples. The idea of Outward- Bound resulted from Marina Ewald’s journey to Finland in 1925. In 1954 the idea of the Atlantic- World- Colleges and of the Round- Square schools resulted out of the Kephallonia- earthquakes.
Salem is now standing in your room as powerful and various as seldom before. Hahn’s wish from 1962 has been fulfilled: “Salem shall become different than it was in my time. But the fundaments shall stay the same.” And I hear you whisper, dear Kapitelsaal, these fundaments will only be kept alive if they are constantly gained new. What counted in the state of the convent, is also counting today. From 1928 to 1966 Hahn repeated his ideas of the school state: “The leading students shall be given tasks. Failing these would mean to endanger the state.” Weather 1920, 1934 or 75 years later, the challenge to assign these tasks courageously has not changed. Shape tasks, do not maintain them!
The years of the school have kept you young. You would say: Cistercian tradition in a modern robe. Now, dear jubilarian, you are drawing closer to your roots. The fine tension that has always kept you alive inside will be enlivened new again from today on. Insofar, dear Kapitelsaal celebrate your rebirth: carefully renewed, faithful to the old values, adapted to the modern needs. Face the future, being a place for retreat and “self- reassurement”, a place for inspiring discussions and sustainable decisions and a place for cultivated enjoyment.
Happy Birthday!
