Transnational Architectures

Benedictine Missions, Spaces and Representations

Abstract

Intending to combine missionary activity and monastic monkhood, in 1884 the Missionary Benedictines of St. Ottilien were founded. From Bavaria the Congregation tried to take Christianity into the world, beginning in colonial „German East Africa“ (present-day Tanzania). Right from the start the Catholic mission society was a trans-local, trans-regional, and trans-national organisation. One activity demonstrated the complexity and ,efficacy‘ of its global network: building cathedrals and churches. The author offers the thesis, that sacral architecture was embedded within the – theoretically speaking – ‚missionary space‘. It contributed aesthetically, mentally, spiritually and sensuously to an imagined community of the Benedictine missions.