Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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OBERAMMERGAU

Site of the world-famous Passion Play, in West Germany, southwest of Munich. The play is staged by the people of the Bavarian village every ten years as the result of a vow made in 1634 because of their deliverance from the Black Death. The oldest existing text was written about 1600 and contains parts of two older dramas. Further revisions include a Passion text by Sebastian Wild and Johann Aelbel. In the eighteenth century the Benedictine Rosner remodeled the text after the Jesuit drama, and later still the script was simplified and put into prose form. Stage and costuming are adapted to modern requirements. The music is by Rochus Dedler. Practically everyone in the village has some part to play in the production of the drama, which was interrupted in 1940 because of World War II.