Should the sculpture of Synagoga at Bamberg Cathedral be removed? Considerations and approaches to the problem of anti-Jewish images in a Christian church

Abstract

Since the early thirteenth century the outstanding Gothic sculptures of Synagoga and Ecclesia at Bamberg Cathedral - personifications of Judaism and the Church - have been part of an iconographic programme of the history of salvation. After the original statues at the Princes’ portal were relocated to the interior for conservation reasons, copies now fill the gaps in the portal’s pictorial programme. This ‘doubling’ of the motif and of its message recently led to demands for the removal of Synagoga. The archbishop, cathedral chapter and monument conservators are striving to retain both groups of figures in situ in order to preserve their history and context at the cathedral while confronting their controversial message. The aim of this article is to situate the sculptures of Ecclesia and Synagoga in the context of the many, often conflicting positions that have arisen during the current debate and to discuss these points of view in the context of present-day tendencies towards iconoclasm. Thus it considers the applicability of the term antisemitic to medieval sculptures and examines the iconographic development of the Ecclesia-Synagoga group for its anti-Jewish or antisemitic content. It also considers the partial or complete loss of the medieval horizon of meaning in today’s secular society, which leads to a loss of acceptance of the monument. The article concludes with a ten-point plan which aims to reconstruct the legibility of the figures and to raise awareness of the meaning and value of the sculptures without perpetuating outdated patterns of thinking.