The Role of Petronage in the Existence of the Temple of Ganjuran

Danang Bramasti

doi:10.24821/ijcas.v2i1.1437

Abstract

Ganjuran temple is a place of Catholic worship located in Yogyakarta. The temple had been built by Schmutzer family, a Dutch sugar mill owner, from 1927 until 1930 in the shape of a Hindu temple. However, after the temple was erected, it did not get the attention of Catholics that it was dirty. Finally it was neglected and became a playground for children. It was only in 1990, Father Tomo made the temple a pilgrimage site by creating a series of activities centered on the temple. This paper is dedicated to study the role of patron, the Schmutzers and Father Tomo in the existence of the Temple of Ganjuran in three steps. Firstly, it strives to explain why this Catholic place of worship was built in the shape of a Hindu temple. Secondly, it explains the social process by which the temple then had been forgotten for sixty years. Thirdly, it explains the social process by which the temple became a major Catholic pilgrimage site in Indonesia. This study utilizes the concept of patronage in the development of an artwork as the main framework (Becker, 2008). The methods of applied study are by examining documents, interviews with people involved with the temple and field observations. By treating Ganjuran temple as an artwork embedded in an ‘art world’, web of actors who contributed to the making of Ganjuran temple as a locus of religius and artistic action is made visible.

Highlights

Think of all the activities that must be carried out for any work of art to appear as it does (Becker, 2008:3).Ganjuran temple was the last building of a series of buildings built by the brothers Julius and Josef Schmutzer in Ganjuran, a location south of Yogyakarta in the island of Java
In order to establish the temple of Ganjuran as a prayer center for the people, Father Tomo makes a series of events and physical improvements
In 1930, the Schmutzers succeeded in bringing Christianity in the Javanese culture by making the Catholic’s place of worship in the shape of a Hindu temple but they didn’t succeed to bring Catholics to pray in front of the temple

Summary

Introduction

Think of all the activities that must be carried out for any work of art to appear as it does (Becker, 2008:3).Ganjuran temple was the last building of a series of buildings built by the brothers Julius and Josef Schmutzer in Ganjuran, a location south of Yogyakarta in the island of Java. The Schmutzers built it as a personal place of worship behind the Ganjuran Catholic Church as an offering of gratitude that their enterprise had succesfully avoided bankruptcy and of celebration of the 10th wedding anniversary of Julius and Caroline Schmutzer. It was a day of farewell with Josef Schmutzer who was returning to the Netherlands to teach in Delft University (Helling SJ, 1930: 129). The Schmutzers’ treatment to their workers was striking. They respected their dignity by providing decent wages to meet their real needs (Elihami, 1995: 42). The Dutch catholic family was influenced by Encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII

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