Cabinet 4.

TREASURY OF THE ARCHABBEY PANNONHALMA

Similar to secular cabinets of curiosity (or Kunst und Wunderkammers), the medieval church treasury may be considered a distant precursor to today’s museum collections. Holy relics, their most valuable items, are often preserved in museums, deprived of their religious context, surrounded by objects described with the profane term “historical relics”. In the meantime, the concept of the treasury has altered as well, and may be considered today a permanent, yet ever-changing repository of treasures and symbolic values, and religious and worldly objects at the same time.
The treasury created from the Pannonhalma Archabbey collection embraces the layers of time accumulated over centuries both in its traditional approach and its structure. Its items include the ceremonial, as well as secular equipment of worship; purchases, as well as presents from past ages; and rarities, as well as gadgets that seem commonplace at first sight. Their acquisition did not necessarily bring about the separation from their original functions; artifacts carefully safeguarded and hidden for centuries are accompanied by the liturgical instruments of most recent times.
Collecting has always been a part of the monks who are known for conserving, safequarding, and organizing; and archabbots looking toward the future, historians, or art enthusiasts, whose intention was to unceasingly expand the holdings of the ever-enduring monastic community, not their own. However, certain items of the treasury capture more than personal histories or the history of the order. In their backgrounds appear geopolitical connections and episodes from national history, they also outline the periods of growth and austerity, declination and reconstruction. Objects represent significant moments from the orderss history as time capsules; each item is grounded on the dual motif of the Benedictine Orders thousandt-year old history with the respect toward tradition and the constant strive for renewal. This is what the inherited, commissioned, carefully safeguarded, and exhibited items of the Pannonhalma Archabbey, as well as the acts of collecting and preserving, embody.

GUESTS AT THE TABLE OF THE LORD

Surrendering everything to worship has been advocated in the monastic communities of the Benedictine Order since their Italian origins, as well as their Hungarian beginnings in Pannonhalma; just as Saint Benedict declared in his Rule, “Let nothing, therefore, be put before the Work of God.” (43:3) A monk gives his life, gives the region’s best building material, the stone, and gives creatior's most precious metals and gemstones to the Work of God. That is why a monumental church is built on the Holy Mountain of Pannonia, even in the early 11th century, and that is why our monarchs—King Saint Stephen, Saint Ladislaus, Coloman the Learned, Matthias Corvinus—provided it with the most valuable instruments and garments. Yet, a monk may never forget that “Non sibi, sed Domino”, he labors “Not for himself, but for his Lord", as the emblem in the Barogue refectory in Pannonhalma teaches by citing Martialis. The time for true self-surrender and monastic renouncement comes when all these treasures: gold objects, codices, even the church itself, shall be surrendered; when monks shall renounce the worldly assets ever created, because the historical era, the dissolution, the social-political conditions force them to do so. That is when the monastic community truly experiences the Kingdom of God—the glory and joy of which the church, the precious metals, and the gemstones represent—and may come in the presence of God. And here the regularly sung sentence of the Holy Bible becomes a daily experience: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14)
The treasury, the herald of the monastery’s artistic richness, is thus witness to the Pannonhalma monks guest for God, as well as to how they seek the Kingdom of God. And at once it is a vehicle of local history, of the family memories of the generations living on the Holy Mountain. It is the depiction of noble labor, the social network, the development of monks who are God-seekers, yet these flesh-and-blood people are also involved in worldly matters. The objects revealing the greatness of God are also accompanied by noble objects of everyday life. These capture one chapter—sometimes elevated, other times tragic, or even delightful—in the God-seeker, yet a very humane history of the Pannonhalma monastic family.