Reflection on Christian Hospitality

Dear Guest, With this site, we, the people of Antwerp, would like to give you an extra welcome to our city. As you will soon notice, it is a tourist site of welcome with a character very much of its own. A deeper, christian, sense of hospitality has made us consider our visitor not just an anonymous "tourist", but approach you personally as a "guest". Rather than impress the "tourist" by "our" history, "our" monuments and "our" aura, we would like, as could be expected from a host, to focus attention on our "guest" himself. Just as is the case when friends have not seen each other for a long time, we would like to remember our mutual experiences throughout history, and so emphasize our reciprocal bond.

What is the connection between us?
In a first aspect "What is the connection between us?" we would like to show you which bonds have grown in the course of time between your country and our city. It is precisely by making this interaction known that you as visitor and we as host discover how related we in fact are. And you will notice that our relationship is definitely broader than you would have expected... In this way we want to reach out past the limited national borders, and focus on and strengthen the general cultural relationship between the European peoples, and in particular those between your country and our city. Our European history is the life story of a great number of peoples who have grown up together "in good days and in bad". We would like to represent here this common experience of history as a whole from a political, economical, religious, social and cultural point of view. Therefore, the emphasis in a chronological review of all these different dimensions of life is always a double one. What do we, citizens of Antwerp, have to thank the culture of our visitor for ? And in return, what does the culture of our visitor have to thank Antwerp for ?

Our city, Your city
The second aspect, "Our city : your city" accompanies you on your tour of our city in order to highlight precisely those points of departure with your country. In the light of the monuments and other sights viewed, "la petite histoire" between the British and the citizens of Antwerp will automatically be focused upon. By means of the broad lines of cultural history, we will try to enliven our historical diary here by painting a picture of the lively contact between individual citizens and visitors. Small details are often the best way to illustrate how ordinary people interact in daily life. Behind the dry facts of, for instance, a stay by a fellow-countryman in a certain inn, we can only suspect and ponder on a deeper meeting. If only the stones (the ones which are still left) could talk... In this way we would like to show that Antwerp is not only a little bit "Spanish", "French", "Norwegian", "Portuguese", "Austrian", "Danish", "Irish", "Dutch", "Italian", "German", "Luxemburger", "Swedish" and "Greek", but also a little "British"; and furthermore that these countries and also your own are also a little "Antwerpian": indeed, a cultural Europe with no borders... This Europe has developed also thanks to the in-spirational and devotional fervour of Christianity. Throughout the centuries Christians have practised the virtue of hospitality intensely and in a varied way. In order to see how christian hospitality has helped to build up Europe, we will first take a look at the source of the Bible.

Culture in the Old Testament
Already in the culture of the Old Testament we have the age-old story of Abraham and his wife Sarah (Gen. 18,1-10), who receive their three mysterious guests with much attention and servitude. Even though this story oesushe patriarch mainly functions in the art tradition of the orthodox christians as the representation of the Holy Trinity, it is still known as the "Philoxenia (Hospitality) of Abraham": hospitality shown to the stranger (even though here in the form of angels) who is God.

Jesus' joyful message
In Jesus' Joyful Message this identification of God with a stranger is taught us as the deepest inspiration for receiving a guest. And so Christian charity is put thus (Matthew.25,35): "Because... I was a stranger and you gave Me shelter". It is God Himself who comes (knocking) at your door and who will, on the Day of Judgement, take this good deed of charity into good account. There is also the scene of Jesus with Martha and Mary (Luke 10,38-42), which is often explained theologically as an inspiration to receive your guest really well, i.e. as completely concerned with the person of the guest, and not to lose oneself in all kinds of trivialities.

Paul: hospitality as a virtue
Hospitality is repeatedly praised as an especial virtue by the apostle Paul, certainly for leaders (Romans 12,13; 1Tim.3,2; 1 Tim.5,10; Tim.1, 7-8). Peter also (1 Peter 4,9) urges his public to show hospitality ... without grumbling. And the letter to the Hebrews (13,2) obviously refers back to Abraham: "Do not forget hospitality, because in this way some have given shelter to angels without knowing it". This highly praised virtue has therefore also been put into real practice as a sign of true christian charity by the followers of Christ. Apart from individual hospital-ity at home, christians have founded many institutions in order to practise this social service on a larger scale.

End of the Roman Empire
At the end of the Roman Empire there are already here and there christian institutions where strangers and the needy poor are given shelter and care, and who are really "guests". The Hôtel-Dieu (i.e. "guest-house for God") in Paris dates as such from in the 7th century. In the Balkans an xenodochium is known as a typical guest-house for strangers.

Benedictine monks
It is especially the Benedictine monks in the early Middle Ages who have contributed to the founding of hospitals for passers-by. Their rule (approx. 540) commands them to receive every guest as Christ, and this is why they attached guest-quarters or "hospitals" for all kinds of passers-by to their abbeys.

Pilgrimage routes
The large pilgrimage-routes are a separate chapter, with as a peak the one to St.Jacob of Compostela in Northern-Spain, where a whole chain of charitable hostelries were founded, which were either run by monasteries, by ex-pilgrims or other individuals for the benefit of the pilgrims. As in many places, there was also such a pilgrim-house, with a chapel outside the old city walls, in Antwerp in the 15th century, situated as it was on the Compostela-route which ran from Northern Europe to Paris. It was this chapel which formed the base for the really monumental St.Jacobs- church. In the 16th century one could find this guest-house in the Prinsesstraat. In the numerous travel journals of pilgrims to Compostela one can read examples of hospitality. Once a village-woman greeted Jan van Doornik and his companion Willem with a freshly cooked omelette: such a friendly action always makes food taste better of course. But hospitality is also used to conduct business and even to rob someone of his money in a devious manner. The famous legend of St.Jacob which tells how an innocent hanged man is saved in Toulouse by him, after which the greedy, criminal innkeeper is sentenced to death, emphasizes that a true christian must resist any kind of attempt to cheat a stranger.

Saints
Several saints such as St.Julianus ("Hospitator") and St.Gertrude of Nijvel (both of the 7th century) became the patron saints of hospitals because they themselves showed hospitality in such an exemplary way. In Antwerp too we have a St.Julianus hospital. As regards the Crusades, actual hospital knight-orders were founded, such as the Order of St.Jan of Jerusalem (the so-called Maltese Order) (approx.1040) and the German Order (1190), founded to receive the pilgrims and to protect them against the muslim-enemies. More peaceful is the race of the saint-bernard dogs, which are, just like the two Swiss alp passes and mountains, named after St.Bernard of Menton who founded an abbey there in 962. The monks saw it as their duty, with the aid of the dogs, to search for lost or buried travellers. The gratitude of the people who were saved was not small, and in this way the fathers received donations throughout Europe. From the 13th century on many guesthouses in the cities evolved into nursing-houses (our modern "hospitals"), where the sole concern was the medical care of their own citizens, who were nevertheless still "hospitalised" there.

Hospitality
From this same inspiration we would like, as christians, to add an extra dimension to modern tourism in an original way, namely through this form of "hospitality" which focuses on the common experiences between "guest" and "host". "Antwerp, Cultural Capital of Europe, 1993" was a suitable moment for us to develop this initiative. As such we would like to stimulate the visitor (and also the people of Antwerp) to get to know our own European culture better, and to discover the underlying relationship between its peoples. Hopefully this will become a complete reality when you meet the people of Antwerp in the flesh and are possibly received by them at home as their guest. In this way we hope, by means of this site and brochures, to reach the holy goal of hospitality, namely that you as a guest can feel "at home" in "our own" Antwerp.

Marc Dehaese