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Faith Matters - Oberammergau Passion Play - The Plague and Covid-19

April 4, 2021

The history of the Oberammergau Passion Play reaches back to the seventeenth century, when a plague known as the Black Death swept through Europe. In 1633 the residents of this Bavarian village vowed to present a play depicting the suffering and death of Jesus Christ every ten years if they were spared extinction. Oberammergau has kept its word for more than 400 years.

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But in 2020 the production had to be called off. Every ten years the village of Oberammergau in southern Germany enters a time loop. For six months more than 2,000 villagers don biblical garments. The men sport beards and the school kids grow their hair long. The reason is a five-hour presentation of Christ’s suffering and death to commemorate the village’s survival when a plague swept through Europe in the seventeenth century. This report on the Oberammergau Passion Play takes a look at their extensive preparations for this epic production, on which a new pandemic cast its shadow. Right up until the last moment, the cast hoped to be able to stage their production. But in the end, the village that the plague made famous had to bow to the corona pandemic. Bowed but not broken, the villagers are determined to fulfil their vow and stage the Oberammergau Passion Play in 2022.