Maundy Thursday/Grü:ndonnerstag commemorates Jesus' last supper with his disciples and the institution of the Lord's Supper. Holy Thursday is called Maundy Thursday from the old Latin name for the day, "Dies Mandatum," i.e. "the day of the new commandment." The "grün" in the German name "Gründonnerstag" (literally green Thursday) does not derive from the name of the color but from "greinen" (weinen, to weep).

Preceding Good Friday it also played a role in rural customs. A popular assumptions is that it is called "green" Thursday because of the green vegetables, people eat on this Fastday, spinach being a favorite. Called "Grien Dunnersdaag" by PA Germans, the tradition is to eat a big fresh salad.

Catholic churches do not ring their bells, they fall silent until Easter. The place of the bells is taken by rattles and other noisemakers, which call the faithful to service. "The bells have flown to Rome," people would say.

On Maundy Thursday PBS frequently presents from the Metropolitan Opera, Richard Wagner's last Gesamtkunstwerk Parsival sung in German with English subtitles. Parsival is the naive young man, who fulfills the prophesy that a "guileless fool" who returns the sacred spear--the weapon used to wound Christ--to the brotherhood of the Holy Grail. It takes place near and in the Castle of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is the vessel from which Christ supposedly drank at the last supper.

According to Graham Hancock, the Grail in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, is a code for the "Ark of the Covenant" - the Grail contains a stone (the vessel), while the Ark contains two stones (the tablets). Wolfram's Grail, like the tablets of the Law, bore--from time to time-- the imprint of a celestial script which set out certain rules. The Holy Grail "the consummation of heart's desire" served as an occult cryptogram for the Holy Ark of the Covenant. The stone became a vessel filled with the blood of Christ. Wolfram's Parzival is thought to have been written between 1195 and 1210. It takes place at Munsalvaesche, the biblical "Mons Salvationis" or Mount of Salvation.

Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, A Touchstone Book, Simon-Schuster, Inc. New York, 1992.

Ruth Reichmann
Max Kade German-American Center
Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis

More on Gruen-
Gruendonnerstag has a confusing and confused etymology, according to Kluge and other authorities. It evidently has nothing to do with greinen; rather, Kluge takes it to have been a translation of the Latin 'dies viridium', 'Tag der Gruenen', 'day of the green ones', -- the green ones being those who have done forty days of penance and are therefore fresh, innocent, green. Duden Universal Wb. and others, however, accept the simpler (and widespread popular) etymology that it was the day of eating green vegetables.