Walking with Hildegard

Annette Esser, PhD, is a teacher of Catholic and Protestant theology, visual art, geography, and psychology, as well as an author and editor of various books, many of which focus on Hildegard of Bingen; she is interested in the place where academics and practical application meet. Christian History spoke with her about her research on Hildegard and founding her initiatives, the Scivias Institute for Art and Spirituality and the Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Way in Germany.

CH: When did you first encounter Hildegard, and what about her life, work, and theology captured you? 

Annette Esser: As a German theologian, I have known about Hildegard since early childhood, partly because my aunt was a teacher in Bingen. But at first I was not drawn to this German woman mystic but rather to the Spanish Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) on whose mysticism I wrote my first thesis. Just after the exam, my aunt who had read this asked me: “Why don’t you now do something on Hildegard of Bingen?” Then it occurred by chance that a major German publishing house requested that I translate the first monograph on Hildegard in the English language; this was Barbara Newman’s Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine.

Of course at that time, there was no Google Translate or any digital support of that kind. This was my first work on a PC—I spent two years (1992–1994) translating this major book on Hildegard of Bingen from English (and also Latin!) into German. It is remarkable that Barbara Newman herself had chosen Hildegard as topic for her dissertation, because in the 1980s not much had been published on her in the English language; there were merely some German dissertations of the 1930s. When I was translating Newman’s book, I was fascinated. I was stunned by it. 

CH: Was it after this you began thinking of the Scivias Institute?

AE: Yes, Hildegard was in my mind since, but not at once the vision of the Scivias Institute. After my studies in Germany, I got the chance for a second study in New York where I wrote my master’s paper on Hildegard. Yet, later on, my dissertation (2007) was on women’s spirituality, not on Hildegard. And only after this, during a 2008 visit in New York, my friends there reminded me of when I spoke about Hildegard in class. It was then that my vision of the Scivias Institute for Art and Spirituality was born. Back in Germany, I founded the institute as a nonprofit organization together with other theologians, artists, and psychotherapists using the name of Hildegard’s major mystical work Liber scivias (Know the Ways). The foundation in Cologne in 2009 was then followed by my move to Bad Kreuznach near Bingen, where my whole maternal family is located, in the middle of the historic “Land
of Hildegard.”

The Scivias Institute is connected to the mystical, prophetic, medical, literary, and musical legacy of the “Seer of the Rhine” in many ways. In our “Scivias Work,” we aim to bring together people who, on their creative and spiritual paths, consciously wish to follow Hildegard’s exhortation to “Know the ways of Living Light.” We work in teams, develop projects, offer workshops, and organize events, such as the Hildegard Week around her feast day in September. 

CH: How did Hildegard’s canonization and recognition as a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church affect your work? 

AE: Sister Hildrud Gutjahr O.S.B. of St. Hildegard Abbey reached out to me in 2012 with the news that German Pope Benedict XVI intended to promote Hildegard von Bingen as a doctor of the church (doctor ecclesiae universalis). This would probably happen around the time of the Bishops’ Conference in October. Therefore, together with the Scivias Institute, I organized an international conference in Bingen at the end of October. One result of this was my book on Hildegard as a new doctor of the church (Die Kirchenlehrerin Hildegard von Bingen).

 Then in 2014, after my own pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain and as a new member of the local district parliament, I initiated the Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Way where the saint lived in the twelfth century. This was realized in 2017. Connected to this I compiled the German Pilgerbuch in 2019 and then The Hildegard of Bingen Pilgrimage Book in 2022. The English version received an award, which I think was important in gaining recognition for the Hildegard Pilgrimage Way internationally. 

As if this was not enough, the local tourism authorities asked me to write a podcast in which Hildegard speaks herself. This became my third book on the saint: Hildegard Speaks. In 2019 I filmed this book with American filmmaker Michael Conti in the English and German languages. Now in 2026 I am doing a supplemental version of the pilgrimage book because the Hildegard Way has been extended to include Bad Kreuznach. This excursion adds more tableaux, especially on Hildegard’s art of healing, which is of special interest to many people—for example, medical students from America that we guided here!

CH: Can you tell us more about the pilgrimage route? 

AE: The route goes through the historic land where Hildegard actually lived. Most people know the name Bingen, which is here on the Rhine River. Yet they do not know that Hildegard actually lived in the beautiful Nahe Valley.

Thus, the Hildegard Pilgrimage Way begins in Idar-Oberstein, City of Gems, and then goes along the River Nahe. Important places include the medieval town of Herrstein; Niederhosenbach, where Hildegard probably was born; Disibodenberg, where she lived for almost 40 years, then twelfth-century Sponheim Castle, and nearby Sponheim Minster, a most impressive Romanesque church; then Rupertsberg, where she founded her own monastery in 1150.

The goal of the Hildegard Way is then on the other side of the Rhine in Eibingen. There is the Pilgrimage Church with the shrine of the saint, and finally on the height is Saint Hildegard Abbey that no pilgrim and Hildegard-friend should miss. Along the way are 31 information tableaux on historic sites and on Hildegard’s works, as well as 27 meditation tableaux on her Liber scivias.

In total the pilgrimage route is 140 kilometers (c. 87 miles), which can be completed in 10 stages on 10 days. This is not yet a very touristic path but rather a pleasant, green walk with vineyards and forest through a beautiful landscape.

CH: What has been especially meaningful for you about the Hildegard Way?

AE: Germany has been split between Catholic and Protestant regions. The Hildegard Way integrates both. Today Protestants show an interest in Hildegard and also in pilgrimage—which years ago, when both were regarded as Catholic things, was unthinkable. 

CH: Why is Hildegard so important for today?

AE: I think many people are interested in her because of her holistic and cosmological approach of looking at the human being. Her teaching is not merely psychological and individualistic. She gives us the big picture of understanding the relationship between the soul, the body, and the cosmos. In her Liber scivias, she invites us to look at the whole of the history of salvation—from creation to Incarnation to the Last Judgment. This includes her apocalyptic visions which are of great interest again today. Thus when I think about our time, and when I think of her time in the Middle Ages, I see that maybe we are living in a similar age. In short, Hildegard is also speaking to us today.     CH