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Bad Hersfeld

The festival and spa town of Bad Hersfeld (Bad is "spa" in German; the Old High German name of the city was Herolfisfeld) is the district seat of the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany, roughly 50 km southeast of Kassel.

Bad Hersfeld is known countrywide above all for the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele (festival), which have taken place each year since 1951 at the monastery ruins. These themselves are said to be Europe's biggest Romanesque church ruin.

In 1967, the town hosted the seventh Hessentag state festival.

Location
The town lies in the Hersfeld Basin formed here by the forks of the Fulda and the Haune. The inner town lies on the Fulda's left bank. Furthermore, the Geisbach and the Solz empty into the Fulda in the municipal area. In the southwest lie the Vogelsberg Mountains, in the northwest the Knüll and in the northeast the Seulingswald (ranges, the latter visible in the background of this image).

The town's lowest point, at 195 m above sea level, is to be found in the area where the Solz empties into the Fulda, whereas the highest point within town limits is the Laxberg in the Knüllgebirge, at 408 m above sea level.

The town can be said to belong both to Northern Hesse (Nordhessen) and Eastern Hesse (Osthessen).

The nearest cities are Kassel, 52 km to the north, Gießen, 79 km to the southwest, Fulda, 36 km to the south and Eisenach, 45 km to the east. Through Bad Hersfeld runs the Deutsche Fachwerkstraße ("German Timber Frame Road"), a holiday road that showcases many of Germany's timber-frame houses and buildings.

Geology
The Old Town stands on an alluvial or fluvial fan made of gravel and pebbles, which were washed up between Fulda and Geisbach. Also in the Fulda valley are found gravel and pebbles from the Holocene that are mostly of alluvial origin. There are layers of flood-deposited loess and loam of Pleistocene origin running through them. The gravel and pebbles are to a great extent made up of Middle Bunter, the most widespread stone here. In the west and east, this layer reaches from the Germanic Triassic on the Stellerskuppe (480.5 m above sea level) and the Haukuppe (446.1 m above sea level) up to 400 m above sea level. In the east, on the Wippershainer Höhe (heights), the layer reaches up to 440 m above sea level. The Middle Bunter's lower limit is found at about 110 m above sea level.

Newer mineral layers from the Triassic are found only in sporadic deposits and discontinuous layers within town limits. This is the Röt formation, which crops up in the headwaters of the many small brooks around the town. The Lower or Middle Muschelkalk that overlies it can only be found in a narrow, west-to-east running rift stretching between Heenes and Oberrode, north of the inner town. The newest mineral layer from the Triassic – the Lower Keuper (for example the so-called Lettenkohlensandstein) – is only preserved in the region under a lava flow, which does not show itself above ground anywhere near the town.

Owing to uplift in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, there are no mineral layers from these geological time periods. Volcanic rock from the Miocene can be found on the Haukuppe.

Mineral layers that do not reach the surface here are the Lower Bunter, running from a depth of some 90 m underneath the town (about 110 m above sea level) down to some 390 m farther down, and, following at yet greater depths, Upper and Lower Zechstein from the Permian. From this layer come the two mineral springs in Bad Hersfeld. This layer is also used in underground mining from the 400-metre level on down on the Werra (Heringen, Philippsthal) and on the Fulda (Neuhof bei Fulda), yielding potash.

Municipal area’s extent
Today's main town spreads over the slopes of the Tageberg (323.5 m above sea level), the Frauenberg (310 m), the Wehneberg (320 m) and the Wendeberg (291 m), further reaching into the valleys of the Meisebach and the Geisbach. From southwest to northeast it stretches some 4.5 km, and from northeast to southwest some 3.5 km.

The Old Town in the Fulda valley has an oval shape and an area of some 40 ha. From west to east it stretches some 960 m and from south to north some 570 m. This can still clearly be seen today, as where the town moat once led around the town there is today a ringroad that leads traffic around it.

Constituent communities
Besides the main town – also called Bad Hersfeld – the town also has the outlying centres of Allmershausen, Asbach, Beiershausen, Eichhof, Heenes, Hohe Luft, Johannesberg, Kathus, Kohlhausen, Petersberg and Sorga.

Further subdivisions in the main town are not officially Stadtteile. The Old Town itself is divided into the Stiftsbezirk ("Monastery Zone") and the Unterstadt ("Lower Town") to the east. Between the two lies the oldest part of the Old Town. The spa is centred in a spot west of the Stiftsbezirk and is considered part of the main town. Furthermore, there are Kalkobes (a village that was amalgamated by the turn of the 20th century), Wehneberg (which arose from a lordly estate), Zellersgrund, Oberrode (an agricultural operation), Hof Hählgans (likewise an agricultural operation) and Mönches (now forsaken; a former forester's house stands here).

Neighbouring communities
Clockwise from the north, these are Ludwigsau, Friedewald, Schenklengsfeld, Hauneck, Niederaula, Kirchheim and Neuenstein.

Climate
The town's sheltered location in the Fulda valley with the surrounding Hessian and Thuringian low mountain ranges leads to a relatively high average yearly temperature in Bad Hersfeld of 8.7 °C and a rather dry climate with yearly precipitation averaging only 718.1 mm. The average yearly sunshine, therefore, is quite high at 1,385.4 hours. On average over the year, Bad Hersfeld has 34 "summer days" (that is, with temperatures reaching 25 °C or higher), 86 "frost days" (with the day's lowest temperature below 0 °C) and 22 "ice days" (with the day's temperature never rising above 0 °C).

History
Bad Hersfeld's written history begins with the monk Sturm, who established a monastic settlement in Haerulfisfeld but later evacuated it to Fulda, and with Lullus, who reëstablished the Benedictine Hersfeld Abbey in 769. Both had been missionary bishop Boniface's disciples. The monastery was enlarged between 831 and 850 and Lullus's remains were moved in 852 to another grave in the new basilica. During this ceremony his canonisation was announced by Rabanus Maurus. Since 852, the Lullusfest, the oldest folk festival in Germany, has been celebrated in the week of Saint Lullus's day, 16 October (his day of death). Martin Luther visited the monastery, on his way back from the Diet of Worms in 1521 and held a sermon in the abbey church on 1 May. About two years later, the town and the territory of the abbey was mostly Protestant.

It has been shown, however, through archaeological digs that today's townsite has a considerably longer settlement history, with traces of habitation going back to the New Stone Age about 2000 BC; a Bronze Age grave from about 1200 BC has also been unearthed, as have finds from La Tène times about 400 BC. Hersfeld was first mentioned as a market centre in 1142 and as a town in 1170. At this time also came the Hersfeld Abbey's greatest importance in Imperial politics. In the centuries that followed, the Abbey's might ebbed as after the Great Interregnum (1254–1273) it could no longer enjoy the Holy Roman Emperor’s support. Beginning in 1373, the Landgraviate of Hesse acquired influence over the town through defensive alliances. On Vitalisnacht (Saint Vitalis’s night, 27–28 April) 1378, the power struggle between the Abbey and the town reached its high point. Because of the German Peasants' War in 1525, great parts of the town and the Abbey passed to Hesse. In 1606, the last abbot died and in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Imperial Abbey, raised to Electorate, was awarded to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. Hersfeld, now a worldly electorate, henceforth belonged to Hesse-Kassel.

In 1439, great parts of the town were destroyed by fire. The oldest timber-frame house in town is the Küsterhaus (Sexton’s House") from 1452. Abbot Ludwig V (1571–1588) brought the town its last building boom for centuries in which he had the Abbey's buildings expanded and converted in the "Weser Renaissance" style. These can still be seen throughout the Old Town, for instance the former mint and the Schloss Eichhof (palatial castle).

During the Seven Years' War the French army used the former abbey church as a supply and food depot. In 1761, the French burnt the church and the monastery buildings down to destroy their supplies during their retreat, thus destroying one of the largest churches in Germany, and in 1807, the town was almost utterly destroyed by Napoleonic occupation troops, but was spared when it turned out that Baden Lieutenant Colonel Johann Baptist Lingg von Linggenfeld would only carry out Napoleon's orders "literally": he was supposed to set fire to the town on all four sides, and this he did by having four buildings, each standing away from others, set on fire.

During the American Revolution King George III of Great Britain hired the Musketeer Regiment Prinz Carl along with other regiments from Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse. The Musketeer Regiment Prinz Carl was stationed both before and after their return from America at Hersfeld.

In 1821, Hersfeld became the seat of Hersfeld district in the Electorate of Hesse. In the same century, Hersfeld was linked to the railway network in 1866, and the town has also had an Autobahn link since 1938 (today Bundesautobahn 7) northwards via Kassel and Hamburg to Scandinavia and southwards via Kirchheim, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria to Austria. The Bundesautobahn 4 coming from Kirchheim links eastwards via Dresden and Görlitz to Poland. The development into a spa town began when the Lullusbrunnen (spring) was tapped in 1904.

In 1935 the barracks was built in the outskirts of Hersfeld (today Hohe Luft), by the Wehrmacht. In 1945, Hersfeld was once again spared utter destruction, when two officers who had been taken prisoner guaranteed the town's peaceful handover.

The United States Army took over the Wehrmacht's barracks. Between 1948 and 1993 it was the McPheeters Barracks. Here served the 3rd Squadron, 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (1948 until 1972) and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (1972 until 1993) at the Inner German border. About 800 American soldiers manned the barracks and its three observation posts, designated OP Romeo, OP India and OP Oscar. They also conducted two patrols daily along the border trace. The Americans had no interest in civilians crossing the border. Theirs was a tactical mission to halt possible Warsaw Pact aggression. Bad Hersfeld lies in the Fulda Gap, a historical avenue used for armies of the past. Bad Hersfeld was the northernmost American border garrison and the first line of defense during the days of the Cold War. While small in numbers, the US forces were heavily equipped with a nuclear capability. They were primarily equipped with armored personnel carriers, artillery, and main battle tanks. They were augmented with combat engineers and an anti-aircraft missile site. However, they patrolled the Russian-American Demarcation Line in pairs of jeeps to avoid damage to the roads.

Beginning in 1949, the town was called Bad Hersfeld, and as of 1963 it became a Hessian State Spa, which was municipalized in 2006. (Bad is German for "bath", and is a title given towns by state governments in recognition of their spa status).

In May 1983, 5,000 people in the town demonstrated against a reunion of soldiers from the Waffen-SS. Among the protest organizers were also the organizers of the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele.

Religion
The area of the town of Bad Hersfeld today belongs to the Evangelische Kirche von Kurhessen-Waldeck ("Protestant Church of the Electorate of Hesse-Waldeck", member of the Protestant Church in Germany), and the largely coextensive Catholic Bishopric of Fulda.

Besides the two big churches, various communities and free churches can be found in Bad Hersfeld, among them the State Church Community, the Protestant Free Church Community (Baptists), the Seventh Day Adventists and the Free Christian Community (Pentecostal).

Further religious communities in Bad Hersfeld are the New Apostolic Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Amalgamations
In 1918, Kalkobes was amalgamated and in 1928 so was the area that later became the outlying centre od Johannesberg (Domäne Johannesberg und Bingartes). In 1972, the centres named above under "Constituent communities" were amalgamated. Moreover, the districts of Hersfeld and Rotenburg were merged into one new district, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, and Bad Hersfeld became its seat.

Population development
In 1525, 400 men lived in the town, and presumably this meant only householders – men with townsman's rights. Before the Thirty Years' War, in 1614, there were 725 households, putting the town's population at this time somewhere between 3,300 and 3,600. The town only reached this figure once again in the mid-18th century. The leftmost chart below shows the sharp drop in the town's population due to the Thirty Years' War.

After the Thirty Years' War, the population figure rose only slowly, falling back in the wake of many wars, disease outbreaks and famines. Only beginning in the mid-19th century, as the town was spreading outside to old town walls and as the textile and machine building industries were growing did the population figure rise sharply. Between 1910 and 1913, it surpassed 10,000 and after the Second World War, sometime between 1946 and 1950, it reached the 20,000 mark. After eleven villages were amalgamated in 1972, the population reached some 27,000, and sometime between 1987 and 1994, the town's population reached 30,000.

Given the population structure and the forecast migration to urban agglomerations, the HA Hessen Agentur GmbH foresees that the district's population will shrink by 6% by 2020. This fall is therefore also foreseen within the same timeframe for the town.

Town council
The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results: The SPD and the FWG form one faction in the current election period.

The executive (Magistrat) is made up of 7 councillors and the mayor. Three seats are allotted to the SPD, two to the CDU and one each to the FDP and FWG.

Mayor

 * Werner Hessemer: 1963-1977
 * Hartmut Henning Boehmer: 1978-1989
 * Walter Weiss: 1990-1996
 * Hartmut Henning Boehmer: 1996-2010
 * Thomas Fehling: 2011–2022
 * Anke Hofmann: 2022–

Coat of arms
The town's arms might be described thus: Party per pale azure the Lion of Hesse sinister armed Or and royally crowned, argent a Cross of Lorraine pattée gules, the bottom arm fleury.

The arms used today have been borne since 1559. The "double cross" stems from the Benedictine abbey of Hersfeld. The Lion of Hesse appeared in the town's arms after the conquest in the Peasants’ War from Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse in 1525.

Older coats of arms
The oldest known town seal, from 1256, shows the patron saint Wigbert. The smaller seal from the 14th century shows the patron Simon the Zealot and Jude the Apostle of the Benedictine abbey of Hersfeld with the Wheel of Mainz and the double cross. In the Late Gothic town seal, this cross was the only charge. At Philip I's conquest, it was displaced by the Lion of Hesse.

A stylized double cross also appears in the Bad Hersfeld town logo designed in 2008. It is supposed to be used for marketing and the Internet.

Sponsorships

 * Already by 1954, the town had undertaken a sponsorship for Sudeten Germans driven out of Šumperk – formerly Mährisch-Schönberg – in Moravia.
 * A sponsorship with the German Navy Fast Attack Craft "S 75 Zobel" has existed since 1969.

Culture and sightseeing
The town has since 1962 yearly awarded the Hersfeld-Preis to actors of the current festival season. Another honour awarded by the town is the Ulenroder Kruzifix, a cast taken of a bronze crucifix from the early 11th century that was found in the abandoned village of Ulenrode, which lay above Meckbach in what is now the community of Ludwigsau.

Theatre
Every summer, the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele (festival) are held. Outside the festival season, theatrical productions are given in the Stadthalle, an event venue.

Museums
The Bad Hersfeld Town Museum is housed in the only wing of the former monastery complex that is still preserved, south of the monastery ruins themselves. Besides the departments for town and monastery history, the department for town handicrafts is also worthy of mention.

In Konrad Duden’s memory is a small museum right next door to the former Old Monastery School (on the New Market). Here Duden was active from 1876 to 1905 as principal, which is why the school now bears his name.

The Haus Mährisch Schönberg shows a local history collection from the formerly German district of Landkreis Mährisch-Schönberg in what was the Sudetenland (on the New Market).

Since 2006 there has been a small savings bank museum at the main branch of the Sparkasse Bad Hersfeld-Rotenburg in which is displayed the history of the financial institution and the changes in the banking world in a great number of exhibits.

Buildings
In the Old Town are 216 buildings under monumental protection. On the west side of the Old Town are found the monastery ruins. They are Europe’s biggest ecclesiastical ruin, and are now used as a venue for the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele. In the monastery zone stands the Katharinenturm (tower), in which hangs the Lullusglocke, Germany’s oldest dated bell (cast in 1038 AD). Furthermore, a wing of the cloister has been preserved (today a museum; chapter house preserved) and likewise great parts of the remnants of the town wall (South Gate, Halbschalenturm or "Half-Shell Tower"). The two Nordschulteiche (ponds) in the Leonhard Müller Complex are leftovers of the town moat. In this park is also found Saint Vitalis's Cross (the original can be seen in the museum). It stands on the spot where the townsmen fought off the attack by the Sternerbund in 1378. Further remnants of the town fortifications stand in the Lower Town (east side of the Old Town), among them the Klausturm (a watchtower and prison) and the somewhat smaller Pulverturm ("Powder Tower")

Furthermore, on Johannestor (a street) is found the Elisabeth-Hospital, endowed in 1239, with a Gothic chapel. Other Abbey buildings are the Schloss Eichhof and the ruins – the Bruderhaus – of the former Johannesberg provost's house. Both buildings lie some 3 km from the Old Town and can also be reached on foot from the spa park.

In the centre of Bad Hersfeld's Old Town stands the Gothic Stadtkirche ("Town Church") whose 14th-century tower is the town's landmark. On the church square stands a continuous row of timber-frame buildings, among them the former Küsterhaus (sexton's house), which is the town's oldest timber-frame house, built in 1452. Right next to this stands the Town Hall, which was built about 1371 in the Gothic style and remodelled and expanded between 1607 and 1612 in the Weser Renaissance style. Further timber-frame houses are to be found throughout the pedestrian precinct. Particularly worthy of mention here is the richly decorated Zimmermannshaus ("Carpenter’s House") on Klausstraße.

On Linggplatz, the Abbey's old court square (old stone "double cross"), a statue recalls Baden Lieutenant Colonel Johann Baptist Lingg von Linggenfeld, who saved the town from being burnt down by Napoleonic troops in 1807. Beside this lies the marketplace on which patrician houses from Gothic times stand, among them the old mint. They were remodelled in the Renaissance and bear witness, with their gables like the timber-frame houses across the street, to the monastery's last building boom. On the Neumarkt ("New Market") stands, besides the other timber-frame houses, the Linggklause (Lieutenant Colonel Lingg's dwelling). Here, too, are the old monastery school (nowadays the Konrad-Duden-Schule) and the Konrad Duden Museum.

Parks
The biggest park in town is the Kurpark, or spa park (some 6.5 ha) with the Kurhaus (spa house), the pump room and the spring pavilion. Right near the Old Town is found the Leonardt-Müller-Anlage (park), along the town wall, with the two Nordschulteiche (ponds). In the monastery zone is another park, which in 2006 was expanded with a perennial plant garden. Both the spa park and the Leonardt-Müller-Anlage were remodelled between 2006 and 2007.

Further greenspaces are the 15-hectare Fuldapark with its Fuldasee (lake) and the Carl-Strauß-Anlage on the Kleinshöhe (heights) on the Tageberg.

Sport

 * Besides the football clubs in many centres, there is the SVA Bad Hersfeld club, which with its first team is playing in the Fußball-Verbandsliga Hessen Nord in the 2008/2009 season. The second team plays in the Bezirksliga Fulda Nord, and the A-Juniors belong, for the third year now, to the Hyundai Oberliga Hessen. Further ball sports are played at the Turnverein Hersfeld 1848 e. V. (gymnastic club). Among others, there are team handball, volleyball and basketball.
 * The team of the SG Hessen Hersfeld played from the 1997/1998 season until the 2002/2003 season in the women's Handball-Bundesliga.
 * The three rowing and canoe clubs, Hersfelder Kanu-Club 1924 e. V., Kanu-Wanderer Hersfeld 1986 e. V. and Hersfelder Ruderverein 1977 e. V. carry out their activity in the summer, mainly on the Fulda. The last-named club also engages in competitive rowing.
 * Besides the shooting clubs in almost every outlying centre, there is also the Hersfelder Schützengilde ("Marksmen’s Guild") 1252 e. V. It is one of Germany's oldest still-active clubs.
 * The Luftsportverein Bad Hersfeld e. V. (air sports) has its glider facility on the Langenberg near Hattenbach (a constituent community of Niederaula).
 * the famous "Zu-Null-Bickel" lives in Bad Hersfeld.

Regular events
Nationally known are the yearly Bad Hersfelder Festspiele, opera festival and the festival concerts. They are held between June and August in the monastery ruins. Other great musical events for every taste is the Bad Hersfeld Bach Days event (every year at Easter at the Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Haus), the Live-Jazz-Festival (every year on the first weekend in June on stages throughout the Old Town), the StadtJugendNacht ("Town Youth Night"; yearly on the first Saturday in September under the Peterstorbrücke [bridge]) and the Metalfest (late every year).

The Lullusfest is known for being Germany's oldest folk festival. It is held every year in the week in which 16 October falls. Other greater folk festivals are the shooting festival of the marksmen's guild in the Jägersgraben and the Tagebergfest of the volunteer fire brigade (an outdoor forest festival).

Among sporting events that can be named are the Sauer Lollslauf, a marathon run on the occasion of the Lullusfest, and the Internationale Bad Hersfelder DMV-Grasbahnrennen held each summer by the Motorsportclub Bad Hersfeld e. V. on a 500 m-long track.

Most markets in town are held on Linggplatz. The weekly market is held twice a week and a flea market takes place from April to October on the first Saturday of each month. Other, yearly, markets are the Easter Market on Wednesday before Good Friday, the Whitsun Market on Wednesday before Whitsunday, the Große Lulluskrammarkt ("Great Lullus Traders’ Market") on Wednesday during Lullusfest and the Autumn Market on Penance Day, the Wednesday before 23 November (this day is known in Germany as Buß- und Bettag, an Evangelical observance).

Economy and infrastructure
Since German reunification Bad Hersfeld has lain in the middle of Germany, favourably located on the A 4 and the A 7, leading the region to develop into a stronghold for logistics firms.

The town appears in Hesse's state development plan as a middle centre partly functioning as a higher centre. The town maintains a large volunteer fire brigade, which sometimes sees service elsewhere in Germany.

Highway
The north–south Autobahnen A 5 (Hattenbach–Basel) and A 7 (Flensburg–Füssen) meet the east-west Autobahn A 4 (Aachen–Görlitz) at the Kirchheim and Hattenbach three-leg interchanges.

Moreover, the north–south Bundesstraße 27 (from the Harz to Lake Constance) and the east–west Bundesstraße 62 (from Marburg to Bad Salzungen) play an important role. Bundesstraße 324 serves as an Autobahn feeder to the A 7. All three Bundesstraßen meet each other in Bad Hersfeld.

Railway
Bad Hersfeld lies on the Kassel–Bebra–Fulda railway line. There is an ICE connection every two hours from Frankfurt am Main by way of Fulda to Eisenach–Erfurt–Weimar–Leipzig–Berlin/Dresden. Regional trains run to, among other places, Kassel and Göttingen. Just behind Hersfeld railway station, the Knüllwaldbahn branches off.

Local public transport
The local public transport is run by the Nordhessischer Verkehrsverbund ("North Hesse Transport Association", NVV). The nine town and four intercity bus routes are run by Überlandwerk Fulda AG (ÜWAG Bus GmbH).

The Hersfelder Kreisbahn run by the Hersfelder Eisenbahngesellschaft, a local railway line running from Bad Hersfeld to Philippsthal – roughly 11 km – was abandoned in 1993, and the stretch as far as Schenklengsfeld has been converted into a cycling path.

Air transport
The Flugplatz Johannesberg has the status of Special Airfield. The runway, some 671 m long and 18 m wide, is paved with asphalt and oriented in a north–south direction. The airfield lies on the Johannesberg in the like-named outlying centre at an elevation of 284 m above sea level.

The airfield was built by the United States Army between 1952 and 1953 and belonged to McPheeter Barracks in the outlying centre of Hohe Luft. It was known at that time as US Army Airfield Werve-Thompson. When the US Army pulled out in 1993, the airfield was taken over by Motor-Flieger-Club e. V. Bad Hersfeld.

Established businesses
Among businesses in the oldest field of endeavour in Bad Hersfeld, textile manufacturing, is the firm Performance Fibers (formerly the Hoechst works, which makes high-strength polyester fibres. Further long-established family businesses are the mineral oil dealer and operator of the LOMO filling stations Lorenz Mohr GmbH & Co. KG and the building firm Kirchner Holding GmbH. Working in the field of electronics are EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) service provider EN ElectronicNetwork Hersfeld GmbH (formerly Zuse KG, later Siemens AG, and KRONE Kommunikationstechnik GmbH) and Thales e-Transactions GmbH. In the field of machine building and process engineering, the firms Grenzebach BSH GmbH (in Schilde AG's old buildings), Linde Ladenbau GmbH & Co. KG and TLT Turbo GmbH (since 2006 owned by Siemens AG) can be named. The logistics field settled here for the most part only after German reunification. After amazon.de and Libri, a book wholesaling firm, came the logistics firm RS Components, setting up its European hub in Bad Hersfeld.

A further important economic factor is the hospital establishment, which in part also supports the spa operations. The following hospitals and clinics are to be found in town: the Klinikum Bad Hersfeld and the Krankenhaus St. Elisabeth Bad Hersfeld, which are active mainly in general medicine, and the spa clinics Klinik im Kurpark (clinic for psychosomatic medicine and orthopaedics), Fachklinik Wigbertshöhe (clinic for sociopsychosomatic illnesses), Klinik am Hainberg (clinic for psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy), Vitalisklinik (clinic for digestive and metabolic disorders) and the Orthopädische Akutklinik.

The biggest bank in town is the Sparkasse Bad Hersfeld-Rotenburg.

Music
Each year after the Festspiele, an opera festival is held in the monastery ruins. Even during the time of the Festspiele, though, the Arbeitskreis für Musik e. V.  ("music workshop") has staged the Bad Hersfelder Festspielkonzerte in the monastery ruins, in the Stadthalle and at Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Haus since 1961. Furthermore, seasonal concerts are held the year round in the Stadthalle and at Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Haus. Among them are the Internationale Bachtage in Hessen und Thüringen at which each year during Holy Week and at Easter great choral works and chamber music extravaganzas are produced.

Also, each year on the first weekend in June is the jazz festival. National and international stars as well as groups from the town itself liven up the town the whole weekend long from morning until late evening with swing, beat and blues. For many years this festival has been a great yearly highlight, drawing many visitors from all over.

In autumn, the yearly Cross Music Metalfest is held, at which many hard rock and metal bands from all over the world appear. It is always held on the first weekend in October and draws visitors from all over Europe.

Media
The local daily newspaper is the Hersfelder Zeitung (founded in 1763) and the twice weekly advertising flier Kreisanzeiger has been distributed free since 1980. Both papers have belonged to the publishing business Dirk Ippen. Competition comes from an independent advertising flier published since August 2008, the Express Waldhessen. Since several months the "Express Waldhessen" has a new name. It's called "Klartext". In addition sind 2004 there is another small Newspaper made by Bodo Neumann. It's called: "EXTRABLATT" which will be free distributed every 14 days.

Since 1 May 2008, FunRadio Hersfeld has been broadcasting from the town.

Public institutions
Besides the customary institutions usually found in a district seat, and those already described under "Culture and sightseeing", there are the Stadthalle (literally "town hall", but actually an event venue, not connected at all with the town's administration; "town hall" is Rathaus in German), the book café (sponsor: Verein für Kultur und Kommunikation e. V.) and the Konrad-Duden-Stadtbibliothek (town library). This was opened in March 1999 on the marketplace in Bad Hersfeld. The public library has a total floor area of some 1 000 m2. On 31 December 2007, it had an inventory of some 65,000 media, and yearly media borrowings amount to 210,000.

In the field of sport, there are two baths, the Aqua Fit (sport and family bath) and the Kurbad Therme (wellness bath) at the spa park. Moreover, there is the heated swimming pool Geistalbad. Many other sports can be pursued at the Jahn-Park (sport and leisure centre), the Nordic-Walking-Park and the sport and tennis grounds in Bad Hersfeld.

Spa operations
In Bad Hersfeld are two mineral springs. The Lullusquelle was newly bored in 1904. It was documented as early as 1518, but was overwhelmed in a flood in the 17th century. The Vitalisbrunnen was bored in 1949. The water is heavy with Glauber's salt. Bottled mineral water has also been available since 2006 under the name Naturquellen Bad Hersfeld.

The spa operations therefore primarily entail drinking and bathing treatments, which are used to deal with liver, gall bladder, stomach, intestinal and metabolic illnesses, as well as psychosomatic illnesses, musculoskeletal illnesses and rheumatic disorders. After spa privatization failed in 2005, the town once again took charge of the administration.

Youth
Besides the various football and sport clubs, youths also have a chance to meet each other after school in one of Bad Hersfeld's supervised institutions for fostering the town's youth. One possible choice is the Jugendhaus Bad Hersfeld on Dippelstraße, which is popular among youth mainly for its many events.

Education
In Bad Hersfeld are three comprehensive schools, Gesamtschule Geistal, Gesamtschule Obersberg and Konrad-Duden-Schule, the last-named of which was founded in 1570 by Abbot Michael of the Hersfeld Abbey as a monastery school. From 1876 to 1905, Konrad Duden was the principal at the then Königliches Gymnasium zu Hersfeld, which was named in his honour in 1980.

The pilot school Modellschule Obersberg offers a Gymnasium-type upper level.

Furthermore, there are six primary schools, Ernst-von-Harnack-Schule, Grundschule An der Sommerseite, Grundschule Sorga, Kolibri-Grundschule, Linggschule und Wilhelm-Neuhaus-Schule. There is also a special school, Friedrich-Fröbel-Schule.

Also, there are three vocational schools, Berufliche Schulen des Landkreises Hersfeld-Rotenburg (Europaschule), Berufsbildungszentrum Metall and Bildungszentrum für Handel und Dienstleistung.

Further training and higher education is to be had at the Studienakademie für Logistik (department of the Berufsakademie Nordhessen), the evening school for adults, the Academy of the DGUV (Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung, or "German Legal Accident Insurance"), the Deutsche Angestellten Akademie, the Evangelische Jugendbildungsstätte Frauenberg ("Evangelical Youth Education Centre", sponsored by the Evangelical Church of Electoral Hesse-Waldeck), the district folk high school and the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district music school.

Twin towns – sister cities
Bad Hersfeld is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Bad Salzungen, Germany (1990)
 * 🇫🇷 L'Haÿ-les-Roses, France (1994)
 * 🇨🇿 Šumperk, Czech Republic (1979)

Honorary citizens

 * Leonhard Müller (1799–1878),
 * the Electorate of Hesse land and road building master
 * Honoured in 1834
 * He undertook the first measures to preserve the Bad Hersfeld monastery ruins, designed the Luisenschule and many other buildings in town.

 * Dr. Wilhelm Münscher (1795–1872),
 * Gymnasium principal in Hersfeld from 1832 to 1867
 * Honoured in 1857

 * Wilhelm Neuhaus (1873–1956),
 * Teacher and vice-principal at the Evangelical elementary school (former Nordschule, today Fröbelschule) and later at the Südschule (it has borne his name since 1962), Heimatforscher ("homeland researcher")
 * Honoured in 1948

 * Nils Bickel known as "Zu-Null-Bickel"
 * Björn Schlensog

Notable people
This list, arranged by birthdate, contains people who were born in Bad Hersfeld as well as some who worked, but were not born, here. The list is by no means complete.

 * Lullus (about 710–786), first regular Archbishop of Mainz and first abbot of the Hersfeld monastery
 * Lampert von Hersfeld (c. 1028 – c. 1085), chronicler and abbot
 * Friedrich Risner (c. 1533–1580), mathematician
 * Heinrich Gutberleth (1572–1635), educator
 * Johann Baptist Lingg von Linggenfeld (1765–1842), lieutenant general
 * Wilhelm Valentin Volckmar (born 1812), composer
 * Konrad Duden (1829–1911), from 1876 to 1905 principal of the Royal Hersfeld Gymnasium
 * Karl Franz Wilhelm Schimmelpfeng (1841–1913), founder of the Auskunftei Schimmelpfeng
 * Benno Schilde (1849–1911), inventor and founder of the Schilde AG machine building company
 * Fritz Rechberg (1868–1939), entrepreneur and Kommerzienrat
 * Michael Schnabrich (1880–1939), was town councillor and Member of the Reichstag for Hersfeld from 1924 to 1933, was murdered by the Nazis at Sachsenhausen concentration camp
 * Max Becker (1888–1960), German politician and an initiator of the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele
 * Johannes Klein (1897–1976), was founder of the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele and their first artistic director
 * Konrad Zuse (1910–1995), German computer pioneer, moved his firm's headquarters to Bad Hersfeld in 1957
 * William Zinkewich (born 1946), former business executive at Massey Ferguson, Varity Corporation, Massey Combines, Ontario Bus Industries and SSAB.
 * Detlef Altenburg (born 1947), was a musicologist
 * Reinhard Schmidt-Rost (born 1949), in Bad Hersfeld) is an Evangelical clergyman, psychologist and college teacher in practical theology at the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
 * Helmut Balzert (born 1950), holder of the chair for software engineering in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Ruhr University Bochum
 * Heinrich Fischer (born 1951), brigadier general of the Bundeswehr
 * Manfred Gruber (born 1951), well known artist (painting, graphic arts and scenic design) and was from 1978 to 1987/1988 head of decoration and chief scenic designer at the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele
 * Uwe Bein (born 1960), professional footballer, world champion 1990, Kids instructor at soccer schools and at the SVA Bad Hersfeld. Formerly also manager at Kickers Offenbach
 * Jonathan Nichols (born 1965), Oklahoma state senator
 * Werner L. Maier (born 1966), lawyer and president of the Munich Cowboys
 * Dirk Müller (born 1973), active German bicycle racer, 2006 German Road Champion
 * D.L. Lang (born 1983), Poet laureate of Vallejo, California
 * Sheila Gaff (born 1989), international Mixed Martial Artist
 * Shkodran Mustafi (born 1992), professional footballer, world champion 2014

title: Bad Hersfeld


text:
Resonance (chemistry)

In chemistry, resonance, also called mesomerism, is a way of describing bonding in certain molecules or polyatomic ions by the combination of several contributing structures (or forms, also variously known as resonance structures or canonical structures) into a resonance hybrid (or hybrid structure) in valence bond theory. It has particular value for analyzing delocalized electrons where the bonding cannot be expressed by one single Lewis structure. The resonance hybrid is the accurate structure for a molecule or ion; it is an average of the theoretical (or hypothetical) contributing structures.

Overview
Under the framework of valence bond theory, resonance is an extension of the idea that the bonding in a chemical species can be described by a Lewis structure. For many chemical species, a single Lewis structure, consisting of atoms obeying the octet rule, possibly bearing formal charges, and connected by bonds of positive integer order, is sufficient for describing the chemical bonding and rationalizing experimentally determined molecular properties like bond lengths, angles, and dipole moment. However, in some cases, more than one Lewis structure could be drawn, and experimental properties are inconsistent with any one structure. In order to address this type of situation, several contributing structures are considered together as an average, and the molecule is said to be represented by a resonance hybrid in which several Lewis structures are used collectively to describe its true structure. For instance, in NO2–, nitrite anion, the two N–O bond lengths are equal, even though no single Lewis structure has two N–O bonds with the same formal bond order. However, its measured structure is consistent with a description as a resonance hybrid of the two major contributing structures shown above: it has two equal N–O bonds of 125 pm, intermediate in length between a typical N–O single bond (145 pm in hydroxylamine, H2N–OH) and N–O double bond (115 pm in nitronium ion, [O=N=O]+). According to the contributing structures, each N–O bond is an average of a formal single and formal double bond, leading to a true bond order of 1.5. By virtue of this averaging, the Lewis description of the bonding in NO2– is reconciled with the experimental fact that the anion has equivalent N–O bonds.

The resonance hybrid represents the actual molecule as the "average" of the contributing structures, with bond lengths and partial charges taking on intermediate values compared to those expected for the individual Lewis structures of the contributors, were they to exist as "real" chemical entities. The contributing structures differ only in the formal apportionment of electrons to the atoms, and not in the actual physically and chemically significant electron or spin density. While contributing structures may differ in formal bond orders and in formal charge assignments, all contributing structures must have the same number of valence electrons and the same spin multiplicity.

Because electron delocalization lowers the potential energy of a system, any species represented by a resonance hybrid is more stable than any of the (hypothetical) contributing structures. Electron delocalization stabilizes a molecule because the electrons are more evenly spread out over the molecule, decreasing electron-electron repulsion. The difference in potential energy between the actual species and the (computed) energy of the contributing structure with the lowest potential energy is called the resonance energy or delocalization energy. The magnitude of the resonance energy depends on assumptions made about the hypothetical "non-stabilized" species and the computational methods used and does not represent a measurable physical quantity, although comparisons of resonance energies computed under similar assumptions and conditions may be chemically meaningful.

Molecules with an extended π system such as linear polyenes and polyaromatic compounds are well described by resonance hybrids as well as by delocalised orbitals in molecular orbital theory.

Resonance vs isomerism
Resonance is to be distinguished from isomerism. Isomers are molecules with the same chemical formula but are distinct chemical species with different arrangements of atomic nuclei in space. Resonance contributors of a molecule, on the other hand, can only differ in the way electrons are formally assigned to atoms in the Lewis structure depictions of the molecule. Specifically, when a molecular structure is said to be represented by a resonance hybrid, it does not mean that electrons of the molecule are "resonating" or shifting back and forth between several sets of positions, each one represented by a Lewis structure. Rather, it means that the set of contributing structures represents an intermediate structure (a weighted average of the contributors), with a single, well-defined geometry and distribution of electrons. It is incorrect to regard resonance hybrids as rapidly interconverting isomers, even though the term "resonance" might evoke such an image. (As described below, the term "resonance" originated as a classical physics analogy for a quantum mechanical phenomenon, so it should not be construed too literally.) Symbolically, the double headed arrow is used to indicate that A and B are contributing forms of a single chemical species (as opposed to an equilibrium arrow, e.g., ; see below for details on usage).

A non-chemical analogy is illustrative: one can describe the characteristics of a real animal, the narwhal, in terms of the characteristics of two mythical creatures: the unicorn, a creature with a single horn on its head, and the leviathan, a large, whale-like creature. The narwhal is not a creature that goes back and forth between being a unicorn and being a leviathan, nor do the unicorn and leviathan have any physical existence outside the collective human imagination. Nevertheless, describing the narwhal in terms of these imaginary creatures provides a reasonably good description of its physical characteristics.

Due to confusion with the physical meaning of the word resonance, as no entities actually physically "resonate", it has been suggested that the term resonance be abandoned in favor of delocalization and resonance energy abandoned in favor of delocalization energy. A resonance structure becomes a contributing structure and the resonance hybrid becomes the hybrid structure. The double headed arrows would be replaced by commas to illustrate a set of structures, as arrows of any type may suggest that a chemical change is taking place.

Representation in diagrams
In diagrams, contributing structures are typically separated by double-headed arrows (↔). The arrow should not be confused with the right and left pointing equilibrium arrow. All structures together may be enclosed in large square brackets, to indicate they picture one single molecule or ion, not different species in a chemical equilibrium.

Alternatively to the use of contributing structures in diagrams, a hybrid structure can be used. In a hybrid structure, pi bonds that are involved in resonance are usually pictured as curves or dashed lines, indicating that these are partial rather than normal complete pi bonds. In benzene and other aromatic rings, the delocalized pi-electrons are sometimes pictured as a solid circle.

History
The concept first appeared in 1899 in Johannes Thiele's "Partial Valence Hypothesis" to explain the unusual stability of benzene which would not be expected from August Kekulé's structure proposed in 1865 with alternating single and double bonds. Benzene undergoes substitution reactions, rather than addition reactions as typical for alkenes. He proposed that the carbon-carbon bond in benzene is intermediate of a single and double bond.

The resonance proposal also helped explain the number of isomers of benzene derivatives. For example, Kekulé's structure would predict four dibromobenzene isomers, including two ortho isomers with the brominated carbon atoms joined by either a single or a double bond. In reality there are only three dibromobenzene isomers and only one is ortho, in agreement with the idea that there is only one type of carbon-carbon bond, intermediate between a single and a double bond.

The mechanism of resonance was introduced into quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg in 1926 in a discussion of the quantum states of the helium atom. He compared the structure of the helium atom with the classical system of resonating coupled harmonic oscillators. In the classical system, the coupling produces two modes, one of which is lower in frequency than either of the uncoupled vibrations; quantum mechanically, this lower frequency is interpreted as a lower energy. Linus Pauling used this mechanism to explain the partial valence of molecules in 1928, and developed it further in a series of papers in 1931-1933. The alternative term mesomerism popular in German and French publications with the same meaning was introduced by C. K. Ingold in 1938, but did not catch on in the English literature. The current concept of mesomeric effect has taken on a related but different meaning. The double headed arrow was introduced by the German chemist Fritz Arndt who preferred the German phrase zwischenstufe or intermediate stage.

Resonance theory dominated over competing Hückel method for two decades thanks to being relatively easier to understand for chemists without fundamental physics background, even if they couldn't grasp the concept of quantum superposition and confused it with tautomerism. Pauling and Wheland themselves characterized Erich Hückel's approach as "cumbersome" at the time, and his lack of communication skills contributed: when Robert Robinson sent him a friendly request, he responded arrogantly that he is not interested in organic chemistry.

In the Soviet Union, resonance theory – especially as developed by Pauling – was attacked in the early 1950s as being contrary to the Marxist principles of dialectical materialism, and in June 1951 the Soviet Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Alexander Nesmeyanov convened a conference on the chemical structure of organic compounds, attended by 400 physicists, chemists, and philosophers, where "the pseudo-scientific essence of the theory of resonance was exposed and unmasked".

Major and minor contributors
One contributing structure may resemble the actual molecule more than another (in the sense of energy and stability). Structures with a low value of potential energy are more stable than those with high values and resemble the actual structure more. The most stable contributing structures are called major contributors. Energetically unfavourable and therefore less favorable structures are minor contributors. With rules listed in rough order of diminishing importance, major contributors are generally structures that

 * 1) obey as much as possible the octet rule (8 valence electrons around each atom rather than having deficiencies or surplus, or 2 electrons for Period 1 elements);
 * 2) have a maximum number of covalent bonds;
 * 3) carry a minimum of formally charged atoms, with the separation for unlike and like charges minimized and maximized, respectively;
 * 4) place negative charge, if any, on the most electronegative atoms and positive charge, if any, on the most electropositive;
 * 5) do not deviate substantially from idealized bond lengths and angles (e.g., the relative unimportance of Dewar-type resonance contributors for benzene);
 * 6) maintain aromatic substructures locally while avoiding anti-aromatic ones (see Clar sextet and biphenylene).

A maximum of eight valence electrons is strict for the Period 2 elements Be, B, C, N, O, and F, as is a maximum of two for H and He and effectively for Li as well. The issue of expansion of the valence shell of third period and heavier main group elements is controversial. A Lewis structure in which a central atom has a valence electron count greater than eight traditionally implies the participation of d orbitals in bonding. However, the consensus opinion is that while they may make a marginal contribution, the participation of d orbitals is unimportant, and the bonding of so-called hypervalent molecules are, for the most part, better explained by charge-separated contributing forms that depict three-center four-electron bonding. Nevertheless, by tradition, expanded octet structures are still commonly drawn for functional groups like sulfoxides, sulfones, and phosphorus ylides, for example. Regarded as a formalism that does not necessarily reflect the true electronic structure, such depictions are preferred by the IUPAC over structures featuring partial bonds, charge separation, or dative bonds.

Equivalent contributors contribute equally to the actual structure, while the importance of nonequivalent contributors is determined by the extent to which they conform to the properties listed above. A larger number of significant contributing structures and a more voluminous space available for delocalized electrons lead to stabilization (lowering of the energy) of the molecule.

Aromatic molecules
In benzene the two cyclohexatriene Kekulé structures, first proposed by Kekulé, are taken together as contributing structures to represent the total structure. In the hybrid structure on the right, the dashed hexagon replaces three double bonds, and represents six electrons in a set of three molecular orbitals of π symmetry, with a nodal plane in the plane of the molecule.

 * Benzene delocalization.svg

In furan a lone pair of the oxygen atom interacts with the π orbitals of the carbon atoms. The curved arrows depict the permutation of delocalized π electrons, which results in different contributors.

 * Furan resonance with arrows.svg

Electron-rich molecules
The ozone molecule is represented by two contributing structures. In reality the two terminal oxygen atoms are equivalent and the hybrid structure is drawn on the right with a charge of −1⁄2 on both oxygen atoms and partial double bonds with a full and dashed line and bond order $1 1/2$.

 * Delocalization ozone.svg

For hypervalent molecules, the rationalization described above can be applied to generate contributing structures to explain the bonding in such molecules. Shown below are the contributing structures of a 3c-4e bond in xenon difluoride.

Electron-deficient molecules
The allyl cation has two contributing structures with a positive charge on the terminal carbon atoms. In the hybrid structure their charge is +1⁄2. The full positive charge can also be depicted as delocalized among three carbon atoms.

 * Delocalization allyl cation.svg

The diborane molecule is described by contributing structures, each with electron-deficiency on different atoms. This reduces the electron-deficiency on each atom and stabilizes the molecule. Below are the contributing structures of an individual 3c-2e bond in diborane.

 * Diborane resonance.svg

Reactive intermediates
Often, reactive intermediates such as carbocations and free radicals have more delocalized structure than their parent reactants, giving rise to unexpected products. The classical example is allylic rearrangement. When 1 mole of HCl adds to 1 mole of 1,3-butadiene, in addition to the ordinarily expected product 3-chloro-1-butene, we also find 1-chloro-2-butene. Isotope labelling experiments have shown that what happens here is that the additional double bond shifts from 1,2 position to 2,3 position in some of the product. This and other evidence (such as NMR in superacid solutions) shows that the intermediate carbocation must have a highly delocalized structure, different from its mostly classical (delocalization exists but is small) parent molecule. This cation (an allylic cation) can be represented using resonance, as shown above.

This observation of greater delocalization in less stable molecules is quite general. The excited states of conjugated dienes are stabilised more by conjugation than their ground states, causing them to become organic dyes.

A well-studied example of delocalization that does not involve π electrons (hyperconjugation) can be observed in the non-classical 2-Norbornyl cation Another example is methanium. These can be viewed as containing three-center two-electron bonds and are represented either by contributing structures involving rearrangement of σ electrons or by a special notation, a Y that has the three nuclei at its three points.

Delocalized electrons are important for several reasons; a major one is that an expected chemical reaction may not occur because the electrons delocalize to a more stable configuration, resulting in a reaction that happens at a different location. An example is the Friedel–Crafts alkylation of benzene with 1-chloro-2-methylpropane; the carbocation rearranges to a tert-butyl group stabilized by hyperconjugation, a particular form of delocalization.

Bond lengths

Comparing the two contributing structures of benzene, all single and double bonds are interchanged. Bond lengths can be measured, for example using X-ray diffraction. The average length of a C–C single bond is 154 pm; that of a C=C double bond is 133 pm. In localized cyclohexatriene, the carbon–carbon bonds should be alternating 154 and 133 pm. Instead, all carbon–carbon bonds in benzene are found to be about 139 pm, a bond length intermediate between single and double bond. This mixed single and double bond (or triple bond) character is typical for all molecules in which bonds have a different bond order in different contributing structures. Bond lengths can be compared using bond orders. For example, in cyclohexane the bond order is 1 while that in benzene is 1 + (3 ÷ 6) = $1 1/2$. Consequently, benzene has more double bond character and hence has a shorter bond length than cyclohexane.

Resonance energy
Resonance (or delocalization) energy is the amount of energy needed to convert the true delocalized structure into that of the most stable contributing structure. The empirical resonance energy can be estimated by comparing the enthalpy change of hydrogenation of the real substance with that estimated for the contributing structure.

The complete hydrogenation of benzene to cyclohexane via 1,3-cyclohexadiene and cyclohexene is exothermic; 1 mole of benzene delivers 208.4 kJ (49.8 kcal).

Hydrogenation of one mole of double bonds delivers 119.7 kJ (28.6 kcal), as can be deduced from the last step, the hydrogenation of cyclohexene. In benzene, however, 23.4 kJ (5.6 kcal) are needed to hydrogenate one mole of double bonds. The difference, being 143.1 kJ (34.2 kcal), is the empirical resonance energy of benzene. Because 1,3-cyclohexadiene also has a small delocalization energy (7.6 kJ or 1.8 kcal/mol) the net resonance energy, relative to the localized cyclohexatriene, is a bit higher: 151 kJ or 36 kcal/mol.

This measured resonance energy is also the difference between the hydrogenation energy of three 'non-resonance' double bonds and the measured hydrogenation energy:
 * (3 × 119.7) − 208.4 = 150.7 kJ/mol (36 kcal).

Regardless of their exact values, resonance energies of various related compounds provide insights into their bonding. The resonance energies for pyrrole, thiophene, and furan are, respectively, 88, 121, and 67 kJ/mol (21, 29, and 16 kcal/mol). Thus, these heterocycles are far less aromatic than benzene, as is manifested in the lability of these rings.

Quantum mechanical description in valence bond (VB) theory
Resonance has a deeper significance in the mathematical formalism of valence bond theory (VB). Quantum mechanics requires that the wavefunction of a molecule obey its observed symmetry. If a single contributing structure does not achieve this, resonance is invoked.

For example, in benzene, valence bond theory begins with the two Kekulé structures which do not individually possess the sixfold symmetry of the real molecule. The theory constructs the actual wave function as a linear superposition of the wave functions representing the two structures. As both Kekulé structures have equal energy, they are equal contributors to the overall structure – the superposition is an equally weighted average, or a 1:1 linear combination of the two in the case of benzene. The symmetric combination gives the ground state, while the antisymmetric combination gives the first excited state, as shown.

In general, the superposition is written with undetermined coefficients, which are then variationally optimized to find the lowest possible energy for the given set of basis wave functions. When more contributing structures are included, the molecular wave function becomes more accurate and more excited states can be derived from different combinations of the contributing structures.

Comparison with molecular orbital (MO) theory
In molecular orbital theory, the main alternative to valence bond theory, the molecular orbitals (MOs) are approximated as sums of all the atomic orbitals (AOs) on all the atoms; there are as many MOs as AOs. Each AOi has a weighting coefficient ci that indicates the AO's contribution to a particular MO. For example, in benzene, the MO model gives us 6 π MOs which are combinations of the 2pz AOs on each of the 6 C atoms. Thus, each π MO is delocalized over the whole benzene molecule and any electron occupying an MO will be delocalized over the whole molecule. This MO interpretation has inspired the picture of the benzene ring as a hexagon with a circle inside. When describing benzene, the VB concept of localized σ bonds and the MO concept of delocalized π orbitals are frequently combined in elementary chemistry courses.

The contributing structures in the VB model are particularly useful in predicting the effect of substituents on π systems such as benzene. They lead to the models of contributing structures for an electron-withdrawing group and electron-releasing group on benzene. The utility of MO theory is that a quantitative indication of the charge from the π system on an atom can be obtained from the squares of the weighting coefficient ci on atom Ci. Charge qi ≈ c$2 i$. The reason for squaring the coefficient is that if an electron is described by an AO, then the square of the AO gives the electron density. The AOs are adjusted (normalized) so that AO2 = 1, and qi ≈ (ciAOi)2 ≈ c$2 i$. In benzene, qi = 1 on each C atom. With an electron-withdrawing group qi < 1 on the ortho and para C atoms and qi > 1 for an electron-releasing group.

Coefficients
Weighting of the contributing structures in terms of their contribution to the overall structure can be calculated in multiple ways, using "Ab initio" methods derived from Valence Bond theory, or else from the Natural Bond Orbitals (NBO) approaches of Weinhold NBO5, or finally from empirical calculations based on the Hückel method. A Hückel method-based software for teaching resonance is available on the HuLiS Web site.

Charge delocalization
In the case of ions it is common to speak about delocalized charge (charge delocalization). An example of delocalized charge in ions can be found in the carboxylate group, wherein the negative charge is centered equally on the two oxygen atoms. Charge delocalization in anions is an important factor determining their reactivity (generally: the higher the extent of delocalization the lower the reactivity) and, specifically, the acid strength of their conjugate acids. As a general rule, the better delocalized is the charge in an anion the stronger is its conjugate acid. For example, the negative charge in perchlorate anion is evenly distributed among the symmetrically oriented oxygen atoms (and a part of it is also kept by the central chlorine atom). This excellent charge delocalization combined with the high number of oxygen atoms (four) and high electronegativity of the central chlorine atom leads to perchloric acid being one of the strongest known acids with a pKa value of −10. The extent of charge delocalization in an anion can be quantitatively expressed via the WAPS (weighted average positive sigma) parameter parameter and an analogous WANS (weighted average negative sigma) parameter is used for cations. WAPS and WANS values are given in e/Å4. Larger values indicate more localized charge in the corresponding ion.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Resonance (chemistry)


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Chautauqua Institution

The Chautauqua Institution is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education center and summer resort for adults and youth located on 2070 acres in Chautauqua, New York, 17 mile northwest of Jamestown in the western southern tier of New York state. Established in 1874, the institution was the home of, and provided the impetus for, the Chautauqua movement that became popular in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Chautauqua Institution Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was further designated a National Historic Landmark.

History
Chautauqua was founded in 1874 by inventor Lewis Miller and Methodist Bishop John Heyl Vincent as a teaching camp for Sunday-school teachers. The teachers would arrive by steamboat on Chautauqua Lake, disembark at Palestine Park and begin a course of Bible study that used the Park to teach the geography of the Holy Land.

The institution has operated each summer since then, gradually expanding its season length and program offerings in the arts, education, religion, and music. It offers educational activities to the public during the season, with public events including popular entertainment, theater, symphony, ballet, opera, and visual arts exhibitions. The institution also offers a variety of recreational activities, plus a community education program called Special Studies along with residential programs of intensive study provided for students aiming for professional careers who audition for admittance into Chautauqua's Schools of Performing and Visual Arts.

The physical setting of the institution defined its development as an assembly. The grounds are on the west shoreline of upper Chautauqua Lake. The early tent-camp assembly gave way to cottages and rooming houses, and then hotels, inns and eventually condominiums.

Founder Lewis Miller's daughter, Mina Miller Edison (wife of inventor Thomas Edison) offered literary classes in Fort Myers, Florida, through the Valinda Society. After completing courses, students were given Chautauqua diplomas.

In 1973, the National Park Service added the Institution to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1989, the Department of the Interior designated it a National Historic Landmark District consisting of most of the Institution property between NY 394, formerly NY 17J, the lake and (roughly) Lowell and North Avenues.

Institution programs
Every summer during its nine-week season, Chautauqua Institution provides an array of programs including fine and performing arts, lectures, worship services, and religious programs, as well as recreational activities. Nearly 100,000 visitors come to Chautauqua to participate in these programs and events annually. Summer admission to Chautauqua is by "gate ticket," which allows entrance into the grounds, use of Smith Memorial Library, use of public beaches and parks, and attendance at lectures and concerts. There is an additional charge for some courses, for films shown at the Chautauqua Cinema, for opera and theater tickets, and use of the tennis courts and golf courses. Cottages and rooms are available for long or short term rental.

Weekly programs
Programs offered during the week at Chautauqua include devotional services and a lecture on a social, political, or academic issue in the morning, a religious or political topic in the afternoon, and a night of entertainment as the evening program. This evening Amphitheater event may be a symphony concert by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, a dance program by the Chautauqua Ballet Company, or a show by an individual guest artist. During most weeks, there is at least one opportunity to catch an opera and a play put on by Chautauqua's resident summer companies. Operas are performed in English at Norton Hall, a 1930s-era, art-deco structure. There are also regularly scheduled organ recitals on the Massey Memorial Organ, student recitals, masterclasses, forums, and seminars for the sophisticated.

A broad range of special courses in music, art, dance, drama, and general topics are available. The Chautauqua Schools of Music offers extremely competitive programs with scholarships. George Gershwin visited Chautauqua as a summer refuge to compose parts of his Concerto in F in a small, wooden piano studio.

Sundays at Chautauqua feature worship services, both denominational and ecumenical. There is an afternoon Amphitheater program, such as a military band or student dance program. On Sundays, entrance to the Institution grounds is free.

Special events
There is an annual program held on the first Tuesday of each August called "Old First Night." The event is the "birthday party" for the institution, marking the anniversary of the opening of the first season in 1874. Several of the Chautauqua facilities will host fundraisers, including the Old First Night Run, a fun run around the grounds, hosted by the Chautauqua Sports Club, a lip-sync contest called Air Band hosted by the Chautauqua Boys' and Girls' Club, and a bake sale hosted by the Chautauqua Children's Club. All money raised goes to the Chautauqua Fund.

Another Chautauqua favorite is the Fourth of July show at the Amphitheater specializing in patriotic-themed music followed by area fireworks viewed from the Chautauqua Lake. Occasional town barbecues at the town square (called Bestor Plaza) and weekly sailboat races are part of the overall unique Chautauqua experience.

Children's programs
The Children's School, established in 1921, is a developmental preschool for youth ages 3–5 and was a pioneering program in the field of nursery-school education. The program consists of social, recreational, and educational activities that often incorporate other Chautauqua programs in the areas of music, drama, art, and recreation.

The Chautauqua Boys and Girls Club is one of the oldest day camps in the United States, founded in 1893. While parents are engaging in various activities around the grounds, their children meet in a special area by the lake and participate in sports, art, and recreational games, such as volleyball, sailing, swimming, field games, and pottery.

Institution facilities
The institution's grounds, located between New York State Route 394 and Chautauqua Lake, include public buildings, administrative offices, a library, movie theater, bookstore, hotel, condominiums, inns, rooming houses, and many private cottages available for rent during the season. There are about 400 year-round residents, but the population can increase up to 7,500 guests per day during the summer season. The Institution is mostly a pedestrian community with bikes and scooters widely used along with a 12-mph speed limit for cars when authorized to be on the grounds. There are several parking lots located on the periphery that visitors utilize and then walk or bike into the institution:
 * The 4,000-seat Amphitheater was demolished in September 2016 to make way for a new theater-style structure, paying homage to the old structure. The new 4,500-seat Amphitheater, completed during the 2016–17 off-season, in time for the institution's 2017 season, features modern amenities and facilities and improved accessibility. This project caused some controversy due to historic nature of the old facility.
 * [[Image:AthenaeumHotel.jpg|thumb|Athenaeum Hotel]] The Athenaeum Hotel located on the grounds is the only hotel owned and operated by the institution. The 156-room hotel, said to be the largest wooden building in the eastern United States, was built in the Second Empire style in 1881. It has a two-story porch supported by narrow columns, with a central, mansard-covered tower. Although the number of hotel rooms has steadily declined on the grounds in the past thirty years, there has been a corresponding growth in condominiums.
 * Palestine Park is a walk-around, landscaped, geographically scaled map of Palestine showing the general contour of the area, including mountains, valleys, bodies of water and the cities in their correct geographical locations, that existed in the first century CE.  Throughout the week, there are multiple tours to discuss the historical and religious significance of this world-famous area.
 * The Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall is 8,000 square foot recital and rehearsal hall, dedicated in 1993. This facility was the first significant program facility to be built at the Chautauqua Institution in 65 years. The building serves as the rehearsal facility for the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and Music School Festival Orchestra and as a recital hall for chamber music, voice and piano.
 * The Lewis Miller Cottage was built in 1874 as the residence of Lewis Miller, founder and leader of the Chautauqua movement. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1965 for its association with Miller.

The Chautauqua Prize
The Chautauqua Prize is an annual American literary award established by the Chautauqua Institution in 2012. The winner receives US$7,500 and all travel and expenses for a one-week summer residency at Chautauqua. It is a "national prize that celebrates a book of fiction or literary/narrative nonfiction that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and honors the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts."

Chautauqua Declaration
The Chautauqua Declaration is an annual declaration made at the Chautauqua Institution supporting international efforts to bring human rights violators to justice. The first declaration occurred following a meeting of current and former international chief prosecutors of international criminal tribunals and special courts in 2007. The declaration marked the 100th anniversary of the Hague Convention of 1907 and included prosecutors from the Nuremberg trials through to the International Criminal Court. In August 2017, the Tenth Chautauqua Declaration was made, signed by prosecutors from the International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

The Chautauqua movement
In the late 19th century, following the model of the Chautauqua Institution, the Chautauqua movement spread throughout the United States and was highly popular until the start of World War II. By the mid-1920s, when circuit Chautauquas were at their peak, they appeared in over 10,000 communities to audiences of more than 45 million. The movement combined several concepts prevalent in the post-civil war US, including:

 * The Lyceum movement which attempted to raise the level of public education with lectures, readings, and entertainment with goals of lifelong learning and self-improvement.
 * Camp meetings and revivals which used outdoor gatherings
 * Sunday School for the purpose of religious education.

The ideals of the Chautauqua Institution spread throughout the United States through many Independent Chautauqua assemblies. Popping up were a series of traveling Chautauqua meetings, which incorporated many of the program's components, including lectures, music, nondenominational religious studies, and a focus on current issues. Several Independent Chautauquas have survived into the 21st century.

The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC), founded in 1878 by Vincent, is one of America's oldest continuously operating book clubs. It was founded to promote self-learning and study, particularly among those unable to attend institutions of higher learning. Six to nine books are added to the reading list each year, with authors generally coming to Chautauqua to discuss their writing and to talk with readers.

Famous visitors
The Chautauqua Institution has been visited by political figures, celebrities, artists, musicians, scientists, and writers.

Since its founding in 1874, the Institution has been visited by four sitting United States presidents including Ulysses S. Grant (1875), Theodore Roosevelt (1905), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1936), and Bill Clinton (1996). It was at the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater that Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a crowd of more than 12,000 with his historic “I hate war” speech in 1936. Future President Garfield visited in 1880 and future President McKinley visited Chautauqua Institution when he was the governor of Ohio in 1895.

The Institution has been visited by other historically notable figures including William James, Booker T. Washington, Susan B. Anthony, Robert H. Jackson, Amelia Earhart, Thurgood Marshall and Eric Foner. Celebrities from the performing arts who performed at Chautauqua include John Philip Sousa, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Lucille Ball, and Johnny Mathis; and contemporary artists such as Rhiannon Giddens, Leann Rimes, Jimmie Johnson, Toby Keith, Harry Connick Jr., Ben Folds, Clay Aiken, and Salman Rushdie, who was infamously attacked and stabbed several times by an Islamic extremist at the Institution during a lecture.

Security at the Chautauqua Institution
Questions were raised about Chautauqua Institution after the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, although a state trooper and a sheriff's officer were present at the event. Michael Hill, president of the Chautauqua Institution, stated that the Institution had ensured that law enforcement officers were present for the event. He described the assault on Rushdie as "unlike anything in [the institution's] nearly 150-year history". However, one eyewitness claimed that there was no security onstage. One attendee noted that while food and drinks was prevented from being brought into the event, there was no screening for weapons.

It was alleged that the leadership of the Chautauqua Institution disregarded recommendations for security precautions because they felt it would alienate the audience from the speakers. Following the attack, the Chautauqua Institution announced it would require guests to furnish photo IDs to get a Sunday gate pass, which previously could be secured anonymously on Sundays, when there is no fee for entry. Carried bags larger than a wristlet will also be banned in the amphitheater.

title: Chautauqua Institution


text:
Center for Talented Youth

The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) is a gifted education program for school-age children founded in 1979 by psychologist Julian Stanley at Johns Hopkins University. It was established as a research study into how academically advanced children learn and became the first program to identify academically talented students through above-grade-level testing and provide them with challenging learning opportunities.

CTY offers summer, online, and family programs to students from around the world and has nearly 30,000 program enrollments annually. CTY is accredited for students in grades K to 12 by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

CTY published the Imagine magazine that provided educational opportunities and resources and student-written content for middle and high school students. The magazine was discontinued in June 2018.

Background
Dr. Julian Stanley, a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins University, launched the initial talent search in 1972, aiming to discover and support intellectually gifted students. Initially named SMPY (The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth), the program primarily focused on nurturing mathematical aptitude. In 1980, the CTY Summer Programs officially commenced, offering educational opportunities during the summer at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

Beginnings
The Center for Talented Youth (CTY) traces its origins back to the Office of Talent Identification and Development (OTID), which marked the early stages of the organization. OTID emerged through the merger of Dr. Julian Stanley's Study for Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and the Program for Verbally Gifted Youth (PVGY). Subsequently, the program was renamed the Center for the Advancement of Academically Advanced Youth (CTY). Initially, Dr. William C. George served as the first Director of the integrated program, a position later assumed by Dr. William G. Durden in 1982. In the beginning, the residential program was established in St. Mary's, with 109 students participating in its inaugural year. However, in 1980, CTY expanded its reach by initiating a Talent Search across the United States to identify gifted students. While the program at St. Mary's concluded by the end of the 1981 summer, CTY's growth was propelled by two locations: Carlisle and Lancaster, which played a significant role in shaping the organization's present-day stature.

Growth of organization
In the summer of 1982, Carlisle and Lancaster took over the operations previously held at St. Mary's and have continued to run their programs ever since. The partnership between Franklin & Marshall and Dickinson College played a crucial role in popularizing CTY. In 1986, Saratoga Springs became another location, further expanding the summer camp. CTY introduced a commuter program for young students in 1985, followed by the addition of a residential Young Students program in 1992, which included sites like Sandy Spring. Los Angeles also joined the CTY network in 1992, contributing to the organization's growing number of sites and enrolled students. In the same year, the Centre for Talented Youth in Ireland was established in Dublin. By 1992, CTY had approximately 6,000 students enrolled in summer programs across twelve sites in the United States and abroad. With CTY's expanding presence, the organization recognized the need to create a comprehensive name for their institution, giving rise to IAAY, the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth.

IAAY and the start of CAA
On July 1, 1995, the organization adopted the name IAAY (Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth). The former Executive Director, Dr. William G. Durden, expressed that this change would enable the organization to better address the challenges of talent advancement in the 21st century and work more effectively with individual students. Under Dr. Durden's leadership, IAAY introduced the Center for Academic Advancement (now known as the Center for Academic Explorations) to increase flexibility and accommodate students who narrowly missed the test score requirements of CTY. This expansion allowed more students to participate in CTY programs while still benefiting from engaging and accelerated learning. The CAA program was launched in Bethlehem and Frederick in the summer of 1996 and expanded to include additional sites in Santa Cruz and the Marine Site at the University of Notre Dame - Maryland. By 1998, the total number of CAA sites reached 16. As the organization approached the turn of the century, they recognized that the name "Center for Talented Youth" better reflected their mission, leading to the official change back to CTY on January 1, 2000.

Trials and tribulations in the early 21st century
After reverting to the name Center for Talented Youth (CTY), the organization embarked on a period of expansion by adding more sites and programs. In 2000, Alexandria for Young Students was introduced, followed by Bristol in 2001 as part of the Center for Academic Advancement. In 2002, the Civic Leadership Institute was established at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. CTY y expanded to Tempe, Arizona, and Kaneohe, Hawaii, aiming to broaden its reach. However, these projects had a short lifespan, as the Arizona site closed in 2005 and the Hawaii site closed in 2009, despite its popularity in the later years. The organization also ventured into the international arena, launching two international branches in 2007: Nanjing, China, held at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, and Puebla, Mexico, at the Universidad de las Americas. The programs, particularly the one in Nanjing, were well-received, leading CTY to establish an additional site in Madrid, Spain. The Center faced challenges during the 2008 Recession, resulting in the closure of several sites between 2008 and 2010, including Loudonville, Puebla, Mexico, Madrid, Spain, San Francisco, Kaneohe, Monterrey, Mexico, and Nanjing, China, marking a difficult period for CTY. However, the organization persevered in its mission to provide accelerated learning opportunities worldwide. In 2010, Dr. Lea Ybarra stepped down as site director, and on August 1, 2011, Dr. Elaine Tuttle Hansen assumed the position. Although CTY discontinued its international sites, it began the process anew with the establishment of the Hong Kong site.

2011–2021
As of 2016, over 1.5 million students had participated in CTY's Talent Search. In 2016, over 28,000 students participated in CTY programs. Summer Programs were over 9,000 and CTY Online had over 13,000 enrollments. In 2016, CTY had summer programs running at 21 different sites, along with two international sites in Hong Kong and Anatolia, Greece. In 2018, CTY had instituted a new program to be at Yale University entitled the Institute for Advanced Cultural and Critical Studies.

2022 Collapse
In 2022, about one-third of CTY's summer sessions were canceled due to a lack of staffing and staff background checks not clearing in time. Subsequently, Johns Hopkins provost Sunil Kumar removed executive director Virginia Roach and replaced her with Stephen Gange, a professor and executive vice provost for academic affairs. Kumar also promised an investigation into the incident, described by the Washington Post as a "partial collapse." An open letter from CTY staff to the community described several organizational reasons for the lack of staffing, including the program's failure to obtain state-mandated security clearances for staff, inadequate COVID testing and monitoring policies, and a stated plan to dismiss without pay any staff who contracted COVID.

Amy Shelton, PhD, became executive director of CTY in October 2022. For summer 2024, CTY is offering 11 program sites, all in the United States.

Admission requirements
CTY first requires students to sign up for an account and membership, which costs $50 for U.S. students and $60 for international students. They must then submit scores from a qualifying test to determine if they are at "Advanced CTY-Level" (defined as showing ability four grade levels above current enrolled grade) or "CTY-Level" (defined as showing ability two grade levels above current enrolled grade). These scores would then "qualify" her/him for CTY courses at the level achieved. Eligible test scores include the SCAT, PSAT, SAT, ACT, and STB (Spatial Test Battery). Students receive their course eligibility results online.

Awards Ceremony of 2023
In February 2023, CTY hosted an awards ceremony for current and incoming CTY students for their "exceptional performance on the SAT, ACT, SCAT, or similar assessment taken as part of an international talent search." About 15,300 students from 76 countries participated in CTY's talent search in the 2021-22 school year, and 27 percent of them qualified for the awards ceremony. Based on their performance on these tests, they either received High or Grand Honors certificates and medals, along with receptions from notable CTY alumni.

Tuition and Financial Aid
In 2024, On-Campus Summer Programs ranged in tuition from $3,099 to $6,819 (USD). In the 2023-24 School Year, online and synchronous, or "LIVE" courses, cost $1,125, asynchronous courses cost $955-$1,455, session-based courses cost $695-$2,130, and clubs cost $185-$380.

Full-time JHU staff can apply for 50% tuition remission.

Families are allowed to apply for financial aid if their child is a United States citizen, an eligible permanent U.S. resident with a green card, or permanently resides in the United States. Families must also not owe any tuition or fees from a previous year's CTY program.

Reception
Former CTY executive director Elaine Tuttle Hansen (2011–2018) was interviewed by National Public Radio and published on the Opinion-Editorial pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, and The Baltimore Sun.

In July 2004, CTY was featured in an article in The New Yorker.

In 2006, the camp was shown in an hour-long CNN special on gifted children.

Notable alumni
Notable CTY alumni include:
 * Six of 32 American Recipients of the 2006 Rhodes Scholarship
 * Lady Gaga, musician, actress
 * Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
 * George Hotz, hacker and founder of comma.ai
 * Hollis Robbins, academic and essayist
 * Evanna Lynch, who portrays Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies, attended the Irish Centre For Talented Youth in Dublin
 * Gary Marcus, a research psychologist and the author of Kluge
 * Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and Time Person of the Year 2010
 * Terence Tao, 2006 Fields Medal recipient
 * Elissa Hallem, 2012 MacArthur Fellows Program (Genius Grant) for neurobiology
 * Jacob Lurie, 2014 MacArthur Fellows Program (Genius Grant) for mathematics
 * Dave Aitel, computer security professional
 * Ronan Farrow, journalist, lawyer, and former government advisor
 * Andrew Yang, Democratic candidate for 2021 New York City Mayor election
 * Marques Brownlee, YouTube technology reviewer
 * Erez Lieberman-Aiden, geneticist
 * Curtis Yarvin, blogger also known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug

title: Center for Talented Youth


text:
Demophilus of Constantinople

Demophilus (Δημόφιλος; died 386) was a bishop of Berea and an archbishop of Constantinople from 370 until he was expelled in 380.

Biography
Born of good family in Thessalonica, he was elected by the Arians to the bishopric of Constantinople. The opinion of the populace, however, were much divided. The orthodox party chose Evagrius for their bishop, and he was ordained by Eustathius, the deposed bishop of Antioch. This was the signal for a furious outburst from the Arians. Both Eustathius and Evagrius were banished by the emperor Valens, and their followers bitterly persecuted.

Soon after his accession, Demophilus went to Cyzicus with Dorotheus, or Theodorus, of Heraclea to procure the election of an Arian bishop, which was left vacant since the banishment of Eunomius. Nevertheless, the people of Cyzicus refused to acknowledge them until they had anathematized Aetius, Eunomius, and their followers. They were then permitted to ordain a bishop chosen by the people. The bishop who was ordained straightway and clearly taught the consubstantial faith.

In 380 emperor Theodosius I made the patriarchate of Demophilus memorable. Theodosius offered to confirm him in his see, if he would accept the Nicene Creed. Demophilus refused, and was immediately ordered to give up his churches. He then called his followers together and retired, with Lucius of Alexandria and others, to a church outside of the city walls. The churches of Constantinople, which had for forty years been in Arian hands, were now restored to the orthodox; and similarly in other cities. It was in fact a re-establishment of Catholicism.

Philostorgius adds that Demophilus went to his own city, Berea; however this must have been some time afterwards, or he must have returned from exile, for he represented the Arian party at the synod in Constantinople in 383. The same writer says that Demophilus was wont to throw everything into confusion, especially the doctrines of the Church, and quotes from a sermon at Constantinople, in which he spoke of the human nature of the Saviour as lost in the divine, as a glass of milk when poured into the sea.

title: Demophilus of Constantinople