Saint Barbara
Patron Saint and Cult Figure
By Pat Elder
January 10, 2025
A tiny chapel dedicated to Saint Barbara, built in 1893, stands by the main gate of Büchel Air Base in Germany.
July 26, 2024 - Close-ups of the chapel. Note the heavy security fencing behind the little shrine to St. Barbara.
I visited Büchel Air Base last summer to test the profoundly poisoned rivers for PFAS and I noticed a chapel dedicated to Saint Barbara at the main gate of the base. I took a photo of the plaque on the front of the chapel, not understanding the religious, historic, and political irony of the shrine. I didn’t know St. Barbara was a cult figure honored by the world’s powers. Who knew?
Büchel Air Base is home to the Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 33, the Tactical Air Force Wing 33 of the German Air Force.
Tactical Air Force Wing 33 has been operating German Panavia Tornado airplanes which can deliver B61 nuclear bombs, the only remaining nuclear weapons in Germany. Büchel is one of six active air bases in five European countries with B61’s. (Their rivers are contaminated too.)
The B61 may deliver a yield of 0.3 to 340 kilotons. Hiroshima’s blast was 15 kilotons, so the B-61, the most amazing weapon ever developed, can deliver anywhere from 2% of the Hiroshima detonation to an explosion 23 times larger than the Hiroshima blast on the greatest day of infamy, August 6, 1945.
The plaque on the chapel says:
The Barbara Holy House
This shrine was built in 1893 by the married couple Johann Roden from Alflen in honor of “Saint Barbara.” The reason for this is unknown.
It was badly damaged during the war.
Peter Peifer from Alflen restored it after the war as a thank you for his safe return home and had the statue of the saint made in 1950 in Gevenich by the wood carver Wilhelm Muller, also known as the Herrgottschnitzer.
St. Barbara is one of the 14 helpers in need. She is not only the patron saint of miners and steelworkers but also of artillerymen, pyrotechnicians, firefighters, tunnel and fortress builders, building tradesmen, bell founders, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, ferrymen and carpenters, as well as milliners and hat makers.
Please treat this place with the respect it deserves.
The B-61-12 nuclear weapon at Buchel Air Base. The bombs are affixed and ready to take off from the runway inside the barbed wire fence behind the chapel
St. Barbara is venerated by the western powers.
Barbara is a popular saint, best known as the patron saint for those who work with artillery and explosives. The married couple Johann Roden built the chapel in 1893, 58 years before the French built the base in 1951.
How do these things work?
St Barbara, Patron of Artillery, holding powder flasks.
The Catholic Defender
Much of the following is edited from Catholic Online, a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a non-profit corporation.
Saint Barbara
Saint Barbara was an early Christian Greek martyr born mid-third century in either Heliopolis, Phoenicia or Nicodemia in Asia Minor. (Lebanon or Turkey today) Barbara was the daughter of a rich “pagan” named Dioscorus.
According to legend, Barbara was a beautiful young woman. As a way of "protecting" her, Dioscorus shielded her from the world by locking her up within a tower. Dioscorus eventually allowed Barbara to leave her tower, and Barbara secretly became a Christian, against her father’s wishes.
Barbara told her father she had become a Christian and would no longer worship his idols. Full of rage, her father grabbed his sword and went to strike her. Before he could do so, Barbara ran off. She was eventually captured and held by Martianus, the prefect of the city. Barbara was condemned to death by beheading by her father. Catholic legend has it her martyrdom took place on December 4, 306.
Dioscorus and Martianus were immediately killed after being struck by lightning. Their bodies were consumed by flame, hence the association between Barbara and explosions.
Because Barbara’s authenticity is highly questionable, she was dropped from the General Roman Calendar in 1969. It was about that time when the church fessed up about a lot of saints, but some legends die hard.
In the 6th century, relics of St. Barbara were said to be taken to Constantinople. Six hundred years later, they were taken to Kiev. Today, they are said to rest at the St. Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine, shown here.
August, 2024 - St. Barbara 19th Missile Brigade in its bivouac somewhere near the front line in Ukraine with a 2.2 - ton ballistic missile jutting from the unit’s launch vehicle.
More on St. Barbara
Barbara became the patron saint of artillerymen and others who worked with cannons and explosives. The cannoneers of Lille in France, who were commissioned under "Royal Letters Patent" in 1417 as the "Confreres de Sainte Barbe," were among the first to commemorate Barbara this way.
Barbara is often invoked against lightning and fire and explosions. The United States Army Field Artillery Association and the United States Army Air Defense Artillery Association hold the Order of Saint Barbara as an honorary society within the military.
The Marines of 11th Marine Regiment celebrate Saint Barbara's Day--the patron saint of Artillery--in Las Pulgas, Camp Pendleton, CA. The regiment remembered those artillerymen who have gone before them with a memorial service, inducting new members into the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara.
The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) is the propaganda arm of the Pentagon. They’re keeping St. Barbara alive because it serves their purposes, like their buddies do in Britain, Canada, and Australia, and lots of other places.
Saint Barbara is recognized as the patron saint of field artillerymen of the Marine Corps 1st Marine Division.
Order of Saint Barbara medallion
The United States Army Field Artillery Association maintains the Order of Saint Barbara as an honorary military society of the United States Army Field Artillery and the United States Army Air Defense Artillery.
The Spanish word santabárbara, signifies the powder magazine of a ship or fortress. It was customary to have a statue of Saint Barbara at the magazine to protect the ship or fortress from suddenly exploding. It didn’t always work.
Saint Barbara's Day, December 4th is celebrated by the British Royal Artillery, RAF Armourers, Royal Engineers, and dozens of similar groups in Australia Canada, and the U.S.
Badge of the Irish Artillery Corps
The Irish Army venerates St. Barbara as the patron saint of the Artillery Corps where she appears on the corps insignia, half dressed, holding a harp, sitting on a field cannon.
Speaking of Ireland, George Bernard Shaw’s play, Major Barbara, features the title character, an officer in the Salvation Army, who struggles with the moral dilemma of whether this Christian charity should accept donations from her father, who is an armaments manufacturer.
I am most excited by the prospect of purchasing PFAS blood testing kits. I think they would be helpful in Honolulu, in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, and at Fort Ord, California where so many are also sick. In Hawaii, I’d also like to test air and drinking water for “BTEX” which stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes, which are a group of volatile organic compounds that are often found together in petroleum products. At Fort Ord, I’d like to test multiple environmental media for Trichloroethylene, Carbon Tetrachloride, and Perchloroethylene, as well as dioxin and PFAS. Gotta dream big.
The Downs Law Group also helps to make this work possible. The Downs Law Group understands the contamination flowing from military bases. The firm employs attorneys accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist those who have served in obtaining VA Compensation and Pension Benefits they are rightly owed.