Echternach

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Echternach Iechternach

Administration
Country	Luxembourg
District (Dark grey)	Grevenmacher
Canton (Dark red)	Echternach
LAU 2	LU00006005
Mayor	Marc Diederich
Geography
Area - Rank	20.49 km² (7.91 sq mi) 53rd of 116
Highest point - Rank	393 m (1,289 ft) =65th of 116
Lowest point - Rank	154 m (505 ft) 11th of 116
Population
Population (2005) - Rank	4,507 26th of 116
Density (2005) - Rank	220.0 /km² (570 /sq mi) 28th of 116
List of communes of Luxembourg

Echternach (Luxembourgish: Iechternach) is a commune with city status in the canton of Echternach, which is part of the district of Grevenmacher, in eastern Luxembourg. Echternach lies near the border with Germany, and is the oldest town (current population 4,610) in Luxembourg.

Basilica in Echternach

Main article: Abbey of Echternach

It grew around the walls of the Abbey of Echternach, which was founded in 698 by St. Willibrord, an English monk of Ripon, who became the first bishop of Utrecht and worked to Christianize the Frisians. As bishop, he directed the monastery as abbot until his death in 739. It is in his honour that the dancing procession takes place annually on Whit Tuesday. This is the last traditional dancing procession in Europe; there was formerly also one at the Mont St. Jean in Dudelange.

The River Sauer that flows past the town now forms the border between Luxembourg and Germany, but in the later Roman Empire and under the Merovingians this was not a marcher land at all. The Roman villa at Echternach (traces of it were rediscovered in 1975) which was part of the see of Trier (now in Germany) was presented to Willibrord by Irmina (Irmine), daughter of Dagobert II, king of the Franks. Other parts of the Merovingian's Roman inheritance were presented to the Abbey by Pepin.

Echternach continued to have royal patronage from the house of Charlemagne. Though the monks were displaced by secular canons of the bishop of Trier, 859 - 971, and though Willibrord's buildings burned down in 1017, the Romanesque basilica with symmetrical towers (illustration, above right) still houses his tomb in its crypt. As the abbey, with a famous library and scriptorium flourished, the town of Echternach formed around the abbey's outer walls and was granted a city charter in 1236. The abbey was rebuilt in a handsome Baroque range in 1737. The monks were dispersed in 1797, and the abbey's contents and its famous library were auctioned off. Some of the library's early manuscripts are at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. A porcelain factory was established in the abbey, and the town declined, until the railroad brought tourists.

Echternach City Hall

There are two churches at Echternach. The larger is the Abbey's basilica of St Willibrord , now surrounded by the eighteenth-century abbey (now a school) in the town's historical and cultural centre. The other is the parish church of St Peter and Paul.

The picturesque town, still surrounded by its medieval walls with towers, was badly damaged in World War II and has been thoroughly restored; it has been the site of a May and June International Music Festival since 1975.