Fahrberg (Waldthurn)

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Pilgrimage Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary (2016)

The Fahrenberg has been a place of pilgrimage in Bavaria that has been known since the 13th century . It belongs to the municipality of Waldthurn in the Upper Palatinate .

Justification of the pilgrimage

Visitation of the Virgin Mary (2005)

200 years before the Bavarians warmed up for the Gnadenkapelle in Altötting , the Fahrenberg was already active as a place of pilgrimage. On the 801 m high Fahrenberg there was a castle of the noble von Waldthurn . In 1204, the legend goes, a member of the nobles von Waldthurn is said to have been a Knight Templar in the Holy Land on the crusade and brought the miraculous image , a Danubian statue of Mary , with him. The image of Mary was set up in a specially built chapel and was soon venerated.

history

Until the Thirty Years War

The castle on the Fahrenberg was sold to Waldsassen in the 13th century when the nobles of Waldthurn died out. The Cistercians from Waldsassen built a provost house there and continued to promote the pilgrimage.

In 1352 Bohemian nuns moved into the monastery. The Hussites stormed the monastery in 1425, drove out the nuns and threw the miraculous image into a well. But an old nun had watched the goings-on and helped to find the statue.

The driving mountain was rebuilt and settled again by the Cistercians of Waldsassen . Instigated by a Lutheran pastor, a group of farmers from the area around Vohenstrauss stormed the mountain in 1524 and plundered the church and monastery. In the half-destroyed church, however, the statue remained and was still visited sporadically. In the tax books of the communities Waldthurn and Floß there was a note: Fahrenberg, eyn burned monastery, eyn derelict church .

After the Thirty Years War

After the end of the Thirty Years' War , the population had to change their faith with every change of rule ( Augsburg religious peace of 1555). Once upon a time, a couple of monks from Waldsassen happened to be up on the mountain. They were discovered by Calvinist farmers and some of them were killed. On this occasion, the image of Mary got a bullet in the throat, which can still be seen today.

The population of the Waldthurner Ländchen changed their denomination several times and was then to become Catholic again when the Catholic family of Lobkowicz from Bohemia bought Waldthurn to round things off. The widespread listlessness in matters of faith is documented in the fact that failing to attend the Sunday service was fined - despite this, there were hardly any measuring goers. Only when 70 dragoons had the Waldthurnians "made Catholic" was the Counter-Reformation also completed in Waldthurn.

Pilgrimage flourished again under the Lobkowitzers. The Princely House did its best by having a magnificent church built on the mountain in the 18th century. It was destroyed by lightning and burned to death a few years after completion. However, the image of grace could be saved.

A few years later the church was built in its current form, a little more modest than before, but with particularly valuable Renaissance interior fittings. The community of Waldthurn profited from the enthusiastic pilgrimage, also from Bohemia, to such an extent that they said: "Anyone who falls from paradise to the Waldthurn countryside will not notice any difference."

After 1945

During the Cold War , when no pilgrims could come from Bohemia, the Fahrenberg became a symbol of hope for reconciliation. Bishop Michael Buchberger had the idea of ​​the “Madonna of Peace”, who looks from the roof ridge towards the east towards the Czech Republic .

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain , pilgrims have come from the Czech Republic every summer, especially from Stříbro (Mies), Tachov (Tachau) and Plzeň (Pilsen).

art

The existing pilgrimage church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary was built after the previous building was destroyed in 1706 by a lightning strike in 1775 to 1778/79. The larger-than-life gilded copper statue of Mary, Queen of Peace was installed on the roof ridge in 1956. The baroque high altar is the work of the sculptor Wolf Kurzwort and the carpenter Wenzl Wickl from Waldthurn. The miraculous image, a late Gothic carved statue of the Virgin Mary, was created around 1480/1490. Mary and the baby Jesus on her arm are dressed in festive robes. The left side altar shows the meeting of Maria and Elisabeth, the right the Holy Family.

Next to the church is the Trinity Chapel, built in 1706, with an altar from the late 17th century.

  • Picture gallery

  • Pilgrimage Church in Fahrenberg (2014)

  • High altar with miraculous image

  • Interior (2014)

traffic

The Fahrberg stop on the former Neustadt (Waldnaab) –Eslarn railway line has been closed.

literature

  • Johann Götz: Fahrenberg. Pilgrimage church in the parish of Waldthurn . 2nd Edition. Schnell & Steiner, Munich / Zurich 1960, p. 14 .
  • Joseph Greil: Pilgrimage Church in Fahrenberg (Opf.) . 2nd Edition. Oefele, Ottobeuren 1986, p. 15 .
  • Hans May: The Fahrenberg. A picture of nature, economy and history from the Bohemian Forest . Self-published, Munich 1904, p. 92 .
  • Georg Schmidbauer: The Fahrenberg. The "holy mountain of the Upper Palatinate". History and stories . Bodner, Pressath 2011, ISBN 978-3-939247-11-1 , pp. 141 .

Web links

Commons : Fahrenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 40 ′ 2.4 ″  N , 12 ° 21 ′ 55.6 ″  E