Our Lady on the Holderstock
Our Lady on the Holderstock is the title of the miraculous image of the Blessed Mother Mary in the parish and pilgrimage church of the Birth of Mary in Schneeberg in the Odenwald , about two kilometers from Amorbach .
history
The small town of Schneeberg emerged as the courtyard of the Amorbach Benedictine Abbey, most likely before the turn of the millennium. The first written mention of Schneeberg, however, is only dated to 1237.
In 1445 the consecration of a church in honor of the Mother of God Marie is first attested. During this time the image of grace was also created. The pilgrimage was probably created at the same time. As early as 1470, the Würzburg prince-bishop Rudolf von Scherenberg (1466–1495) commissioned the Amorbach abbot Johann I (1466–1484) to investigate the legitimacy of the Schneeberg pilgrimage. The investigation evidently confirmed the legitimacy of the pilgrimage, because on November 23, 1470 the Prince-Bishop confirmed the place of grace with a letter of indulgence. Four years later, the church building from 1445 was probably already too small, because efforts were made to build a new church, which was consecrated in 1476 by the Würzburg auxiliary bishop Johannes Hutter OFM . In 1521, around the miraculous image of Our Lady on the Holderstock, the grace chapel was built, the location of which the miraculous image had chosen itself. In a document from 1739 it is reported that around 1521 the picture was to be found several times in the morning in a "Holderstock" (elder tree), which is why the Gnadenkapelle was built around the Holderstock with the miraculous image. The elder tree could be seen until 1862. The vernacular still knows to report that on June 10, snow fell on the site of the current Chapel of Grace, on which the Chapel of Grace was built.
The pilgrimage continued in the age of the Reformation. It is even testified that here, through the intercession of Mary, an evangelical Christian woman was healed of an eye disease. In 1688, Schneeberg was raised to a parish by the Elector of Mainz. The current altar in the Chapel of Mercy also dates from this time.
The Schneeberg pilgrimage flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries. The monks from the nearby Amorbach monastery also made a pilgrimage to the Schneeberg Church every two weeks and prayed part of their hourly prayer there. The miraculous image of the "Mother of God on the Holderstock" was carried through the town in procession for the first time in 1743 in order to ward off an animal disease that had broken out in the neighboring towns. The number of pilgrims was so great that over a thousand communions were given. Temporary priests have been called in since 1797, so 10 to 12 priests helped the Schneeberg pastor to look after the pilgrims , especially on the feast of the birth of Mary on September 8th. At the beginning of the 20th century, the pilgrimage fell asleep until it was revived in 1926 by the then pastor Brenneis.
The pilgrimage still focuses on the feast day of the birth of Mary on September 8th. But even during the year, individuals, small groups and larger groups of pilgrims visit the miraculous image of Our Lady on the Holderstock again and again.
Web links
- The Mother of God on the Holderstock on the side of the Diocese of Würzburg
- [1]
Coordinates: 49 ° 38 ′ 26.2 " N , 9 ° 14 ′ 48.5" E