Our Lady Mountain

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Aerial view of the monastery (2009)

Mother of God Mountain (Czech Hora Matky Boží ) is the name for a mountain in the area of ​​the town of Grulich ( Králíky ) in Okres Ústí nad Orlicí (Wildenschwert district) , Pardubický kraj (Pardubice region) in the Czech Republic and for the monastery complex with one located on it Pilgrimage church .

location

The Muttergottesberg (formerly Kahler Berg ) is a 769 m high elevation belonging to the Hannsdorfer Bergland . The monastery complex at the highest point of the mountain is 1.9 km from the market square of Grulich, which is at an altitude of 574 m. A straight, tree-lined path about one kilometer long leads from the outskirts to the monastery, which can also be reached via a road through the Dolní Hedeč (Niederheidisch) district .

description

The Holy Staircase

The complex consists of the two-storey monastery building on a cross-shaped floor plan, to which the pilgrimage church adjoins to the northwest. Starting from it, a cloister encloses an area of ​​65 m × 55 m, on which there is another building that contains the replica of the Holy Staircase from the Lateran in Rome . The cloister has small onion domes at its four corners , which together with the two church towers and the roof turret on the choir of the church make the number seven. The seven also plays a role on the staircase at the end of the path from the city to the magnificent portal at the cloister; Reminding of the seven sorrows of Mary , it has seven times seven stages. On the way from the city there are seven chapels with the lower entrance gate and the two buildings at the foot of the stairs .

The pilgrimage church is a three-aisled hall building with a semicircular apse . The high altar as well as the side altars and the pulpit stand out in the architecturally simple room. They are made of dark cedar wood and carry statues of Bohemian saints and those of the former local orders, which were made by Val Gardena carvers. The main painting on the altar shows the coronation of Mary . The centerpiece, however, is the miraculous image of the pilgrimage, a copy of the Madonna “ Salus populi Romani ” from the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. It is decorated with silver sheet and a gold chain.

The cloister contains a valuable collection of sculpture and carving from the Baroque period .

The pilgrims' home is located next to the monastery. It offers 90 beds and a further 30 beds in the mattress dormitory.

  • Beginning of the climb

  • Stairway to the cloister

  • Nave

  • Cloister

  • Pilgrim house

history

The later Bishop of Königgrätz , Tobias Johannes Becker (1649–1710), who came from Grulich , studied Catholic theology in Prague . In order to justify a pilgrimage for his hometown, he proposed the construction of a pilgrimage church on the Kahler Berg, which was achieved with the support of the Grulich landlord Michael Wenzel von Althann the Elder. J. from 1696 to 1700 also happened. Becker donated the miraculous image , a gift from Countess Putzard von Slatiňany near Chrudim , where he had worked as an educator for her grandsons .

The monastery building, completed in 1710, was occupied by the Order of the Servites , for whom the veneration of Mary is a high priority. The Servites made the Mount of Our Lady an important place of pilgrimage; 152,000 pilgrims came in 1728. The Mother of God Mountain also survived the restrictions on pilgrimages by Emperor Joseph II towards the end of the 18th century.

Greeting card from Muttergottesberg, around 1900
On the Mother of God Mountain in 1976

In 1846 the church and monastery burned down after a lightning strike. The church was able to reopen after just one year. The interior decoration, as it still exists today, was created at the end of the 19th century.

In 1883 the Redemptorist Order took over the Mount of Our Lady. The Redemptorists bought the pilgrimage home in 1901, which they renovated and expanded.

The pilgrimages suffered a collapse after the Second World War due to the expulsion of the Germans and the seizure of power by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1948. When all monasteries in Czechoslovakia were closed as part of Action K in 1950 , the monastery on Mount Mother of God was closed to the public and used for more than ten years as a reception camp for the Redemptorists, who lived in inhumane conditions and had to work hard in agriculture. More than 500 religious and diocesan priests were interned in the Králiky camp between 1950 and 1961. A memorial commemorates them .

In 1965 the monastery building was taken over by the Czech Catholic Caritas, which housed Sisters of Mary of the Immaculate Conception here , who stayed until 2002. The pilgrimage site has been open to the public again since 1968. In 1989 the monastery was returned to the Redemptorists.

When the post office clerk Franz Jentschke (* 1925 in Zöllnei near Grulich) visited his old home in 1988, he found the structure on the Mother of God Hill in a very poor condition, especially the chapels on the access roads. In 1989 he initiated the first repairs on them at his own expense and donations were collected. After the political change in Czechoslovakia, there was also cooperation with government agencies in the restoration of the facilities on the Mount of God. In 1993, Jentschke established the Muttergottesberg Foundation with foundation capital of 100,000 DM, which in 2005 had grown to 524,028 euros. Thanks to funds from the foundation, the Order of the Redemptorists (pilgrims' home) and, in particular, state funds, the facilities on the Mount of God are again in very good condition, but without the Redemptorists who left the monastery in 2013. Jentschke received the Federal Cross of Merit in 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of Grulich in 2004. Franz Jentschke died on March 21, 2018 in Bremen.

Web links

Commons : Muttergottesberg  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Grulich: Places of pilgrimage in the east: The Mother of God Mountain near Grulich. Retrieved February 1, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Excursion to Grulich - Mother of God Hill - Králíky. Retrieved January 22, 2018 .
  3. ^ Renovations on the "Muttergottesberg" near Grulich / Králíky. Retrieved January 22, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Martina Schneibergová: Brainwashing and beet cultivation: Memorial for persecuted clergy on the Mother of God Hill , Radio Prague international, May 11, 2012, accessed on September 6, 2019.
  5. ↑ a b CV Franz Jentschke. Retrieved January 24, 2018 .
  6. ^ Renovations on the "Muttergottesberg" near Grulich / Králíky. Retrieved January 22, 2018 .
  7. ^ Franz Jentschke obituary notice. In: Weserkurier. Retrieved May 5, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 29.2 ″  N , 16 ° 46 ′ 56 ″  E