Ranft Gorge

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Upper and lower chapel
View of the Ranft from St. Niklausen, in the background the Hotel Paxmontana in Flüeli-Ranft
The Ranft around 1825

The Ranft is a gorge of the Great Melchaa near Flüeli-Ranft , into which Niklaus von Flüe retreated as a hermit brother Klaus . Ranft originally means edge and is also used as a field name in steep terrain elsewhere.

history

First, Brother Klaus, a built here in late 1467 Cluselin (small hermitage ) from branches, wood and leaves, but already in 1468 he built his fellow citizens, friends and neighbors a proper cell with an attached chapel, from Constance Auxiliary Bishop Thomas on 27 April 1469 was dedicated in honor of the Mother of God , Mary Magdalene , the Holy Cross and the Ten Thousand Knights . Through a window the hermit could look into the chapel on the altar .

The growing number of pilgrims required the construction of another chapel in 1501, and since then the original chapel has been called the Obere Ranft Chapel and the chapel, built in 1501, has been called the Lower Ranft Chapel . The Upper Ranft Chapel was replaced by a new building in 1701. On the other side of the Melchaa standing Mösli Chapel of Brother Ulrich of the 1484th

On October 17, 1935, the future Pope Pius XII visited. the chapel in Ranft to pray in. On June 14, 1984 Pope John Paul II visited the Flüeli, but could not go down into the Ranft Gorge for safety reasons.

Brother Ulrich

In 1469 Ulrich came from Memmingen to brother Klaus in the Ranft. He then settled down in Mösli (muesli) on the eastern side of the valley in order to be close to his role model, Brother Klaus. According to legend, Brother Ulrich initially lived in a cold cave under a boulder, and later in a wooden hermitage. Finally, in 1484, the Mösli chapel with the monk's cell was built for him, which was only inaugurated in 1504. Brother Ulrich died on June 21, 1491. Sister Cäcilia Bergmann later lived in the hermitage, she died in 1560 or 1561. Both are buried in the church in Kerns.

The Mösli Chapel is a late medieval building with a carved ceiling and a baroque altar. In the hermitage next to the chapel, the cave and the boulder can still be seen today.

Todays situation

The Ranft has become a place of pilgrimage . The western side of the valley with the two Ranft chapels and the Sigristenhaus belongs to the Sachsler district of Flüeli-Ranft . From the place the Ranft can be reached in a few minutes via a paved path. The Sigristenhaus has been inhabited since September 2014 by religious of the Chemin Neuf community , who take care of the chapels and run a small shop with devotional items . Before that, a total of 14 sisters from the religious orders from Menzingen , Baldegg and Ingenbohl had performed the duties at Ranft for 18 years . All three buildings are listed.

A simple bridge leads to the eastern side of the valley, and there up to St. Niklausen , a district of Kerns . In April 2016, the Upper Ranft Bridge was rebuilt at the Lower Ranft Chapel , which was destroyed in the 2005 flood. The Way of St. James leads past the Mösli Chapel and on via St. Niklausen to Stans .

The Ranfttreffen takes place every year in mid-December, an adventure night in Advent , organized for young people by the Association Jungwacht Blauring Schweiz .

literature

  • Daniel Schneller: On the Way of St. James. Hiking guide to churches, monasteries and chapels in Obwalden. Bern 1999.
  • Lothar Emanuel Kaiser: Brother Klaus and his sanctuaries. Sachseln Flüeli Ranft. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, 3rd edition, Lindenberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-933784-78-0 , pp. 37-39.

Web links

Commons : Untere Ranftkapelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Obere Ranftkapelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • Brother Klaus on the website of Obwalden Tourismus (flueliranft.ch)
  • Upper Ranft Chapel on the website of the Brother Klausen Foundation (bruderklaus.ch)
  • Lower Ranft Chapel on the Brother Klausen Foundation website (bruderklaus.ch)
  • Chapel of Brother Ulrich im Mösli on the website of the pilgrimage secretariat in Sachseln (bruderklaus.com)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schweizerisches Idiotikon , Vol. 6, 1049-1052, especially Vol. 6, 1052
  2. ↑ Upper and Lower Ranft Chapel on the website of the Pilgrimage Secretariat Sachseln (accessed on August 20, 2011)
  3. ↑ Otto Walter: Pius XII - life and personality. Verlag Otto Walter, Olten (CH) 1939; twelve editions until 1959; z. B. Bertelsmann Lesering 1958, ISBN 3-8301-0794-3 , p. 116
  4. ^ Walter Heim: The adoration of Brother Klaus since the canonization of 1947. In: Der Geschichtsfreund 140 (1987), pp. 81-100 (digitized reference, p. 97)
  5. ^ Chapel of Brother Ulrich im Mösli Information page of the pilgrimage secretariat in Sachseln, accessed on December 21, 2015
  6. ↑ New faces shape the Ranft . In: Neue Obwaldner Zeitung , September 22, 2015, p. 16
  7. ^ Government council resolution (PDF; 24 kB) on the cantonal protection plan for the cultural objects of regional and national importance of the community of Sachseln of June 7, 1993
  8. ↑ The Way of St. James should be walkable again on the historical course . In: Neue Obwaldner Zeitung, April 2, 2016, p. 21
  9. ↑ Ranfttreffen - The adventure night in Advent Website of the federal management Jungwacht Blauring

Coordinates: 46 ° 52 ′ 7 "  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 20"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and sixty-three thousand five hundred and fifty-four  /  191169