Baptist Cave
The Baptist Cave (also Holenstein Cave ) is located southeast of the municipality of Bäretswil in the Zurich Oberland in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland. In the 16th century it offered protection to the supporters of the Anabaptist movement .
Location and description
The cave is located at an altitude of 910 meters in the forest on a steep slope on the north-western flank of the Allmen , above the Bäretswil hamlet of Wappenswil, below a mighty, horizontally lying layer of Nagelfluh , over which a small waterfall flows, which feeds the Bäretswil Aabach via the Holensteintobel. The cave can be easily reached from a small parking lot in about a quarter of an hour via a hiking trail. In front of the actual cave is a smaller cave on the left, which only extends a few meters deep into the mountain. The large cave extends over a width of perhaps 40 meters, is around 30 meters deep and a maximum of around 4 meters high. A few benches have been set up in the front part and a brick fireplace is available. Because the cave floor is dry, youth groups and school classes spend the night in the cave from time to time.
history
The cave takes its name from the Anabaptists who took shelter in it after the Reformation . After they were threatened with death by the Zurich cantonal government in 1526, some of them moved here. During excavations in 1830, niches with cutlery and painted tiles came to light inside the cave. Whether here also the missionary in the Oberland co-founder of the Zurich Baptist Felix Manz hidden and is possible, but not proven.
literature
- Felix Rüegger: The history of the Anabaptist cave near Bäretswil in the Zurich Oberland : The reformer Huldrych Zwingli and the Anabaptist cave. In: Zürichsee-Zeitung. Stäfa August 5, 1997, p. 13
gallery
Atrium
Access
View from the cave
Web links
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 47 ° 19 '0.5 " N , 8 ° 53' 8.5" E ; CH1903: 709404 / 241667