Pilgrimage Church Maria Einsiedel (Gernsheim)
The pilgrimage church of Maria Einsiedel near Gernsheim is a Gothic church with two miraculous images of Mary and a place of pilgrimage for the diocese of Mainz .
location
The church is located southeast of Gernsheim, in the reed or forest area there.
history
The first documented mention of the pilgrimage site is an indulgence certificate from 1493, issued in Rome and signed by 16 cardinals , including the later Popes Julius II and Leo X. In this document, the "Chapel of Maria Ansidl near Jernesem" is described as dilapidated and the Pilgrims receive a 100-day indulgence for donations to restore them . In 1493, the chapel and pilgrimage existed and were obviously of a later age, as the church was dilapidated and a destination for pilgrims. The original miraculous image still in the chapel, a wooden pietà , is dated to around 1400 in terms of art history, which seems to confirm the information in the breve. According to legend, the figure was found in an elderberry bush and taken several times by believers to the parish church of Gernsheim, but repeatedly inexplicably returned to its original location, so that a chapel was built there for it. Until 1650 this Pietà was the focus of pilgrimages.
On July 2, 1650, a crescent moon Madonna was brought into the church as another miraculous image, which gradually took on the role of the main miraculous image and is now placed in the center of the choir. The original figure of Mary is now sitting to the left of the choir in a niche in the east wall of the nave. The origin of the second miraculous image goes back to the time of the Thirty Years War . According to recorded reports, a captain Karl von Lichtenfeld had to burn down a village called Nordhofen in Bohemia . His soldiers would later have pulled the said wooden figure of Mary out of the glowing ashes, which was completely intact. The captain, although he was a Lutheran himself, kept them in awe and brought them with him to the Rhine region. Here he was staying with Baron Adolph von Behren in Seeheim and was warmly welcomed there. As a thank you, he gave the master of the house and his wife the picture of Mary they had brought from Bohemia. After the death of her husband, the widow, Margarethe Sophie von Behren nee von Frankenstein , the figure with him to Zwingenberg . When she had to flee from the Swedes to Gernsheim from there, she sank it in a well. In the event of a serious illness, she vowed to have the image of Mary recovered and to bring it to the Gernsheim pilgrimage chapel. Although the figure had lain in the water for three years, it was undamaged and came to Gernsheim in 1625, where it was initially placed in the parish church. On the feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary (July 2nd) in 1650, the Madonna of the Moon was brought to the pilgrimage church; this day is still celebrated there as the main day of pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage church dates from around 1500, in the 19th century a porch on 4 columns was added to the west and a sacristy to the north. As early as the 18th century, a Capuchin monastery was to be built to look after the pilgrimage site , but this did not happen until 1929. Due to a lack of young people, the convention closed again in 1966; the former monastery building in Expressionism style stands north of the church.
Building stock
The church is east-facing and the oldest part has a Gothic choir with a five-eighth end and ribbed vault . On the outside it has buttresses with sloping gables and three ogival windows with tracery . To the west is the slightly younger, Gothic nave, which also has two pointed arched windows with tracery and a roof turret. The main entrance is on the western front with a statue of Mary in the tympanum . A porch on four columns has existed there since 1871, and in 1875 a sacristy was added to the north wall of the church.
Inside, the second (more recent) image of grace stands in the center of the choir, on a column behind the celebration altar. The original Gothic pieta is placed in a wall niche to the left of the choir. To the right of the choir is the sacramental altar with a tabernacle and a large crucifix above it. On the rear west wall there are numerous votive plaques as thanks for answers to prayer. The epitaph of the electoral Cologne privy councilor Jakob Joseph von Stefne († 1753), advisor to Archbishop Clemens August of Bavaria and his resident in the Electoral Palatinate, sits in the rear north wall . He was the builder of Kleinniedesheim Castle near Worms .
gallery
Choir from the east
Main portal
Epitaph of Jakob Joseph von Stefne († 1753)
Tabernacle with crucifix
Votive tablets in the church
Memorial for the deceased pastors
Wayside cross from 1737, outside
Former monastery building
literature
- Konrad Dahl: Historical-topographical-statistical description of the city and the office of Gernsheim in the grand-ducal-Hessian principality Starkenburg, with documents. Darmstadt 1807, pp. 65-68; (Digital scan) .
- KA Straub: Forever green. Verlag Norbert Wohlgemuth, Mannheim, 1947, pp. 18-24.
Web links
- Website of the parish Gernsheim on pilgrimage
- Further website for the pilgrimage church
- Pilgrimage church Maria Einsiedel in the online portal for Groß-Gerau and Rhein-Main
Coordinates: 49 ° 44 ′ 13 " N , 8 ° 30 ′ 9.3" E