Pilgrimage Church of St. Mary's Visitation (Marienheide)
The pilgrimage church of St. Mary's Visitation is a listed church in Marienheide , Oberbergischer Kreis , Germany. This is a Gothic hall church, which is rather unusual for the Rhenish area.
history
The construction of the church as a monastery church is mentioned for the first time in a document from 1417. This is a predecessor of today's church. The first Dominicans probably arrived after 1423. The completion of the construction is assumed for the year 1470. A first expansion - including two transepts - took place in 1503. The reason was the re-occupation of the monastery, as the Klausner Henricus died shortly after the building was completed. A fire in 1717 damaged both the monastery building and the roof of the church. A complete redesign followed at the end of the 19th century. Among other things, the vaults and their belts were decorated in the form of leaves and tendrils. The Second World War brought damage to the roofs and windows, which were removed by a thorough renovation in 1952.
Church building
It is a three-aisled, late Gothic hall church with sturdy buttresses and sometimes very narrow ogival windows. No heavy tower can be found here. A slender turret sits on the crossing as a roof turret. A long choir adjoins the transept. If the structure is designed very simply on the outside, its interior has all the richer jewelry. Columns, not pillars, divide the space. A high altar and two side altars in heavy baroque forms are from the 18th century.
The jewel of the building, however, is the beautiful choir stalls . Richly decorated side cheeks with the portraits of the donors carry the canopy adorned with the finest tendrils. Some animal heads and ornaments show the artist's exuberant imagination.
The dimensions of the church: It has a length of 34.80 meters and a width of 15.70 meters. Three altars dominate the furnishings , two fewer than in 1761. All three were created after 1700. The most important altar is the Altar of Mercy and Mary in the south transept. This is where the medieval portrait of the Virgin is kept, which triggered the pilgrimage activities in Marienheide.
Pilgrimages
The hermit Henricus was responsible for the creation of the monastery and church. The legend of the saint says that Henricus bought a portrait of a saint for 30 thalers in Cologne after a vision. Already on the way home to Marienheide, this image of the Mother of God is said to have proven to be miraculous. The news got around and as a result attracted more and more pilgrims. A special festival week takes place every year. It takes place from Sunday to Sunday after July 2nd (day of the Visitation of Mary).
literature
- The pilgrimage church in Marienheide in the Rheinische Kunststätten series, issue 312, Marlies Tacke, 1987
- Oberbergisches Heimatbuch from 1936
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ N , 7 ° 31 ′ 55 ″ E