Hermitage pilgrimage site

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Chapel of Grace at the Hermitage Sanctuary
The Hermitage in winter

The Hermitage is an ensemble of a Catholic pilgrimage site near the Niederdielfen district of Wilnsdorf in Siegerland on federal road 54 .

history

In 1684, the Jesuit brother Anton Hülse had the Chapel of Grace built. It is the successor to a Lady Chapel that was destroyed in the Thirty Years War and once existed between Rödgen and Oberdielfen.

The Gnadenkapelle combines elements from the Renaissance and Gothic . In the chapel under the dome with a representation of the four evangelists is the grave of the last Catholic Hereditary Prince Franz-Josef, who died in 1703, the son of the Prince of Orange, Wilhelm Hyacinth of Nassau-Siegen . In the chapel there is also an altar from 1736 and a Pietà that the Düsseldorf artist Else Hoffmann made in 1961. The original altar was destroyed in World War II; today's baroque altar from 1736 comes from the Sacred Heart Church in Brackwede and was acquired in 1961.

The complex also includes a saint's house with a figure of Ignatius von Loyola , the hermit grave of the Jesuit Conrad Manz, a way of the cross, a forest altar and a hermit hermitage. The chapel was looked after by the Jesuit Conrad Manz until 1733, who lived as a hermit next to the church building in a half-timbered extension (hermitage). As a hermit, he is the namesake of the Hermitage . After his death he was buried in the open space next to the sanctuary with the figure of St. Ignatius of Loyola; his grave slab bears the inscription “Here rests in peace Christ the hermit Conrad Manz. He died after a pious life on December 26th, 1733 and was buried here at his request. RIP " .

The hermitage attached to the chapel was first a hermit hermitage and is now a sacristy. It is one of the oldest half-timbered houses in the Siegerland and, like the entire ensemble, is a listed building . Initially used by Conrad Manz, the house was later enlarged and used as a pilgrimage restaurant.

From 1953 to 1966 it was the monastery building of the Order of the Poor Clares (OSC), which was able to move into its neighboring new building in 1966 and remained there until the branch was closed in 2014. This monastery was the only one to be founded after the Reformation in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district .

Modern times

Since 1993, the house has been used by the German Caritas Association to train caregivers of dementia patients in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district. At the beginning of 2015, after several months of renovation, the Gnadenkapelle reopened. In particular, the baroque altar was restored. In the same year the monastery was set up as a temporary shelter for refugees. The St. Marien Hospital in Siegen acquired the monastery complex in mid-2016. A hospice was established there. The groundbreaking for the hospice, which also includes a spiritual center, took place in early 2017. Completion took place in February 2018.

In the associated open space with old beech trees and surrounded by a high quarry stone wall built in 1933, the tradition of pilgrimages to the Virgin Mary is still maintained today.

Pilgrimage site with a way of the cross

The place of pilgrimage was declared on July 2, 1861. The enclosure of the pilgrimage courtyard with the 14 stations of the cross and the forest altar on the inside creates an impressive prayer room in the great outdoors. The Siegener Kreuzweg, designed in 1933 by the Münster artist Hermann Kissenkötter, consists of the traditional stations of the cross.

The pilgrimage complex also contains the graves of Pastor Wilhelm Ochse, who died in 1960, and his mother. Pastor Ochse had taken special care of the Hermitage and lived there after his retirement.

Processions and pilgrimages

On the annual Good Friday and on the Sunday after the Visitation of the Virgin Mary , the patronage festival of the Chapel of Mercy, there is a procession from Siegen to the Hermitage with a final service in the outside area of ​​the pilgrimage site. In May the annual family pilgrimage of the KAB of the Siegen deanery also leads to the Hermitage.

Holy mass is celebrated in the pilgrimage chapel every Thursday at 3 p.m. From May to October a (small) procession moves from the edge of the forest on Siegener Lindenberg at 2 p.m. to this mass. On the way, the “Seven Sorrows of Mary” are contemplated in prayer at the stations.

The pilgrimage site is looked after by the Siegen parish of St. Marien, although it belongs to the Sacred Heart Congregation in Niederdielfen.

Poor Clare Monastery

The Hermitage pilgrimage site was expanded in 1953 with the establishment of the Monastery of the Order of the Poor Clares (OSC). In 2014 the monastery was given up and the last four Poor Clares Sisters moved to the Poor Clare Monastery in Kevelaer .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hospice places at the Hermitage
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ Solemn farewell to Clarisse. In: Siegener Zeitung , October 19, 2014, accessed on August 12, 2019.

Coordinates: 50 ° 51 '25 "  N , 8 ° 3' 57"  E