Birnau Basilica

The modern building, which has existed since the mid-18th century, is the heir to the un-preserved early medieval pilgrimage chapel , located a few kilometers northwest, on a hill above the village of Nussdorf.

At the latest, since 1241, the chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary was under the control of the Salem Monastery, and in 1317 it was already a favorite place of pilgrimage, as evidenced by two surviving documents about receiving indulgence . At the same time, church services in it were initially carried out by priests appointed by the Constantine bishop . On March 27, 1384, by order of Pope Urban VI, the chapel was transferred to Salem Abbey; from the point of view of church law, she still remained subordinate to the bishop of Constance .

In the XIV century. A new church was erected around the old chapel, capable of accommodating the ever-increasing flow of pilgrims, and around 1420 a sculpture of the Virgin Mary was installed in it, quickly gaining glory as a miracle. Rebuilt in the XVI and in the XVII centuries. the outer church was destroyed during the Thirty Years War ; however, the miraculous sculpture was - according to the legend set forth in the Salem chronicle Apiarium Salemitanum (1708) - saved by one of the workers of the abbey.

The 17th century passed, on the whole, under the sign of conflict with the free imperial city of Uberlingen, which owned the surrounding lands, and whose city council frowned on active construction work around the church. It got to the point that the monks at one time could no longer send masses in the old church, and were forced to transfer services to the monastery church in Salem.

Despite the difficulties, Abbot Konstantin Miller ( Konstantin Miller ) developed in 1741 plans for the further expansion of the church building; their embodiment was prevented by his sudden death in 1745.

The new abbot of the monastery, Stephan II Enroth, in the same year decided to demolish the old and poorly maintained church, and build a new one on the monastery’s land. The papal bull of March 12, 1746 finally gave permission for construction work. Even the sudden death of the abbot in May 1746, which was perceived by the population as a bad sign, did not stop the plan.

Under the new abbot, Anselm II Schwab (1713-1778), work continued with renewed vigor, and on June 11, 1747 the foundation of the new structure was laid. Peter Tumb from Vorarlberg , who was then famous in southern Germany, was selected as the architect, who placed the church on the high bank of Lake Uberlingen, above the Maurach castle lying on the shore, among the vineyards belonging to the monastery. Although 150,000 guilders were spent on the construction, the funds arrived without delay, and the work was completed in less than four years. The consecration of the new church took place on September 19-24, 1750.

The plans associated with the construction of a new pilgrimage church were not destined to come true: the flow of pilgrims decreased at times. On the one hand, this was due to the general rejection of the transfer of the miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary and the demolition of the old church, and on the other, it was fueled by the skeptical spirit of the Enlightenment and the efforts of official authorities to limit pilgrimage and the influence of monastic orders.

Only a few decades after the construction was completed, the church and monastery in Birnau faced the fact of its closure: the general vicar of the bishopric in charge of Salem Abbey Konstanz Ignaz Heinrich von Wessenberg (1774-1860), like many other enlightened clergymen of this time, was a supporter of politics Josephism , and since 1801 pursued in its diocese the goal of closing pilgrimage churches and monasteries, or converting them into ordinary parish churches. In addition, the veneration of images was considered in the XVIII century. ordinary superstition, only distracting from the essence of Christianity. Thus, all the magnificent interior decoration of the Baroque churches suddenly turned out to be a symbol of a falsely understood piety. Yes, and the Rococo style already from the second half of the 1770s. more and more was considered inconsistent with the spirit of the times and even in the church environment was called "painful" and "degenerate." The irony of history is that the restructuring of the Salem munster in the style of Louis XVI at the end of the XVIII century. became one of the first heralds of a change in artistic fashion.

The beginning of secularization played into the hands of Wessenberg: for example, on October 1, 1802, the commission of Margrave Karl Friedrich arrived at the Salem Abbey, announcing the seizure of all the monastery’s property in favor of the Baden margraine . The final resolution of the imperial deputation , adopted on February 25, 1803, legally enshrined the decision to close the monasteries, and on November 23, 1804, the imperial abbey Salem ceased to exist.

The last church service in the Birnau church took place on April 30, 1804. In 1808, the last Cistercian monks were expelled from Birnau. At the same time, the image of the Virgin Mary was transferred to the former monastery church in Salem, converted into a parish church; other interior items were distributed among the surrounding parishes and churches; bells and organ sold to Switzerland . So, closed, the church stood until the end of the First World War, having lost in 1810 a tower adorning the slope of the roof and in 1832 the building of the sacristy .

At the end of the XIX century. Baroque style, finally, was universally recognized; not least thanks to the work of Heinrich Woelflin . Although the Birnau Basilica in this sense was considered only as the completion of the era of Baroque church building, as a kind of "rococo swan song on Lake Constance" (according to Hans Merle, who described Birnau in 1920). On the other hand, landscape painting, with its desire to harmoniously combine the beauty of nature and the creations of architecture, against the backdrop of the beginning of industrialization , found its ideal object in Birnau.

In 1919, the Wettingen-Mererau territorial abbey was able to buy the Birnau church from the state of Baden (together with the Maurach castle located lower on the hillside) for 70,000 Reichsmarks, forming the Birnau convention here. At the same time, the former utility rooms in the front of the church were rebuilt into residential premises, the bells and organ were again purchased. On November 20, 1919 the church was re-consecrated, and soon became one of the most popular pilgrimage and tourist destinations on Lake Constance.

During the years of the National Socialist dictatorship, the church and priory were forcibly closed from 1941 to 1945. The monks were expelled, and some of them were for a long time under the arrest of the Gestapo .

It also recalls the Second World War , among other things, the nearby cemetery of 97 forced laborers from the Dachau concentration camp , driven to Lake Constance in 1944 for the construction of adits in Goldbach (one of the historic districts of Uberlingen) for the transfer of military production from Dornier , Zeppelin , and Factory gear machines and Maybach from Friedrichshafen , subjected to massive bombing.

After the war, in 1946, with the return of the Birnau Basilica to the Church, it was declared the parish church for the villages of Deisendorf and Nusdorf (today - as part of Uberlingen), forming the so-called quasi-parish (Latin quasi-paroecia ) Birnau.

Between 1964 and 1969 At the expense of the Catholic Church and the State Monument Protection Service, a general restoration of the basilica building was carried out. In 1966, a special fund was also founded to further finance the construction and possible future construction work. From 1996 to 2004, a second restoration was carried out, eliminating the errors of the previous one.

In 1971, Pope Paul VI granted the church in Birnau the status of a small basilica .

Today the Birnau Basilica is one of the favorite pilgrimage destinations in southern Germany, attracting tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world every year. Among other things, concerts are regularly held in the church, and due to its picturesque location, it is very popular with honeymooners and tourists.

• Hermann Brommer: Basilika Unserer Lieben Frau, Birnau am Bodensee, 43., bearb. Aufl., Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2010, Reihe: (Kunstführer 435), ISBN 978-3-7954-4005-3 .
• Hans Möhrle: Die Cistercienser-Probstei Birnau bei Überlingen am Bodensee. Überlingen: Feyel 1920.
• Ulrich Knapp: Die Wallfahrtskirche Birnau, Planungs- und Baugeschichte. Friedrichshafen: Gessler 1989, ISBN 3-922137-58-X . Quellensammlung mit Bauplänen und Entwurfszeichnungen.
• Bernd Mathias Kremer (Hrsg.): Barockjuwel am Bodensee. 250 Jahre Wallfahrtskirche Birnau. Fink: Lindenberg 2000, ISBN 3-933784-71-9 . Darstellungen zu Aspekten der Bau-, Kunst- und Klostergeschichte.