Pilgerkirche Schönstatt

The Pilgerkirche Schönstatt is a pilgrimage church in the Schönstatt valley at Vallendar, near Koblenz. Blessed on 4 July 1999, it was built to receive the large numbers of pilgrims visiting the international Marian movement’s place of origin. Architect Anton Alshut designed a circular timber structure with space for more than one thousand worshippers. Its upward-focused interior is complemented by a tabernacle, cross and frame for the devotional image made by the Chilean artist María Jesús Ortiz de Fernandez. The church forms part of the wider pilgrimage centre, alongside the Original Shrine and the Adoration Church. Pilgrims come to Vallendar, on the Rhine near Koblenz, for the Schoenstatt shrine and the international Marian movement that grew out of it, and the pilgrimage church built to receive them holds congregations far larger than the little original chapel could. Its scale suits concerts as readily as liturgy, and touring vocal programmes have been presented under its roof. Churches along this stretch of the Rhine have a long habit of lending their acoustics to singers.