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The Black Madonna |
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used to pray and monks sang the praise of God, French revolutionary troops occupied the church, strolled about, boozing and eating, crying and quarreling. Horses, straw and manure on the floor, while sulfur and brandy vapor filled the dome. The wooden Lady Statue was taken from the chapel and sent directly to Paris, where they realized that it was only a copy of the true statue. So they came back for the original. But the shepherd Placid Kälin had preceded them and had hidden the Madonna in a stable in nearby Alpthal, from where it was temporarily buried at Haggenegg near Schwyz, later it was carried by Kälin on his back through French lines into the nuns' convent at Bludenz, Vorarlberg. Then the statue continued on to Triest, and in 1801, it returned again to Bludenz. General Schauenburg provided for the systematic pillaging of the monastery and his solders razed the nearly 1,000 year old Lady Chapel to the ground. |
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| The Marian shrine must disappear. The destruction of Lady chapel and the removal of the venerable statue was supposed to put an end to the pilgrimages to Einsiedeln. With the pilgrimages the abbey was also to die. The History the Holy Chapel. St. Meinrad erected his hermitage here, which included a chapel, his cell and two small rooms for guests. The chapel sheltered an altar, candlesticks, reliquaries, a bible and a missal, along with a still existent copy of the Rule of St. Benedict. Most likely, St. Meinrad also brought with him the Marian piety for which his abbey on Reichenau was well noted. After St. Meinrad was clubbed to death by two brigands, fellow solitaries from the vicinity of his refuge erected on this spot their cells and a chapel, which was dedicated to the Savior. The first abbot, the Blessed Eberhard, built at the side of the hermitage the first small monastery with a church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Maurice, on August 948. On September 14, 948, the chapel of the Savior should have been dedicated by the bishop of the diocese, St. Conrad of Constance. The Legend of the "Miraculous Dedication" Die Gnadenkapelle von innenThe night before the dedication, this saintly bishop prayed in the "Chapel of the Hermits" which he was going to consecrate on the following day. Suddenly he saw in a vision Christ the Savior in a purple chasuble, coming down from heaven. The four evangelists, St. Peter, angels, the archangel Michael who conducted the singing, and many other saints, assisted in the solemnity, during which Christ himself dedicated the Chapel in honor of his holy mother Mary. This lovely story marks the transition of the patronage from our Savior to our Lady and enhances the holiness of the place: the "Chapel of Graces" became the goal of innumerarble pilgrims. On September 14, the feast of the "Miraculous Dedication" is celebrated annually with a splendid illumination of the chapel, the church and the abbey façade by thousands of candles. In 1466 more than 130,000 pilgrims took part in this fairy-tale celebration. |
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The famous Statue of the "Black Madonna" |
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The front of the late Gothic statue is carefully crafted: the strawberry red skirt is girded at the waist, the hair lying delicately combed falls to the shoulders. The folds of the sculpted dress cover the prominent left leg and are gathered over the slippered feet at the base of the image. Long ago the Madonna received Spanish courtly dress, rich embroidered robes, whose colors vary according to the liturgical seasons. Only the face and the hands are open to view. Gilded crowns adorn the heads of Mary and of her Child. St. Nicolas von Fluh had already seen the statue like that. |
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| "Black, but beautiful." The visage of the Madonna and her Child are black. "Nigra sum, sed formosa," ("black, but beautiful") those words of an old anthem are put into her mouth. In the course of the centuries the uncovered faces became darkened by the smoke of the candles, the tallow and oil lamps, and the incense. In 1802, before the statue could come back after its flight from the French, it was restored in Austria. J. A. Fueter undertook careful restorative work on the statue in the course of which he ascertained that the child and the mother's face and hands had originally been flesh-toned and only later became darkened. The restorer finished his work, however, by painting over the lighter surfaces in the now traditional black, because people said: "It is not ours, ours used to be black". The new Chapel Ater its long exile the statue returned to Einsiedeln and was solemnly installed on an altar between the two central pillars of the Octagon. The chapel had not yet been rebuilt, but the pilgrimage soon regained its earlier vigor. In 1817 the new Lady Chapel, erected on the location of the earlier Chapel, somewhat wider and shorter than its predecessor, was at last opened. |
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