GERMANY  |  Lahn Valley, Germany Travel Guide
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Elizabethkirche

c/o Elizabeth & Deutschhausstraße,
Lahn Valley
Hesse
06421-655-73

Type: Religious Site
Hours: Open daily from 9 am to 6 pm, April to September, 9 am to 5 pm in October, and 10 am to 4 pm from November to March. On all Sundays and religious holidays it is open from 11:15 (after the evangelical service).

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The first stop in Marburg should be the Elizabethkirche. Erected between 1235 and 1283 this was the first completely Gothic church in all of Germany. (Some, especially Trier, claim the same honor.) Although pure Gothic in form, the thickness of the walls and pillars shows that this is an early sample of the new form with previous knowledge of the Romanesque clearly still influential. Virtually the entire interior of this church is original. The church was built to house the remains of St Elizabeth of Thuringia and soon became a popular venue on pilgrim routes. However, a later descendant, Count Philipp the Magnanimous, a prominent figure in the Lutheran Reformation, unceremoniously removed her bones to a nearby graveyard in 1539. The original shrine remained, though, and the current evangelical church management has no qualms about charging visitors to see it. Entry to the church is free, but admission to the choirs is i2.50 (well worth it). In addition to the Elizabeth reliquaries, the graves of several of the counts of Hesse can be seen in the south transept. Also note the stained glass windows dating from the 13th and 15th centuries. At the back, to the left of the main entrance, is the grave of Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), a war hero and the last President of the ill-fated Weimar Republic. He had the dishonor of appointing Hitler, whom he openly despised, as chancellor in 1933.
Last updated February 7, 2008
Posted in   Germany  |  Lahn Valley
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