Einsiedeln Abbey

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A monk named Meinrad left the abbey school of Reichenau to live alone in the dark forest above Lake Zurich, taking with him a statue of the Virgin. He kept his hermitage there for decades, feeding travelers and two ravens, until robbers murdered him in 861 expecting treasure. Hermits kept coming, and in 934 one of them, Eberhard, founded the Benedictine abbey that has stood ever since. At its heart is the Chapel of Grace, where the Black Madonna, a late Gothic statue darkened by centuries of candle smoke, receives pilgrims from across Europe; old tradition holds that in 948 Christ himself consecrated the little chapel, and a papal document of 966 let the anniversary of that miracle be kept. Around it rises the enormous baroque abbey church built between 1719 and 1735, its twin towers over the great square, its interior a single rolling wave of frescoes, stucco and light. Einsiedeln is Switzerland's chief place of pilgrimage and a station on the road to Compostela; the monks still sing the Salve Regina before the Madonna every evening.