Maria Locherboden, Catholic pilgrimage church in Mötz, Austria.
Maria Locherboden is a Roman Catholic pilgrimage church on the Sassberg ridge above Mötz, at 816 m above sea level, about 150 m above the Inn Valley floor. The church, consecrated in 1881, has a three-aisled columned portico and a high altar that holds a larger Mariahilf image painted by Josef Mühlegger of Ötz. Next to it stand a grace chapel and a night pilgrimage chapel.
Around 1740 the miner Thaman Kluibenschädl from Mötz placed a Marian image at a tunnel entrance in thanks for his rescue; the site became a place of pilgrimage after Maria Kalb, gravely ill, was healed there on 12 September 1871. In 1872 a larch-wood porch was built over the grotto and three crosses were set up on the height; fourteen Stations of the Cross followed along the path in 1876. The curate Johann Schlatter began a masonry chapel with a three-aisled columned porch in 1881.
The pilgrimage began after Maria Kalb, bedridden since a back injury in 1864, was carried to the grotto on 12 September 1871 and walked back down to Mötz unaided. The patronal feast is celebrated on 24 April, and a night pilgrimage chapel stands beside the church.
The church stands at 816 m on the Sassberg ridge, about 150 m above the Inntal floor, reached by a forest path from Mötz; a second route leads up from the valley. Fourteen Stations of the Cross line the way, erected in 1876, and three large crosses stand on the rise. The patronal feast is celebrated on 24 April.
Inside the church is a notable painting of the Virgin Mary that continues to draw visitors seeking spiritual healing or guidance. The site also includes a Way of the Cross trail marked by wooden crosses that guides visitors through the surrounding landscape.
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