Kirche, Parish church in Marktleugast, Germany

The Basilica of the Visitation of Mary in Marienweiher, part of Marktleugast, is a Baroque pilgrimage church built from 1740 to 1745 to plans by Johann Jakob Michael Küchel. It replaced a Gothic hall church and is the largest church complex of its time in the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg. The interior centres on a carved Madonna of around 1500, framed by a Neoclassical high altar, with a ceiling fresco by Antonio Nove showing scenes from the life of Mary.

A church at Marienweiher is first documented in 1189, when Bishop Otto II of Bamberg transferred it to Langheim Abbey; Cistercian monks served the parish for over 200 years. The Gothic church was replaced between 1740 and 1745 by a new building designed by Bamberg court architect Johann Jakob Michael Küchel. In 1993 Pope John Paul II raised it to the rank of basilica minor.

The name Marienweiher links the pilgrimage to a legend: locals are said to have hidden the Madonna in a nearby village pond (Weiher) during the Hussite incursions of 1429–30, though no source confirms this. The carved Madonna, made around 1500, stands on a crescent moon with hair falling to her hips, hidden today by a Baroque mantle. Around 8,000 pilgrims still come each year.

The basilica stands in the Marienweiher district of Marktleugast, in the Frankenwald highlands south of Hof. Pilgrims reach it on footpaths and by road; the church is a working parish church, so visits fit around services. The Franciscan monastery next door was restored in 2013–2014.

The miraculous figure above the high altar dates from around 1500 and is a carved Madonna by an unknown sculptor. She stands on a crescent moon, and her wavy hair falls to her hips, both hidden today by a Baroque ceremonial mantle. The church also keeps a legend recorded in 1816 by pastor A. F. Hofmann: a Saxon carter survived a robbery at a forest inn and set up his Marian image in a small wooden chapel by the road.