Mariä Geburt, Catholic pilgrimage church in Witzighausen, Germany.
Mariä Geburt is a baroque church in Witzighausen whose exterior is divided by pilasters on a high base and tall round-arched windows, with axes widening toward the centre. The central axis holds a curved thermal window, while the other axes have curved trefoil windows above the round-arched ones. Architectural elements and frames are painted yellow against white plaster, and the corners of nave and choir are rounded.
The current building was constructed starting in 1733 in the baroque style. The tower, however, remains from an earlier Gothic church that stood on this site around 1480.
The pilgrimage to the chapel began during the plague years of 1550 to 1600; the first written report from 1611 already mentions many pilgrimages to Witzighausen. No legend or miracle account survives, and the church remains a parish and pilgrimage church of the Senden district.
The church stands in the centre of Witzighausen, bordered to the south by Marienstraße and to the east by Weißenhorner Straße. A car park lies on its northern side and the parish house to the west. The site sits on the ridge separating the lower Iller valley from the Roth valley.
The tower largely survives from the late Gothic church built around 1480, which was dedicated to Mary, St Vitus and St Euphemia and was still called the finest church of the Weißenhorn chapter in 1679. Its 19th-century top, added when the tower was raised by 1860, is described in the literature as no ornament to church or landscape.
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