Holy Trinity Church

The Holy Trinity pilgrimage church near Waldsassen was built in 1684-1689 by George Dientzenhofer.

According to tradition, the origins of the church and the pilgrimage date back to the founding of the Waldsassen monastery around 1133. At the end of the 16th century, during the Protestant Reformation, the monastery was secularised and the chapel abandoned. A new pilgrimage chapel was built after the recatholization in 1645-1648.

In 1669 the monastic estate of Waldsassen was returned to the Cistercian order and as a priory fell under the Fürstenfeld monastery with Abbot Martin Dallmayr. He entrusted the administration of Waldsassen to Father Nivard Christoph. From 1670 to 1698, Paulus Eckhardt, a lay priest in Munichreuth, was responsible for the pilgrimage site in Kappl. Together they initiated the building of a new, larger pilgrimage church on Glasberg.

In 1684, Georg Dientzenhofer, who had been involved in the rebuilding of the Waldsassen monastery complex since 1682 under the direction of the Prague builder Abraham Leuthner, was commissioned to design the Holy Trinity Church. The inspiration for the depiction of the Holy Trinity in the floor plan and the overall design of the church may have originally come from Father Paulus Eckhardt.

The new church surrounded the original church, which could only be demolished in 1687 after the completion of the vaults of the new church. The construction was completed and consecrated in 1689.

Address
Kappl 2, Waldsassen, Germany

Established
1684-1689