Stadt Telgte

© Stadt Telgte, Simone ThieringerFor centuries now, Telgte is a destination for believers. Year after year, the town on the river Ems welcomes around 100,000 pilgrims, making Telgte the most important pilgrimage town of Münsterland.

 

Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard von Galen fathered the pilgrimages to Telgte in 1651 and finally appointed Telgte the main pilgrimage location of the Diocese of Münster. The pilgrimage chapel was built only a few years later. Embedded between the provost church St. Clemens and the contemporary RELíGIO museum, the pilgrimage chapel became the baroque jewel of the historic town.

 

The 43 kilometres long pilgrimage walk -Germany‘s longest one - starts in the city of Osnabrück ending in Telgte. The number of people taking part in the Marian pilgrimage has been increasing from year to year.

 

The miraculous image of the Dolorous Mother of God is the pilgrims‘ object of worship. This Pietà created around the year 1370 shows the dead body of Christ taken down from the cross lying in the lap of his mother Mary. It gives believers comfort and consolation.

 

Since 1947, displaced persons from the former County of Kladsko come together for their annual pilgrimage. It is in Telgte that they have found a second Marian home. Numerous places in Münsterland can look back on a long pilgrimage tradition initiated directly by the Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard von Galen.