Heritage Days - Secrets and legends Eglise du Dompeter

Guided tour of the oldest church in Alsace, set in a magnificent rural setting.

Excavations carried out in 1914 revealed the foundations of a 7th-century building consisting of three naves and a semicircular choir flanked by a reliquary chamber and a sacristy. A second church was built on the same plan, but extended by two bays to the west. It was consecrated by Pope Leo IX in 1049.

Featuring dwellings and fortifications, the Dompeter became a place of pilgrimage that, throughout the Middle Ages, attracted numerous pilgrims seeking to cure their headaches or eye ailments at the nearby Sainte Pétronille spring.

An exhibition of the historic cast-iron Stations of the Cross from Le Dompeter will be presented for the occasion (the first exhibition since their removal from Le Dompeter more than 50 years ago!)