Less than an hour's drive outside Germany's Franconian city of Coburg is a 500-year-old Franciscan church and monastery that was once the scene of bitter feuding.

It's hard to imagine such tensions at the Basilica of the Fourteen Saints in Vierzehnheiligen, Germany, today. The magnificent edifice sits high on a hill overlooking the meandering River Main, facing the venerable Banz Monastery rising from its equally beautiful hilltop setting. Between the two stretch fertile meadows intersected by the shining ribbon of river.

There are few more peaceful vistas in all of Europe. Yet, as I found out on a recent visit, struggles over money and prestige once seriously threatened the work of the Church here.

The basilica, completed in 1772 after 29 years of continuous work, was erected to house the site of an earlier series of miraculous visions. In September 1445, a young shepherd boy was tending his sheep when he saw a child weeping in the field. When the shepherd moved toward the child to offer comfort, the child disappeared. During the next year he saw the child twice more. On the last occasion, the child bore a red cross over his heart and was surrounded by 14 smaller figures later identified as “auxiliary saints.”

“We wish to have a chapel and we want to repose here,” the mysterious child stated to the young shepherd.

After miraculous healings took place, the bishop was convinced. He agreed to build a chapel to accommodate the streams of pilgrims, among them Emperor Frederick I. In the 1525 Peasants’ Revolt and the Thirty Years’ War, the shrine was destroyed. For more than 300 years, the site was marked by feuds between the local Cistercian abbey (owner of the land) and the bishop of Bamberg, both having been deeded an interest by an independent arbitration court.

What followed were shenanigans unsurpassed in Church architectural history. In 1742, the abbot of Langheim had the world-renowned architect Balthasar Neumann draw up plans for a large abbey church and engaged a Protestant master mason for a separate pilgrimage church. The prince-bishop preferred a local Catholic master mason. As the dispute raged, Neumann's plan was first shelved, then resurrected and redesigned by him.

Arriving on an inspection tour, Neumann discovered that the Protestant mason's plan had been implemented. The walls already rose to a height of three meters and in the form of a triple conch. The enraged prince-bishop ordered every stone removed, terming the edifice “a Lutheran sideshow.” Eventually the great architectural authority of the day, Maximillian von Welsch of Mainz, was consulted.

Those struggles bore great fruit. Working with Welsch's suggestion as to where to place the shrine within the building and with the triple-conch effect, Neumann redesigned a basilica of such fabulous design that it created a break with all previous tradition. All was well until 1835, when a fire sparked by lightning destroyed two towers and the roof. The Franciscans, who by then had taken over jurisdiction of the basilica, asked Bavarian King Ludwig I to revive the pilgrimages.

By 1900 the towers had been rebuilt. From 1982 to 1990, the frescoes and other decorative features of the basilica were restored to their original colors. It is this building today that sits on the site of the apparitions.

Franciscan Hospitality

The stern Latin-cross exterior gives no hint of what's inside. The visitor is swept off his feet by the sprawling, luminous space — such a contrast to the darkness of early 17th-century Baroque churches. The interior is splashed with light and color. The combination of late Baroque with rococo architecture blends festivity with solemnity, playfulness with stature and joy with majesty.

The effect is particularly glorious if you have just arrived from neighboring towns in what was formerly East Germany. There, of course, Protestant reformers once seized Catholic churches, whitewashed their frescoes and destroyed statues and liturgical symbols. (In short, they reduced holy houses to mere meeting spaces.)

The exquisite shrine altar, with its canvas of the apparition, occupies the center of the basilica. On it are mounted white marble-stucco figures of the 14 “auxiliary” saints — including Catherine, Margaret, Barbara, Christopher, Blasé, Vitus and George. All except one were martyrs. The background of the walls is white. Stuccoed marble patterns in pink and gray on 14 marvelous “corkscrew” pillars lift the eye aloft; shell-shaped ornaments and ceiling frescoes stretch a “rococo heaven” over the space.

Cherubs cavort around the high altar's tabernacle. The basilica's patron, Our Lady of the Assumption, is represented both in a painting over the altar and at a shrine of her own. Flanking each side of the high altar are two Franciscan saints — Francis himself and Anthony.

The pulpit is extraordinary, with busts of the Four Evangelists carrying their message to the four corners of the earth. Above them glows a dazzling composition of lights, representing the seven gifts of the of the Holy Spirit — wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, reverence, and wonder and awe over God's presence (see Isaiah 11:1-3). An angel holds up a Book of Psalms, on which is written: “Listen to this Law, my people. Pay attention to what I say.”

People are listening. The shrine is open every day of the year, free of charge. A steady stream of pilgrims — individuals, families and groups — never ceases flowing through the doors. When I visited, a motorcycle club came to pray.

There are formation houses where one may stay for retreats and study. Confessionals are in constant use. Franciscan fathers are ever on the grounds, answering questions or giving counsel.

The Vierzehnheiligen basilica has been deemed Neumann's masterpiece of curved architecture. Pilgrims whose eyes and souls are lifted upward to heavenly heights by its beauty have no trouble understanding why.

Lorraine M. Williams is based in Markham, Ontario.