05/09/2023
Named for St. Fridolin, an Irish missionary who converted the Alemanni on the upper Rhine in the 6th century, Fridolinsmünster is in Bad Säckingen, Baden-Württemberg.
The church and monastery he built in honour of St. Hilarius, on an island in the Rhine, became the starting point for Christianisation, oldest monastery in Alemannia, and eventually guardian of the saint's tomb and legacy.
Originally Romanesque, the Baroque styling of Minster St. Fridolin was added during its renovation in the 17th and 18th centuries, with murals, massive stucco marble works on the high walls, frescoes, statues and portraits.
And the saint's silver Rococo shrine, which lies in the church, is carried through Bad Säckingen streets on his "saint's feast day", the Sunday after 6 March.
Säckingen developed on the Rhine island in the 11th or 12th century, but after a fire destroyed large parts of the town in 1272, including the collegiate church, construction of the Gothic cathedral, a Bad Säckingen Wahrzeichen, landmark, which is seen from far afield, began around 1300.
Photo credit: Wladyslaw, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
