Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Breitenstein, or "wide stone" in German, is a 4.40-metre high red sandstone block located in the Meisenthal Forest, Moselle. Its name evolves through the centuries: Breidestain (1170), Breitesten (1196), or Peter of the Twelve Apostles in French. According to oral tradition, this stone dates back to the Druid era and would have served as a sacrificial stone or monument honoring a pagan divinity. Later, it marked the burial of a pagan general before being Christianized, a common practice of reorienting venerable objects of ancient cults.

In the 18th century (perhaps in 1787), the monument was enriched by a sculpted group of 1.50 m representing Christ on the cross, surrounded by the Virgin and Mary Magdalene, with the twelve apostles in relief on its perimeter. A gothic inscription in German lists their names. These additions could be the work of a wine merchant from Ingwiller, in thanks for a divine benefit. The south side also bears the Lorraine shield and the date 1609, linking the Breitenstein to the boundary delimitation between the Dukes of Lorraine and the Counts of Hanau since 1606.

The Breitenstein served as a rallying point for various groups, including Gypsies who gathered there annually until the 20th century, attracting more than 2,000 people before the Second World War. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1930, it also symbolizes the Protestant Reformation preached by Luther's disciple Melanchthon in this region where villages became mostly Protestant. Today, it still marks the communal, departmental (Moselle/Bas-Rhin) and diocesan (Metz/Strasbourg) boundaries.

External links