Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Notre-Dame-du-Chêne chapel, located in Blotzheim (High Rhine, Great East), is built on an ancient Roman oak. Its bell tower, dating from 1494, marks its medieval origins. She is the only one in Alsace dedicated to Sancta Maria ad Robur (Vierge du Chêne). The monument has undergone several phases of construction and renovations, notably in the seventeenth century (nef of 1629), the eighteenth century (choir vaulted of 1712) and the twentieth century (restauration completed in 2006).

The chapel houses an exceptional heritage: a baroque altar of Hugues-Jean Monnot (1717) with a 15th century Virgin of Mercy, statues and paintings saved from the Capuchin convent (founded in 1737), and an organ of the Callinet brothers (1843), classified since 1992. The high altar and the Virgin of Mercy have been protected since 2002. The stained glass windows, signed Kuhn de Basle (1879), and the side altarpieces (including one dedicated to Saint Sebastian, painted by Charles Stauder) bear witness to his cultural and religious role.

His history was marked by legal conflicts: in 1685 the Blotzheim community instituted a trial against the decimators to finance the reconstruction of the choir and the bell tower, leading to a conviction in 1699 and 1711. The Basel stone tailor Jean-Jacques Pack led the chorus in 1712. Consecrated in 1740, the chapel became a Marian pilgrimage site, with a legend linking its altar to a sacred oak.

Modern restorations (1999–2006) have given shine to its interior elements, such as the lateral altars or the canvas of Claude Bernhart (inspired by Christ on the Cross before 1947). Ranked a historic monument in 1986, it illustrates Alsatian architectural and artistic evolution, from Gothic to Neo-Gothic, through Baroque.

His classified treasures also include statues (Saint Anthony, Saint Francis), an eighteenth-century pulpit to preach, and a 19th-century Mount of Olives. The chapel, a communal property, remains a symbol of the religious and historical heritage of the Upper Rhine.

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