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Origin and history

The Church of St Peter and Paul of Hohatzenheim, located in the Lower Rhine on the town of Wingersheim-les-Quatre-Bans, is a Romanesque religious building built between the late 11th and 12th centuries. It stands on the site of an ancient Roman temple and a 8th century shrine, showing a thousand-year-old cultural continuity. Its architecture blends conservative elements inspired by ottonian art (inner) and Salian innovations (Western facades with primitive traceries), characteristic of the second Romanesque age in Alsace.

The foundation of the church is linked to the abbeys of Marmoutier and Neuwiller-lès-Saverne, who successively owned it. Classified as a historical monument in 1898, it houses a pilgrimage dedicated to the painful Virgin since the 11th century, materialized by a 15th century pieta still venerated. This place of devotion, entrusted to the Franciscans since 1909 under the authority of the archdiocese of Strasbourg, illustrates the importance of Marian cults in medieval and modern Alsace.

The building features a three-vessel nave, a non-protective transept with a brick cross tower, and a cul-de-four choir adorned with lesenes and a carved-headed arch frieze. These features recall regional models such as the churches of Murbach, Andlau or Balbronn, dated the third quarter of the 12th century. Successive restorations (including in 1772, 1888 and 1989) preserved or restored original elements, such as northern absidiole or the 1934 murals depicting the Life of Christ and the Virgin.

The church's turbulent history reflects the Alsatian religious upheavals: the introduction of the Reformation in 1546, the restoration of Catholicism in 1687 under Louis XIV, and the revolutionary closure in 1799 before its reopening in 1801. A Latin inscription on a slab on the north side commemorates these events, highlighting its central role in local memory. The addition of a wooden porch in 1915-17, designed by the architect of Strasbourg Cathedral, also marks its adaptation to contemporary uses.

The interior furniture and architecture — such as the arches in the middle of the hanger falling back on square piles, or the openworked guard organ stand — testify to a synthesis between Romanesque heritage and later developments. The visual ambiences, from monumental paintings to stained glass, reinforce its character as a sanctuary both historical and living, always linked to the Franciscan community and pilgrims.

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