Chapter 70 - Shrines, Part 1

As we've traveled about over here, we kept seeing what we thought were statues. We saw them in the oddest places - along side country roads, in vineyards, in villages, in towns and in larger cities. Some are highly visible, freshly scrubbed and well tended with fresh flowers at the base. Others are tucked away almost out of sight, seemingly long forgotten and neglected. Naturally I was curious about them and started snapping photos of them. After research and asking questions of lots of people (most of whom knew little or nothing about them), I learned that they're religious shrines.

Many shrines were erected by individuals, either to ask God for some boon or to give thanks to God for answered prayers. They seem to have been built mostly from the mid 1600s to early 1800s. For some reason, after that period people lost interest in erecting new ones. Perhaps the ones already present were sufficient for prayers. I would ask locals or village priests the dates and specifics, but the level of English fluency is much lower than we expected. And if they speak a language other than German, it's more likely to be Croatian than English (see blog #59 for the history on that).

I find the shrines intriguing. Some are fairly majestic, soaring as it were to the heavens. Others seem homier, cozier somehow, more attuned to a family. In this first blog of shrines, I'm including a representative sampling.

This shrine is in the middle of the village of Au am Leithaberge. It is clearly well-maintained but undated.


It's obviously restored, but the inference is plain that this was the location of the village well and horse trough.


This shrine is also from Au am Leithaberge but from the edge of town. It is much more neglected and probably older. It has no date.


This shrine in Eisenstadt is dated 1755.


This is a closeup of the base of the shrine. Note the skull, common on shrines. It denotes the people's fear of plague.


This shrine was placed near the entrance to Castle Forchtenstein.


A shrine near the outskirts of the village of Groszhoflein


We found this shrine at the back of church grounds in the village of Kleinhoflein (a small village that is now a suburb of Eisenstadt).


At the base of the shrine, note the presence of the skull.


In the village of Krensdorf


This shrine is in front of the village church in Mullendorf. The inscription reads, "May the Holy Trinity protect us."


This shrine sits by the roadside in a vineyard outside the village of Purbach. The inscription reads, "Holy Mary pray for us."


A closeup of the inside - it reads, "Holy Mary help us."


Another shrine in the vineyards outside Purbach, dated 1647.


This shrine is a mystery to us. We wonder if it's even a shrine. We saw it in Hungary on a country road outside the village of Fertod. It says "Esterhazy" on it which was the royal family of Hungary. I feel certain that at one time there were probably many shrines dotting the Hungarian countryside, but I also suspect that the former communist government ordered them torn down. So how did this shrine come to survive? And is it a religious shrine or some kind of boundary marker for Esterhazy property? It has a crown on top rather than a religious symbol. There was no one to ask when we drove through Fertod; it was a hot day, and we saw no one outdoors. It would probably have been futile anyway; I've learned that speaking English is even rarer in Hungary than in Austria. I include it here because it may be a shrine and we found it quite interesting.