Marienfeld is a large (2.6 km² / 640 acres) grassy field on the reclaimed site of a former

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

lignite mine about south-west of

Cologne Cathedral Cologne Cathedral (german: Kölner Dom, officially ', English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archdiocese o ...

in the city of

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, straddling the towns of Frechen and Kerpen. The mine area was named ''Marienfeld'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

: ''

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

's Field'') and landscaped in order to serve as the site of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's 20th World Youth Day in 2005.

Overview

Preparations for the World Youth Day began in September 2004. A 10-m (33-ft) ''Pope Hill'' (German: ''Papsthügel'') was constructed since April 2005, so

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the soverei ...

could be visible amidst an estimated 1 to 2 million visitors when he presided over the festival's concluding Sunday

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

on August 21, 2005. An altar was built at the top of the hill, which was christened the ''Mountain of the 70 Nations'' by Cardinal Meisner, because little pieces of earth were brought from church delegates of 70 different countries. The hill was built by Bilfinger Berger AG, which poured over 80,000 m³ (2.8 million cu. ft) of earth carried in around 200 trucks per day. The name ''Marienfeld'' is derived from a

Pietà The Pietà (; meaning " pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form ...

sculpted in 1420 from French limestone that has been a destination for pilgrims seeking to venerate the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

for centuries. The sculpture has moved numerous times. It was first placed in a chapel at a location around 1 km from the present Marienfeld, then near the town of

Grefrath Grefrath () is a municipality in the district of Viersen, in the western part of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated in the Lower Rhineland region (''German: Niederhein''), which is located between the river Rhine and the borderlin ...

. It was moved in 1730 by the

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

s from the nearby

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

of Bottenbroich to the parish church of Bottenbroich, the Church of the

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution '' Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by ...

(St. Maria Himmelfahrt), an old church (built between 1479 and 1484) located in part of what is now Marienfeld. In 1948, the church was demolished, partly due to heavy damage sustained during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and partly as part of the resettlement of the town of Bottenbroich to make way for an open-pit lignite mine being opened on the site. The parishes of Bottenbroich and Grefrath were combined, and the Pietà was moved to a new parish church in Grefrath, built in 1949. However, Grefrath itself was gradually resettled between 1952 and 1965 to make way for the expansion of the lignite mine, so the Pietà was moved again in 1963 to its present location at the parish church of Frechen-Grefrath (2 km from Marienfeld), where it remains on display. The area used for the World Youth day celebrations should not be confused with the town of Marienfeld in the Gutersloh district of Germany, where the Portugal national football team stayed and used as a training area during the 2006 FIFA World Cup. {{Authority control Geography of Cologne