Saint Margaret's Chapel, Epfig is an 11th-century Romanesque church in the hamlet of Saint Margaret, near

Epfig Epfig is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. On the outskirts of the village is the 11th century Chapel of Saint Margaret. Epfig station has rail connections to Strasbourg and Sélestat. See also * Communes o ...

in the

Lower Rhine The Lower Rhine (german: Niederrhein; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the river Rhine) flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hook of Holland, Netherlands (including the Nederrijn or "Nether Rhine" within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta); al ...

Department of

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

, France. It is part of the

Route Romane d'Alsace The Route Romane d'Alsace (Romanesque Road of Alsace) is a tourist itinerary designed by the Association Voix et Route Romane to link both the well-known and the more secret examples of Romanesque architecture of Alsace, in an itinerary of 19 st ...

. The chapel, dedicated to

Saint Margaret of Antioch Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr ( grc-gre, Ἁγία Μαρίνα) in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in the Western Rite Orthodoxy, Roman Catholic Church and Anglicanism, ...

, is of special historic and architectural interest. The church tower dates from the 11th century. The unique porch gallery was added in the 12th century. A square chapel was added in 1516. The interior contains some fine wall paintings. In the porch is a 19th-century

ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...

, containing the bones and 277 skulls of local people who died in the 1525 peasant's war. The medieval-style gardens in front of the chapel, which include a cross-shaped herbal garden and fountain, were added in 2002. The Church was classed a historic monument in 1876, following substantial restoration work in 1875. The statue of Saint Margaret which used to stand in the Chapel was stolen in 1973.

Gallery

File:Epfig_SteMarguerite_01.JPG, The Chapel File:Epfig_A_022.JPG, Part of the porch gallery File:Epfig_A_025.JPG, The ossuary

References

External links

Official Website (French)

Plan of the Chapel in the CRIP database

Entry for St Margaret's Chapel in the official Heritage France website
11th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in France Churches in Bas-Rhin Monuments historiques of Bas-Rhin Romanesque architecture in France Jesuit churches in France German Peasants' War Ossuaries {{France-church-stub