Rankweil Basilica

Rankweil Basilica stands on the Liebfrauenberg above Rankweil and is the principal Catholic pilgrimage church of Vorarlberg. The basilica’s own building history traces sacred use of the hill to the early Middle Ages, with a Romanesque church around the year 1000, a major fire in 1445 and substantial late-Gothic expansion between about 1470 and 1510.

Its official pilgrimage history identifies three principal devotional objects. The first is a carved Marian grace image dating to about 1460 and attributed to Hans Rueland. The second is the Silver Cross, whose wooden core has a long history of veneration.

The third is the so-called stone of Saint Fridolin. Here the distinction between history and tradition is especially important. The basilica explicitly recounts a legend that Fridolin’s intense prayer left impressions in the stone, and it notes that some visitors believe kneeling in those impressions can relieve rheumatic or other pain.

Those statements document devotional belief; they are not evidence that the impressions or reported relief have a supernatural cause. Similarly, the traditional description of the Silver Cross as “miraculous” is retained only as religious terminology. Rankweil remains a living pilgrimage and parish church where Mass, Marian prayer and personal devotion continue. Current service and access information is available from the basilica.