A look back at the weekend of the open churches in Luxembourg
2025
Tuesday 3 June 2025
More than 60 churches opened their doors to visitors at the weekend under the theme ‘The nobility in our churches’. In fact, there are many traces of the interaction between the nobility, the church and the local population to be seen in the churches across the country. In Simmern (Septfontaines), for example, there are not only tombstones and memorial plaques but also a series of polychrome keystones on the Gothic ceiling with the coats of arms of the lords of the castle. The castle chapel in Vianden is a very special piece of jewellery. The first chapel was probably built at the same time as the first castle. In today's octagonal chapel, the lower floor was for the subjects, while the lords and ladies of the castle attended mass on the upper floor.
The first churches in the Middle Ages were in fact built by the landed gentry. Michel Margue, professor at the University of Luxembourg and medieval expert, discussed this symbiosis in his conference. The aristocrats built their own churches in concern for the salvation of their subjects, but of course also so that they themselves could be ‘saved’. The connection between the nobility and the church was only severed with the French Revolutionary troops. It was then, at the latest, that the aristocracy finally lost the right to be buried in churches.
Luxembourg City is also home to numerous examples of this symbiosis. For example, the first church, the predecessor of today's St Michael's Church, was built next to the castle on the Bockfelsen by Count Siegfried. However, there is also plenty of evidence of donations from the aristocracy to promote the reconstruction of churches after they had been damaged by war, e.g. Sankt Johann im Grund.
In the cathedral, visitors were able to admire the magnificent stained glass windows on the royal gallery, which tell the medieval history of the county and the duchy through depictions of all the important players, the men and women of the nobility and the clergy. At the opening of the weekend, visitors were treated to a magnificent organ concert by up-and-coming talent Michel Krier.
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