Behind glass in the nave of the Elisabethkirche in Marburg stands a chest of gilded copper, silver, and enamel, its lid crowded with apostles and angels in relief. Teutonic Order goldsmiths built it between 1235 and 1249 to hold the bones of a Hungarian princess who had spent her last years nursing the sick in a hospital a few hundred meters from where the chest now sits. It has been empty since 1539.
Elizabeth was born in 1207, a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, and betrothed at four to the future Landgrave of Thuringia; she was raised at the Wartburg court above Eisenach and married Ludwig IV there in 1221, at fourteen. Widowed six years later when Ludwig died of plague on his way to the Sixth Crusade, she left the Wartburg for Marburg, built a hospital dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, and cared for the sick with her own hands until her death in 1231, at twenty-four. Pope Gregory IX canonized her within four years, and the Teutonic Order began the Gothic church that bears her name that same year, over her grave.
That church, one of the earliest purely Gothic buildings in Germany, is Protestant today, not Catholic — a parish of the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck since the Reformation forced the change. Elizabeth's remains left Marburg in 1539, broken up and scattered across Europe. A different, twentieth-century Catholic church in the city now keeps a small relic of her, and three marked pilgrim routes converge on Marburg each year, retracing pieces of her own journey from the Wartburg to the hospital she built on the Lahn.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
Elizabeth of Hungary was born in 1207, probably at Pressburg (present-day Bratislava), the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary. In 1211, at four years old, she was betrothed to Hermann, eldest son of Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia, and sent to be raised at the Thuringian court on the Wartburg above Eisenach. Hermann died before the marriage could take place, and Elizabeth was betrothed instead to his younger brother Ludwig. They married in 1221; she was fourteen, he twenty-one.
Ludwig IV died of plague in 1227 at Otranto, in southern Italy, on his way to join the Sixth Crusade. Elizabeth left the Wartburg court, spent time at Bamberg, and by the summer of 1228 had settled in Marburg, where she built a hospital dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi on a plot beside the river Lahn and nursed the sick there herself, having joined the Third Order of St. Francis. She died at the hospital on 17 November 1231, at twenty-four, and was buried first in its own chapel.
Pope Gregory IX canonized her at Perugia in May 1235, less than four years after her death. The Teutonic Order, which had taken over her hospital in 1234, began building a new church over her grave that same year: the Elisabethkirche, consecrated in 1283, is counted among the earliest purely Gothic churches in Germany. The original hospital buildings were demolished between 1244 and 1254 to make way for it — the church's north choir stands directly over the excavated foundations of the hospital chapel where Elizabeth died, an outline marked today in a differentiated paving pattern set into the floor.
Teutonic Order goldsmiths completed a gilded and gem-studded shrine for her remains around 1249; it survives in the church, displayed under glass, but empty. In 1539 Landgrave Philip I of Hesse — himself a descendant of Elizabeth, and by then a convert to Protestantism — had her tomb opened and the remains removed, specifically to stop pilgrims traveling to the newly Protestant city of Marburg. Most of what was recovered eventually reached the Elisabethinen convent in Vienna, where it remains; an elaborate arm reliquary went to the chapel of Sayn Palace, near Koblenz.
The Elisabethkirche has been Evangelical, not Catholic, since the Reformation. It became an independent parish of the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck in 1954, and ownership of the building passed from the state of Hesse to the Evangelical congregation of Marburg in 1969. A different, modern building carries Elizabeth's Catholic cultus in the city: the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, consecrated in 1959 by the Bishop of Fulda, keeps a bone-particle relic of Elizabeth — a gift from the then-Archbishop of Vienna — together with a fragment of her Third Order habit, at a crypt altar dedicated to her.
Modern pilgrimage to Marburg takes the form of walking rather than relic veneration. The Elisabethpfad, a network of marked long-distance routes maintained by the Elisabethpfad e.V., founded in Marburg in 2002, brings pilgrims into the city from Frankfurt, from Eisenach and the Wartburg where Elizabeth was raised, and from Cologne — an ecumenical tradition the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau has described as its own contribution to modern pilgrimage.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Marburg
St. Elizabeth's Church
Elisabethkirche
Built by the Teutonic Order directly over Elizabeth's grave and consecrated in 1283, the church is dedicated in its canonical title to the Blessed Virgin Mary, patroness of the Order, though it has always been known popularly by Elizabeth's name. Its twin west towers, apse, and rose windows rank it among the earliest purely Gothic buildings in Germany. Inside, the gilded and gem-studded Elisabethschrein — the shrine built around 1249 to hold her bones — stands under glass in the choir, empty since Landgrave Philip of Hesse ordered her remains removed in 1539. A paving pattern set into the floor near the north choir marks the excavated footprint of the hospital chapel where she died in 1231, on the site the church itself replaced.
Deutschhaus (Teutonic Order Commandery)
Deutschordenshaus
Immediately next to the church stands the Deutschhaus, the Teutonic Order's Hesse bailiwick residence, begun in the 1230s in the same years construction started on the Elisabethkirche beside it. From here the Order administered Elizabeth's hospital and the pilgrimage that grew at her tomb. The building passed to Philipps-Universität Marburg in 1823 and has housed the university's Geography Department since 1977.
Church of Saints Peter and Paul
St. Peter und Paul
In a city with no historic Catholic shrine to Elizabeth, this twentieth-century parish church holds the closest thing to one. Consecrated in 1959 by the Bishop of Fulda, it keeps a bone-particle relic of Elizabeth, given by the then-Archbishop of Vienna, and a fragment of her Third Order habit, at a crypt altar dedicated to her.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary — November 17
The universal Church keeps Elizabeth's feast on the anniversary of her death at the Marburg hospital in 1231. In the city itself, the day is marked with veneration at the crypt altar of Saints Peter and Paul, where her relic is kept — the closest a Catholic pilgrim can come in Marburg to praying before her physical remains.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Hotel Marburger Hof ⭐⭐⭐ — On Elisabethstraße, the same street as the church itself, a 95-room hotel with restaurant, bar, and free bicycles for exploring the Altstadt. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Welcome Hotel Marburg ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — A modern design hotel at the foot of the Schlossberg, a short walk from the Altstadt and the Elisabethkirche, with 150 rooms, restaurant, bar, and sauna. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
VILA VITA Rosenpark (boutique hotel) — A wellness and conference hotel directly on the Lahn river, a short walk from the Altstadt, with 194 rooms and suites, a spa, and two restaurants. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
B&B Hotel Marburg (hotel) — A budget chain hotel near the Hauptbahnhof, a short walk from the Altstadt and Elisabethkirche, with 84 air-conditioned rooms. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Marburg has no airport of its own. Frankfurt Airport (FRA), roughly 90 km south, is the practical point of arrival, with direct and one-change rail connections into Marburg in about an hour.
By Train: Marburg (Lahn) Hauptbahnhof sits on the Main-Weser, Upper Lahn Valley, and Burgwald railways, with direct ICE service — ICE 26 (Bremen–Hanover–Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe–Marburg–Frankfurt–Heidelberg–Karlsruhe, roughly every four hours) and ICE 24 (Westerland–Hamburg–Hanover–Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe–Marburg–Frankfurt, one daily pair). Regional trains (RE 30 and RB 41) connect Frankfurt to Marburg roughly hourly, in about an hour.
Local Transport: The Elisabethkirche is about a ten-minute walk from the Hauptbahnhof: follow Bahnhofstraße to its end, turn left onto Elisabethstraße, then right onto Ketzerbach, which runs opposite the church. Most bus lines from the station's bus terminal also stop at "Elisabethkirche."
📚 Further Reading
Books:
Count de Montalembert. The Life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Duchess of Thuringia — The classic nineteenth-century biography, the most widely reprinted full-length life, tracing her from the Hungarian court through widowhood and her Franciscan vocation at Marburg.
Kenneth Baxter Wolf. The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from Her Canonization Hearings — A scholarly translation of the 1235 canonization testimony given by members of her own household, the closest surviving witness account of her life and the Marburg hospital years. (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Lori Pieper, OFS. The Greatest of These is Love: The Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary — An accessible modern biography by a Franciscan tertiary, following her path from princess to servant of the sick and poor at Marburg.
Online Resources:
St. Elizabeth of Hungary — Full biographical entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia, covering her life, canonization, and cultus. (New Advent)
🎥 Recommended Videos
My Catholic Family: Saint Elizabeth of Hungary — EWTN family-catechesis segment on her life and example. 23 min.
Das Bauwerk – die Elisabethkirche in Marburg — Short architectural tour of the church today, from its own official channel. German-language, visual.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Widow: Butler's Lives of the Saints — Full audio reading of the classic hagiographical account. Sensus Fidelium, 30 min.
Pilgern – Elisabethpfad 2 von Eisenach nach Marburg — A pilgrim's six-day, 193 km walk on the modern Elisabethpfad route ending at Marburg.
🔗 Useful Links
Elisabethkirche Marburg — Official website of the church, in German.
Katholische Pfarrei St. Peter und Paul, Marburg — Official website of the Catholic parish keeping Elizabeth's relic, in German.
Elisabethpfad — Official website of the modern pilgrim walking routes to Marburg, maintained by the Elisabethpfad e.V.
Deutsche Bahn — German rail network for planning train connections.
🥾 Pilgrim Routes
Elisabethpfad (St. Elizabeth's Way) — A network of marked long-distance walking routes converging on Marburg, maintained by the Elisabethpfad e.V., founded here in 2002. One branch runs from Frankfurt, extended in 2000 by the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau as "a spiritual contribution to promoting modern ecumenical pilgrimage." A second traces roughly 193 km down from Eisenach and the Wartburg, where Elizabeth was raised and married, and doubles as a branch of the Way of St. James. A third runs from Cologne, marked since 2007 and roughly 170 km long.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Fulda (70 km) — The Baroque cathedral built over the tomb of St. Boniface, Apostle of the Germans, seat of the diocese to which Marburg's Catholic parish belongs.
Eisenach (109 km) — Home to the Wartburg, the castle where Elizabeth was raised from age four and lived through her marriage to Ludwig IV; also the trailhead of one branch of the Elisabethpfad.
Cologne (128 km) — The cathedral's golden shrine holds the relics of the Three Magi. The city is also the starting point of a second Elisabethpfad branch into Marburg.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"St Elizabeth invites us to rediscover Christ, to love him and to have faith; and thereby to find true justice and love, as well as the joy that one day we shall be immersed in divine love, in the joy of eternity with God." — Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience on St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 20 October 2010
