Heathen Church
On the southern end of the Elisabethsee, we find yet another natural monument: an approximately 10 metres-high block of central gneiss, known as the “Heathen Church”. It sticks powerfully up from a debris field caused by a rock fall and is broken apart at its center. If you force your way through this narrow and barely passable crack, you will expunge any ailments and all things evil from your body – or so the myth would have it!
The vaulted, cupola-like fracture areas, overgrown with colorful lichens and mosses, intensify the impression of a sacred edifice. Because of its uniqueness, the Heathen Church was declared a natural monument in 1987 and, as such, has been protected ever since.
