The miner's church Maria Schnee
Maria Schnee (‘Mary of the Snows’)
According to an ancient oral tradition, the first little church at Schneeberg was built of trunks from trees grown at Schneeberg itself.
The treeline in the Middle Ages was in fact at a higher altitude, thus giving rise to this legend, but no definite proof has come to light so far. However, in the 15th century, when mining was at its peak, when even bishops were mine owners and religious life was of enormous importance, it is unimaginable that there was not even a simple little chapel (perhaps in wood) at St. Martin. In the oldest depiction of Schneeberg in the Schwaz Mine Book of 1556, there is a ‘crucifixion group’, protected under a kind of open shed-like building, near the ancient forge in the village along the river (see picture).
The Late Gothic crucifix, larger than life-size, is still in Schneeberg today. In 1915, it was restored by the carpenter Josef Kerschbaumer of Klausen and set on the north face of the miners’ lodgings. Since 1993, it has dominated the altar niche of the rebuilt church called ‘Mary of the Snows’. During his visit to Schneeberg in 1999, the former bishop of Innsbruck, Reinhold Stecher, called it ‘the most beautiful mountain crucifix in the Tyrol'.
According to the literature, today’s church was built after the terrible avalanche of 1693, but there is no documentary source for this statement. Twenty-seven miners lost their lives and were buried at Moos in Passeier.
In memory of this event, it appears that a promise was made to add the miners’ church to the old miners’ lodgings, but building only started in 1720.
On July 2 1722, the church was solemnly consacrated to Mary of the Snows (August 5) by the parish priest Michael Winnepacher, on the order of the bishop of Trient Johann Michael, Count von Spaur.
The parish priest Michael Winnepacher (1655-1742) was a very strange and interesting person. Born at St. Martin in Passeier, he had trained under the Jesuits at Innsbruck but, as well as being a priest, he had a strong vocation as a poet, actor, singer, artist and traveller. He had first visited Schneeberg in 1688, then still with his father, and often came back privately. Later, as the parish priest of Moos, he came regularly to conduct services. The consacration of the little church at Schneeberg was the peak of his priestly career, a moment to which he continually returned in his thoughts. His chronograms (inscriptions concealing the date in Roman numerals) were well-known. Here, for example, is his signature in the Schneeberg visitors’ book, on the occasion of the consacration of the church:
‘Der Vorgesetzte gelstLIChe SeeLsorger bey Vnserer fraVen zV Mooß’
M + D + C + L + L + V + V + V + V + I + I = 1722
The man who accompanied Winnepacher for the feast of the consacration was the painter Nicolaus Auer (1690-1753) from St. Martin. Winnepacher allowed him to use his father’s farm, where he founded the ‘Passeier School of Painting’, famous even outside the area, with model students such as Benedikt Auer, Joseph Haller and Johann Ev. Holzer. Unfortunately, the picture of the ‘Iobl. Schneeberg’ which Auer ‘reproduced according to his art’ has been lost.
On May 1 1727, Winnepacher set in place ‘the Holy Sacrament of the altar in the new tabernacle’, where it remained from May until the end of September. During the rest of the year, it had to be kept ‘covered, in a clean room’.
On August 6 1731, Winnepacher blessed ‘two new small bells’ for the new belltower, and these were duly hung in their places on the same day.
The furnishings of the church were completed in 1738, with the consacration of the Stations of the Cross and the mission cross.
In 1955, when the miners with their families had long been living in the old lodgings next to the church and life in Schneeberg was drawing to its close, a fire, starting from a faulty electric stove, destroyed the double building. And even the furnishings and fixtures of the church disappeared later. In 1985, only the courageous intervention of the refuge hut manager, Aldo Sartori, saved the remains of the walls from being flattened by excavating machinery. Within the ambit of the new project for a mining museum, the Schneeberg-Passeier Committee later concentrated on the symbolic reconstruction of Schneeberg’s little church. This work was concluded in 1993, with a solemn ceremony of reconsacration by the deacon Ulrich Gasser of St. Leonard, upon the order of the bishop Wilhelm Egger.
The feast of the consacration of the church had changed over the years from August 5 (Maria Schnee) to August 15 (Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin) and is still today celebrated with a mass by the parish priest of Rabenstein. Many people from the nearby valleys come to take part in the festivities.
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