The little church on the Ill
If you drive from Oltingue along the Ill via Raedersdorf upstream to Ligsdorf, you come across Hippoltskirch, a quiet hamlet at the intersection of two former Roman roads that intersect on the route from Oltingue to Winkel and from Sondersdorf to Kiffis. The place consists of only four houses. Hippoltskirch is an early place of worship dedicated to St. Martin. This proves the age of the chapel, whose construction dates back to the Franconian-Merovingian missionary period.
In the past, from May 3 to September 14, the Sondersdorfer had regularly carried out a procession to the Martinskapelle on Saturdays between the two “Kreuztagen”, probably to request good weather; on Markustag there were also residents of Raedersdorf and Ligsdorf. Over time the memory of the time-honored Martin’s patron saint vanished and today only the old high altarpiece in the chapel remembers it.
The painted coffered ceiling, possibly from the Ulrichs chapel in Sondersdorf, is remarkable and classified as a “monument historique”, because a picture shows the victory of St. Ulrich, Bishop of Augsburg, over the Hungarians in 955 at the battle on the Lechfeld.
Until the 19th century, Hippoltskirch was associated with a hermitage as a place of pilgrimage. We do not know where the magnificent statue of Our Lady comes from and how it got into the Martins Chapel; According to legend, the miraculous image was found in a bush on the side of the path. Votive plates and pictures still testify to its veneration.