July 1876. In Marpingen, a village of about 1,600 people in Prussian Saarland, children began reporting apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Its Catholics were living through the Kulturkampf. The see of Trier stood vacant. Copycat visions followed, from Dietrichswalde in Ermland to Münchwies, and that Advent children at Mettenbuch in Lower Bavaria reported their own. Historian David Blackbourn set Marpingen beside Mettenbuch and Dietrichswalde, reading belief as a community's response to pressure. A chapel now stands in the Härtelwald. New visions were reported there in 1999, and pilgrims still walk into the wood.
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