Volkmarskeller Cave and Harzer Wandernadel Stamp Station 87

Quiet and idyllic location.

Around the time from 850 to 870, the hermit Liutbirg, who was highly respected by her contemporaries, lived in a hermitage and was a close confidante of Bishops Haimo of Halberstadt and Ansgar of Bremen. Their hermitage was suspected to be in the Volkmarskeller until the 1930s, when Walther Grosse was able to prove that it was the Wendhusen monastery near Thale.

The church dedicated to St. Michael next to the hermitage was donated to Quedlinburg Abbey by Otto I in 956. From then on, the cave, not far from the imperial Jagdpfalz Bodfeld, served as accommodation for pious hermits. B. 1118 reports of the death of a Bernhardus presbyter solitarius de Laide sancti Michaelis. After several years of preparation since 1135, according to the Annales Cistercienses, the cave and church were officially occupied on July 28, 1146 by Cistercian monks from the Kamp Monastery under the direction of Abbot Roger.

At the request of Abbess Beatrix II of Quedlinburg, Pope Innocent II confirmed the founding of the monastery in 1146 and the goods in Marsleben, Groß- and Klein-Ditfurt, Sülten and other places (today mostly deserted areas in the near Quedlinburg). Burchard joined the new convention. In the period from 1151 to 1167, the monastery was moved to Evergodesrode at the lower end of the valley where Michaelstein Monastery is today.

The dilapidated cave was excavated and made accessible again in the years 1884-1887 by Baurat Brinkmann.
Source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkmarskeller

The cave is called the lower church, or the ruins of the upper church from the 9th century can still be seen.