Honnen Chapel (St. Cruxis Chapel)

On 14 August 1708 a major fire ravaged Wachtendonk, destroying almost one hundred homes. In this plight Caspar Lauwart and Elisabeth van Kempen, who lived in the "Haus Püllen" on the Alter Markt, vowed to donate a considerable sum for religious purposes should their property be spared. The house survived unharmed and still stands today. In 1716 the couple additionally had an altar erected in honour of the Holy Cross, and around the same time a wayside shrine was built at Rüttendorf.

The first chapel was a timber-framed structure with clay plaster. After some 150 years the weather had damaged it so badly that it was pulled down. In 1856/57 a complete new building followed, a Neo-Gothic brick chapel designed by the Cologne architect Friedrich Schmidt. Its 1,500 thaler cost was raised through donations from the population. The base of the altar still comes from the earlier building, while the upper part was newly acquired. A sandstone tablet set above the portal recalls that the chapel was rebuilt in 1856 in honour of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary.

The slender building is crowned by a bell turret as a roof rider; the bell is still rung by hand today. Inside, sacred and rustic objects sit side by side. At its centre stands the altar with a depiction of Jesus in the arms of Mary, a Pietà motif. On the left wall hangs a handmade wooden sign by Wilhelm Hilkmann bearing the words "Thank God and be content"; he also made the wooden cross of the crucifix, while the earlier cross lies hidden within the altar. Opposite, a wooden panel bears the plea "Bless fruit and farmland. Guard against water, flood and fire" – a nod to the surrounding farming country. To the left of the entrance is a six-stanza poem by the local poet Heinrich Taxen, in which the chapel offers a friendly greeting to all who pass by; his sister Mina Taxen donated the wood for a new door. According to an unconfirmed local tradition, sacks of grain are said to have been hidden beneath the roof during the war years.

In 1986/87 the chapel was thoroughly renovated – funded and carried out by the residents of the Gelinter hamlet themselves; a further restoration followed in 2017. To this day it remains in regular use: for the rosary prayer of the United St. Sebastianus and St. Michael's Brotherhood of Gelinter, for May devotions and on the rogation days before Ascension. Since 1987 it has been protected as listed monument No. 132 of the municipality of Wachtendonk.