Forest chapel Buggenhout

The Boskapel was founded in the early 16th century by Jacoba van Heffene, the widow of knight Jan de Rijcke, drossaard van Grimbergen and Buggenhout, on the spot where the knight was killed by a wild boar during a hunting party on 4 December 1504. A statue of the Need of God was placed in the chapel and gradually the small place of prayer was visited more and more. The chapel was partly destroyed and robbed by the iconoclasts at the end of the 16th century. The statue of the Need of God could be saved by the parishioners, but the memorial stone for Jan de Rijcke was destroyed. After the siege of peace, the chapel again became an important place of worship. Soon, however, the place of worship became too small and Princess Ernestine van Arenbergh, wife of Alexander II de Bournonville, Prince of Buggenhout, insisted on an extension of the chapel. She died in 1663 without any changes to the chapel, but ordered in her will to make a stone façade statue of Our Lady in Need of God (Pieta).
The wife of knight Jan van Boom, Martina van Waerbeke, the great-granddaughter of the deceased drossaard, agreed with Prince Alexander to enlarge the chapel. The works were started in 1664 and were completed in 1667. The old chapel was preserved and was integrated as the choir of a new, more spacious place of worship. The front building was 13 meters long and 7.5 meters wide and was built in Rupelmond brick with a vault in white bluestone. The bell tower on the chapel dates from 1764.
The Forest Chapel grew into a true place of pilgrimage and in 1683 and 1773 Pope Innocent XI and Pope Clement XIV granted a full indulgence on the third Sunday after Easter.
During the French Revolution the chapel was closed, but from May 1798 the ceremonies in the chapel were resumed and continued uninterrupted.
In 1885 the chapel was restored by Janssens-Lammens from Ghent and restored in the third quarter of the 20th century on the initiative of the parish priest.

Stichting Open Kerken