“The first altar stone from the original shrine was discovered by Fr Vermeegen to be in the possession of the parish priest of Betzdorf/Sieg. It was exchanged for a new altar stone on 1 May 1969. What happened was this:

One of Fr Michael Kolb’s last official actions as Rector Ecclesiae of the original shrine was to present the old altar stone of the original shrine to the group building the Schoenstatt shrine in Betzdorf. The parish priest, to whom the shrine was given, proved to be approachable. He agreed to exchange this altar stone with a new one when Fr Vermeegen asked for it. This happened on 1 May 1969. Fr Vermeegen is now the trustee of the stone. He can hand over this trusteeship if “the Schoenstatt Family, represented by the General Presidium, or also our own Institute (i.e., the Institute of Fathers) represented by the leaders of the community, wish to make use of the altar stone.”

We are happy to care for this precious object, although it no longer comes into question for our Sion shrine, because we will be using the altar stone from the Liebfrauenhoehe.“