Cellitinnenkloster Düsseldorf
The Cellitinnenkloster is one of the historical monasteries in the city of Düsseldorf . The nuns belonged to the religious family of Celliten and devoted themselves to nursing.
history
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In 1650 six Cellitinnen moved from Antonsgasse in Cologne to Düsseldorf to fight the plague there from September 20, 1651. In 1699 they expanded their monastery and built a chapel and completed all parts of the building by 1736. The monastery was consecrated to Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia . If in 1750 they still had twelve sisters, by 1800 the number had grown to 15 sisters.
Previously active in home nursing, they added a hospital to their monastery in 1805, which enabled them to escape secularization . In the same year they received new statutes which limited the number of members of the convention to ten. At the same time, they were granted simple, secular clothing appropriate to their status in the nursing service , and the superior was appointed for three years by the electoral secret council of the Duchy of Berg . The vows of poverty , chastity, and obedience were limited to five years. The nursing sister should keep a small part of the care allowance, but transfer the rest to the monastery fund. The sisters should get their food at a common table. Each sister received five thalers a year for the procurement of laundry, shoes and clothing, everything else she had to pay for from her personal share of the care allowance.
In 1808 the community, which suffered from disagreements and petty arguments, had twelve sisters, of whom very few could still be employed in the care service. The state, to which the convent was completely at the mercy of finances, paid each sister a salary of 100 thalers. Until the re-establishment of the Archdiocese of Cologne in 1825, no ecclesiastical authority had any influence on the monastery, whose commissioner, who was also supposed to be the chaplain, was a pure civil servant and whose position was advertised in the government gazette. Although in 1827 of the ten sisters (their number was later to level off at nine), three were decrepit and four were old and only active in day shifts, in 1830 they asked the royal government in Berlin to let the former Carmelite convent near St. Lambertus , where they had one Wanted to set up a sanatorium.
As early as January 1st of the coming year, the church, building and capital assets of the former Carmelite monastery were transferred to them by cabinet order, for which they ceded their previous property on Hunsrückstrasse. Calling themselves Sisters of Charity, the last of them moved to the new monastery in the old town on October 24th , where they took in their first sick the following year. In 1841 the house, named Theresienhospital after the Discalced Carmelite Theresia von Ávila , had no fewer than 241 beds. Even if a sister was sent to the Viersen hospital in 1839, the end of the community was approaching, whose superior, sister Adelheid Loose, died that same year. Soon a crisis broke out, which the sisters could no longer master.
On January 29, 1840, contrary to the regulations of 1805, the community elected a superior, and after the death of the monastery commissioner the vicar general appointed a new commissioner at the request of the sisters, also against the aforementioned regulations. Working in the monastery in 1841 with nine sisters, two novices and six aspirants, the Archbishop of Cologne, bypassing the state authorities, gave them new statutes in 1843. The authorities subsequently granted their approval and released the number of sisters, but continued to claim to be asked for permission before each profession. In the following year, Sister Johanna Etienne and Sister Franziska were sent to the Neusser Bürgerhospital, which became independent in 1846 with the approval of the Archbishop. In that year the disagreements within the community increased sharply, the leadership of the superior, which was described as "unassuming and dispassionate", was only weak. This predicament and the low chances of being accepted into the monastic community finally made the best aspirants resigned. In the summer some of them joined the Congregation of the Daughters of the Holy Cross in Liège, so that the Vicariate General forbade the admission of new sisters and further withdrawals weakened the community.
From year to year there were increasing indications of an incessant decline. One witness described the conditions as catastrophic. The nurses were hardly ever called to the nursing homes, the donations fell noticeably, and the work in the hospital was no longer able to cope with the small number of nurses. Since the sisters were hardly ready for internal reforms and there was also no qualified leader among them, who probably obtained their offspring largely from the maidservant class, a community to take over care was sought since 1850. In a negotiation with the cathedral capitular Trost on July 24, 1851, the sisters took the sisters by surprise to such an extent that they stated on record that they were no longer able to run the house properly. They placed all the necessary measures in the hands of the archbishop and agreed to his orders in advance. With their signature, the seven sisters then irrevocably sealed the doom of their community. However, when they became aware of the consequences of their step, they asked the sisters in the Cologne Bürgerhospital for support.
The communities wanted to unite and set up their mother house in Düsseldorf. However, the bishop saw himself bound by the promise already given to the Liège sisters and rejected this last attempt at rescue. In 1852 the no longer viable community in care was replaced by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, but retained the sponsorship of the institute. While Sister Émilie Schneider took over the management with the title “Frau Oberin”, Sister Elisabeth of the Cellitinnen kept the title “Mother”. Five years later, three Cellitinnen lived in the house next to twelve Sisters of the Cross, and the branch in Viersen , in which only Sister Maria was located, joined the Sisters in Neuss. Since the three sisters still alive were in their bitterness hardly ready to hand over their property to the Sisters of the Cross , the Archbishop obtained a government resolution on September 26, 1859, which enabled the Sisters of the Cross to become the legal successors of the Cellites.
literature
- Ulrich Brzosa: Cellitinnenkloster Düsseldorf . In: Ulrich Brzosa: The history of the Catholic Church in Düsseldorf. From its beginnings to secularization. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2001, ISBN 3-412-11900-8 , pp. 323–327 ( Bonn contributions to church history 24), (At the same time: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 2000: The history of the Catholic Church in the city of Düsseldorf and of their formerly independent congregations from their beginnings to secularization. ).
- Clemens von Looz-Corswarem: Düsseldorf. In: Manfred Groten , Peter Johanek , Wilfried Reininghaus , Margret Wensky (eds.): Handbook of historical sites: North Rhine-Westphalia. Published by the regional associations of Rhineland and Westphalia-Lippe. 3rd completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-27303-9 , p. 282 ( Kröner's pocket edition 273).
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 42.7 " N , 6 ° 46 ′ 17.9" E