Franciscan monastery Amberg

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Former monastery church St. Bernardin of the Franciscan monastery, today Amberg City Theater

The Franziskanerkloster Amberg is a former monastery of the Franciscan Reformates in Amberg in Bavaria in the diocese of Regensburg .

history

The monastery consecrated to St. Bernardine of Siena was founded in 1452 by St. John Capistranus with the help of the city of Amberg. The citizen Johannes Pachmann transferred a piece of land to the city on condition that it be given to the Franciscans of the Strasbourg province. On August 24, 1452, the city gave this property to the Franciscans. Apparently the monastery was built very quickly, as an extension to the monastery had to be made as early as 1455.

Lutheran teaching gained a foothold in Amberg as early as the 1530s . Even Martin Luther campaigned for Protestant teaching in Amberg. The Franciscans, who opposed the new teaching, were attacked with a petition to the city council by evangelically-minded citizens. Ultimately, Amberg gradually came into the hands of the Protestants , in 1544 they became the St. Martin's Church , from 1553 they were also awarded the St. George's Church and the followers of the old religion only had the monastery church of St. Bernardin the Franciscans. Since the order was largely dependent on alms, it was no longer able to stay in Amberg in the Lutheran climate. Ultimately, the Provincial Wendelin Fabri handed over the Amberg convent to the Protestant-inclined Elector Friedrich II in 1544. The last two monks left the monastery in December 1555 and went to the monastery in Ingolstadt, which had remained Catholic .

Under Ottheinrich , Lutheranism was able to consolidate in the Upper Palatinate. However, it came under his successor, the Elector Friedrich III. , to tension. He was inclined to Calvinism , but Amberg refused to carry out this religious change. Nevertheless, a Calvinist pedagogy was set up in the former Franciscan monastery . The successor to Ludwig VI. was again inclined to Lutheranism; the Calvinist pedagogy became a Lutheran school. His interim successor Johann Kasimir made another change to Calvinism, the first church that was made available to this teaching was the monastery church of the Franciscan St. Bernardine (today the Amberg City Theater is housed here). Lutheran pedagogy became Calvinist again and many teachers and students had to leave this school. In 1598 the pedagogy was established as a normal school in order to better anchor the school in the population.

Inscription that refers to the construction, conversion and renovation phases of the monastery and later city theater

Reconstruction of the Franciscan monastery

With the victory of Elector Maximilian I over the Winter King in the initial phase of the Thirty Years' War , the Upper Palatinate came to the Wittelsbach line, which had remained Catholic, in 1623. One of his counter-Reformation measures was that the pedagogy had to be closed and left to the Jesuits for a Latin school . At the request of the elector, the Amberg convent was rebuilt by Pope Urban VIII in March 1624 and subordinated to the Bavarian Reformate Province. From 1626 the monastery was resettled by brothers, with the Franciscans working hard to get the population back to the Catholic faith. In 1628 the elector Maximilian received the Upper Palatinate as a hereditary fiefdom and he ordered the return to Catholicism in his religious patent; those who were not ready had to leave the country. The Franciscans were given the right to supervise the pilgrimage to the Mariahilfberg (see below). The extent to which the Franciscans were institutionalized again in Amberg is demonstrated by a splendid parade in 1691 on the occasion of the canonization of the two Franciscans Johannes Capistranus and Paschalis Baylon , during which an army of crusaders and the victory against the Turks were depicted.

This second founding of the monastery can therefore be regarded as successful, but the monastery was dissolved in 1802 in the course of secularization . At the time of the dissolution, the convent comprised 24 fathers and 10 lay brothers. These had to leave the monastery in the central monastery Freystadt . The monastery complex was bought by auction in 1803 by the Bruckmüller family, who have set up a brewery there to this day . The city ​​theater was housed in the former monastery church .

Pilgrimage church Maria Hilf near Amberg

Pilgrimage to the Mariahilfberg

In 1634 the Franciscans were also entrusted with the pilgrimage to the Mariahilfberg , which was initially operated from the city monastery. 1696–98, together with today's pilgrimage church Maria Hilf, a small hospitium was built as a subsidiary monastery so that the brothers could stay on the mountain all summer. This monastery was also secularized in 1802, but in 1832 King Ludwig I approved the re-establishment of the monastery on the mountain, which to this day still houses the Franciscans who take care of the mountain pilgrimage, initially by the Bavarian Franciscan Province . Since September 1st 2007 the Franciscan monastery has been run by the Polish Franciscan Fathers of the Order of the Mother of God of the Angels ( Cracow ).

literature

  • Christine Grieb: The Amberg Franciscans during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. In Tobias Appl; Manfred Knedlik (ed.): Upper Palatinate monastery landscape. The monasteries, monasteries and colleges of the Upper Palatinate. Pp. 195-202. Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7917-2759-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bergfest starts with good news. Now official: The pilgrimage business continues seamlessly - Polish Franciscans replace Bavarian ones. Amberger Zeitung from June 29, 2007.
  2. ↑ Ambergers said goodbye to “their” Franciscans from the monastery. Mittelbayerische Zeitung of August 26, 2007.

Coordinates: 49 ° 26 ′ 44.5 ″  N , 11 ° 51 ′ 14 ″  E