Franciscan monastery Halberstadt

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St. Andrew's Church with Franciscan Monastery

The Franciscan monastery in Halberstadt was founded during the lifetime of St. Francis and was therefore one of the earliest Franciscan settlements in Germany . The monastery on Franziskanerstraße belonged to the German Franciscan Province and was given up in 2020 due to a lack of young people in the Order.

history

The first Friars Minor of Pope Innocent III in 1210 . confirmed order came to Halberstadt in 1223 ( bishopric from 804 to 1648) and founded one of their first branches in Germany here. Around 1300 they built the St. Andrew's Church as a three-aisled hall church . The Halberstadt monastery was the only monastery in the Saxon Franciscan Province ( Saxonia ) that remained in place when the monastery was closed as a result of the Reformation . Of the Saxonia , only the convents in Eger and Halberstadt existed at the end of the 16th century . When Eger was incorporated into the Strasbourg province in 1603, the convent in Halberstadt turned to the monastery in Bielefeld , which belonged to the Cologne province ( Colonia ), with a request for help . The Cologne Province was at this time due to the Counter-Reformation and recatholicization large parts of their territory settled there. Seven Franciscans of Colonia from Bielefeld therefore moved to Halberstadt in 1616, so that the tradition of the old Saxonia was not interrupted, although in 1626 the last member of the province died. It was Father Johannes Tetteborn, appointed provincial commissioner of Saxonia by General Minister Franziscus of Toledo in 1603 and the only Franciscan in Halberstadt in 1616.

In Halberstadt, the Franciscans maintained a study house for the dogmatic-theological training of the offspring of the Saxon Order Province, which maintained scientific exchange with the Dominicans residing in St. Catherine 's , the Benedictines in Huysburg and the Augustinian monastery in Hamersleben . After the Reformation, the monastery was the center of spiritual life and a base for the pastors, who from here as Missionarii Saxoniae ("Saxony Missionaries") looked after the few Catholics in the diaspora in Saxony and Anhalt, as well as some nunneries. It ran an elementary school in Halberstadt, and the poorest children received a meal in the monastery. The Franciscans were also popular with Protestants because of their charity. In 1803 there were 21 fathers , five fratres studying theology and nine lay brothers in the Halberstadt convent . A further eleven priests who were active as expositi on outposts were registered with the monastery.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the monastery was closed in the course of secularization . The Prussian government carried out a painstaking inventory of the monastery property in early 1804, and the buildings began to be gradually taken over by the Prussian state and later by the French. On December 1, 1810, King Jérôme ordered the closure of all monasteries in the Kingdom of Westphalia , but this order for the monastery in Halberstadt, which was now again in Prussia, was not carried out until 1814 by the Prussian government. The Franciscans left their monastery in Halberstadt after almost 600 years. The monastery church of St. Andreas was preserved as a parish church; until 1837 one of the Franciscans was the pastor here (Flavian Ostendorf until he died in 1821, then Philipp Biermann, previously chaplain, until his death in 1837). Individual Franciscans also continued to work as pastors in places in the area. The state used the monastery buildings as a school and later as a workhouse.

In 1920 Franciscans settled again at St. Andreas in Halberstadt. On April 8, 1945, the monastery and church were destroyed by a bomb attack. In 1952 the foundation stone was laid for the new monastery building, which is characterized, among other things, by important stained glass by Charles Crodel from 1953 , and in 1982 the rebuilt church was consecrated. In 1996 the neighboring warming room for the homeless and the socially disadvantaged was built in container construction, and in January 2007 it became the sponsorship of the German Caritas Association .

At the provincial chapter of the German Franciscan Province in March 2019, it was decided that the convent in Halberstadt should be one of the monasteries that should be closed soon - probably in the course of 2020 - due to the lack of young people in the order.

On July 12, 2020, the last three Franciscans were adopted. Most recently they devoted themselves to pastoral care , retreat work and the Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis .

The neighboring Catholic church, named after the apostle Andreas , is now part of the Halberstadt parish of St. Burchard.

literature

  • Patricius Schlager OFM: From Halberstadt's Franciscan past 1223 - 1923. Franziskus-Druckerei, Werl 1923.
  • Markus Hunecke OFM: The Friars Minor in Halberstadt. In: Dieter Berg (ed.): Franciscan life in the Middle Ages. Studies on the history of the Rhenish and Saxon order provinces. Werl 1994, pp. 47-61.
  • Valentin Markowsky: The St. Andreas Church in Halberstadt. Kunstverlag Peda, Passau 1996, ISBN 3-89643-043-2 .
  • Achim Todenhöfer: The churches of the Franciscans and Dominicans in Halberstadt. In: Adolf Siebrecht (Ed.): History and culture of the Diocese of Halberstadt 804-1648. Halberstädter Druckhaus, Halberstadt 2006, ISBN 3-00-017849-X , pp. 535-554.

Web links

Commons : St. Andreas (Halberstadt)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willibald Kullmann: The Saxon Franciscan Province, a tabular guide to its history. Düsseldorf 1927, pp. 14-20.
  2. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Werl 1999, p. 329.335.343.
  3. ^ Georg Arndt : Scientific activity in the Franciscan monastery in Halberstadt at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. In: Franziskanische Studien Vol. 5 (1918) pp. 103-130.
  4. ↑ Franz Wilhelm Woker: History of the North German Franciscan Missions of the Saxon Order Province of St. Cross. Freiburg 1880, p. 102ff.
    Georg Arndt: The primary school of the Franciscans in Halberstadt, especially at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. In: Franziskanische Studien Vol. 15 (1928) pp. 126–160, here pp. 130ff. and 149.
    Rudolph Joppen: The Archbishop's Commissariat Magdeburg. History and legal status up to incorporation into the Diocesan Association of Paderborn. Part 1, Leipzig undated (1965), p. 79.
  5. ^ Compendium Chronologicum Provinciae Saxoniae S. Crucis , Warendorf 1873, p. 65.
    Franz Wilhelm Woker: History of the North German Franciscan Missions of the Saxon Order Province of St. Cross. Freiburg 1880, p. 107.
    Rudolph Joppen: The Archbishop's Commissariat Magdeburg. History and legal status up to incorporation into the Diocesan Association of Paderborn. Part 1, Leipzig undated (1965), p. 161.
  6. ↑ franziskaner.de, Halberstadt , accessed on May 10, 2015.
  7. ↑ franziskaner.ne: German Franciscans decide on priorities for future life and work , accessed on November 22, 2019.
  8. ^ Stefan Federbusch: Historical farewell. Franciscans leave Halberstadt. German Franciscan Province, July 12, 2020, accessed on August 5, 2020.

Coordinates: 51 ° 53 '39.4 "  N , 11 ° 2' 49.1"  E