Carmelite Convent Aachen
The Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites (OCD) in Aachen was founded in 1662 and has been repeatedly removed and re-erected at various locations in the city.
The period from 1662 until secularization
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Around 1640 the Discalced Carmelites (OCD), at that time also called Discalceatessen , established two monasteries in Cologne : Sisters who had fled from 's-Hertogenbosch , the Carmel in Kupfergasse, and Sisters coming from Brussels and Antwerp , the Carmel Regina Pacis in the Rottenkirche house in Schnurgasse.
The Palatinate-New Burgess treasurer Wilhelm von Binsfeld, Freiherr zu Wijlre, Herr zu Binsfeld, Gertzen and Laurensberg, gave his sister, the Prioress of the Carmel in the Kupfergasse, Norbertina a Jesu, the former court of the Junkers Schönforst in the Aachener Pontstraße opposite the entrance to the Beginenwinkel, for example at the site of the later Theresienkirche and today's Alexander von Humboldt House. Due to the fire in Aachen in 1656 , the approval of the establishment of a monastery was delayed until 1660. The simple one-story house with two mansard windows in the pitched roof was the first new monastery to be built after the fire. The first sisters moved in in 1662.
With the election of Anna Maria von Wespien as prioress, donations increased and the construction of the Theresienkirche began. The Aachen jury, council stone mason and master mason Laurenz Mefferdatis planned and directed the execution. In 1745 the shell was finished and after a delay due to lack of money, the consecration to St. Teresa of Ávila . Further steps in the interior construction based on designs by Johann Joseph Couven lasted until around 1765. With the secularization , the monastery was closed. From 1803 a school for the poor used the building as the “Theresian Institute”, later renamed the “Josephine Institute” because of the support from Empress Josephine .
The period from 1858 to the Prussian monastery law
Parts of the former monastery in Pontstrasse, today the Alexander von Humboldt House
Theresienkirche in the 21st century
After a new Cologne Carmel was re-established in 1850 by two sisters from Liège , first in the Dechanei of St. Kunibert, then in a new monastery of St. Joseph near St. Gereon, the second monastery in the Rhineland was followed by a branch in Aachen. In 1858, Freiin Mathilde von Coels and Therese Pelzer contacted the hospice of St. John of the Cross in Courtrai . A former factory in Pontstraße next to the abandoned Carmel with a garden up to Eilfschornstraße offered itself as a plot of land. The construction of the monastery was approved in November 1858 and in July 1859 six Belgian sisters came. However, they asked for their return to Belgium as early as 1862.
Subpriorin Josepha and three to four other sisters, including Sister Theresia a Jesu, née Helene Hohmann, were then sent to Aachen to take over from Cologne. In August 1866, the convent elected Theresa as prioress.
The building in Pontstrasse was soon no longer sufficient for the convent that had grown. A new building in Lousbergstrasse was planned. In April 1869, the architect Schneider sent his plans to Cologne, and after complaints from the diocesan master builder Vinzenz Statz , he submitted the changed plans in August. After the laying of the foundation stone in September, the nuns moved into the new monastery building in October 1870. It was laid out in a square manner, with a choir, taxidermy, refectory, recreation and novitiate room, kitchen, scullery and laundry room, bakery, provisions room, inner sacristy and parament room, consulting room and three small rooms on the first floor, 21 cells and several sick rooms on the first floor , a small prayer room, robberie, consulting room. All cells had a view of the choir with the tabernacle. The church was built in October 1871 on St. Joseph of Nazareth designated . According to a design by architect Schneider, a main altar and two side altars were built there in 1872. In 1874 Mother Theresa was called to Neuss as prioress .
With the monastery law in the context of the Kulturkampf , the monastery had to be vacated in September 1875. The nuns moved to St. Pietersberg near Maastricht in a former hotel and converted it into a monastery, the Cologne residents founded a Carmel in Echt and the Neuss residents moved first to Baarlo and then to Roermond . In May 1880, Mother Theresa returned to Maastricht to the Aachen Carmel.
The building on Lousbergstrasse was still owned by the Aachen Carmelites. It was first used as a daughter boarding school, then collegiate bandmaster Heinrich Böckeler moved in with his church music school for the training of organists, which in November 1886 became the first diocesan institute in Rhineland and Westphalia.
The period from 1890 to the repeal under National Socialism
With the end of the Kulturkampf, the Maastricht Carmel was divided in 1890. Mother Theresa returned with a few sisters to Aachen on Lousbergstrasse. Kapellmeister Böckeler has just moved into the newly built Gregoriushaus in Eynattenerstrasse . The authorities had approved the monastery on the condition that only Germans could be accepted as members of the order and that the sole purpose of the monastery was to lead a contemplative life.
In 1908 the interior of the church was thoroughly renovated, with Johann Küppers doing the painting. Mother Theresa then re-founded the Carmel in Cologne as vicar, her fourth new foundation. With the repurchase of the Carmel at St. Gereon , she moved to Cologne with five sisters in October 1896 and built the Carmel to become the Infant Jesus of Prague. He moved to Cologne-Lindenthal in 1899 .
In July 1941, the monastery on Lousbergstrasse was closed and confiscated by the Gestapo . During this time the nuns found shelter in private quarters. In the course of the Second World War, an air raid hit the Theresienkirche hard in July 1943, in April 1944 the old Carmel was destroyed and at the end of the war the Carmel on Lousbergstrasse was no longer habitable. Only the rectorate and the gate house could still be used by homeless families. The church also suffered severe damage.
The time after the Second World War until today
With the end of the war, the sisters gathered again in Aachen and rebuilt the Carmel. In March 1954, the almost completed building was inaugurated and in 1958 they were able to complete the construction work. In 1981 they joined the German Confederation of Carmelites.
In 2009, the sisters had to give up the monastery on Lousbergstrasse, as it could no longer be financed and maintained by the small convent. They moved to Paulusstraße 10, where they share a monastery complex in the immediate vicinity of the former Dominican Church of St. Paul with the branch of the poor sisters of St. Francis . Since 1897 the nuns have found their final resting place in a burial ground in Aachen's east cemetery .
literature
- August Brecher: The Aachen Carmel of the Holy Family 1662–1990. In: History Association for the Diocese of Aachen. History in the Diocese of Aachen, Volume 1 . einhard / butzon & bercker, Aachen 1992.
- Ingeborg Schild , Elisabeth Janssen: The Aachen East Cemetery. Mayersche Buchhandlung , Aachen 1991, pp. 232-233, ISBN 3-87519-116-1 .
