Charterhouse Marienau

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charterhouse Marienau

The Marienau Charterhouse is a monastery of the contemplative Carthusian Order in Marienau, a suburb of Bad Wurzach in the Ravensburg district in Upper Swabia . It is the last charterhouse in Germany still inhabited by monks .

history

The Marienau Charterhouse has existed since 1964 after the Carthusians abandoned their Maria Hain Charterhouse, which was built in Düsseldorf-Unterrath in 1869, due to the expanding city and the expansion of the Düsseldorf airport .

In January 2020 it became known that the former abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Einsiedeln , Martin Werlen , had been appointed commissioner of the monastery.

Charterhouse

Sketch of a father cell in the Marienau Charterhouse

The Charterhouse was built between 1962 and 1964 according to a design by the architects Emil Steffann and Gisberth Hülsmann from 1961. The guiding principles behind the design of the Charterhouse were, in line with the order's ideal, poverty and simplicity.

The Marienau monastery is a so-called double charterhouse, i.e. This means that twelve hermitages have been laid out twice. Historically there are also simple and triple Carthusians. The overall system developed by the order itself under the leadership of Father Marianus Marck is divided into five functionally clearly distinguishable areas:

1. the central small cloister,
2. the great cloister,
3. the brotherhood,
4. the workshops (with a farmhouse),
5. the gate and guest house.

The buildings on the large cloister are single-story, while the other components of the charterhouse are two-story. They have all been built using the simplest of manual methods - plastered brickwork and wooden beam ceilings with red beaver tail covering. The outer walls are painted yellow. The whole complex is surrounded by a two and a half meter high and a total of 1250 m long cloister wall that can be passed through three gates. It also encloses the buildings of the former Feser Hof with greenhouses and a sewage treatment plant.

The center of the approximately ten hectare large monastery complex is the church with its simple wooden roof turret . Inside, the church is kept simply white and unadorned. The church is adjoined by the small cloister with handcrafted groin vaults, around which the common rooms of the monastery ( chapter house , refectory and library ) are grouped and to which the large cloister is attached, the characteristic element of every charterhouse. The hermitages of the Fathers are laid out around the large cloister . In Marienau monastery, the long wing of the large cloister with 9 of 24 cells (hermitages) is 148 m long, while the short wing is 101 m long.

The cemetery is also located in the middle of the monastery complex . Traditionally, Carthusians are buried without a coffin in their habit, lying on a wooden board. A simple wooden cross without a name serves as a tomb. At the front of the cemetery is another large wooden cross, under which the bones of the deceased of the former Maria Hain Charterhouse were transferred.

The two-storey Brothers Monastery (about 80 × 50 m with about 15 cells) can be reached from the small cloister via a wooden bridge. The brothers' cells are upstairs, and workrooms are in the basement. The Brüderbau also has its own brothers band. The free-standing workshop and storage buildings for metal and wood as well as for horticulture surround the Brüderbau. The gate and the guest house are laid out as part of the cloister wall. The rooms for accommodating guests are also located here. For family members of the monks who come to visit, a separate area with its own garden and chapel (“ladies' chapel”) has been set up.

According to their vocation to the lonely life that allow exam regulations of the Carthusians no access to the public. The Charterhouse cannot be visited. In 1983 the Südwestfunk Baden-Baden broadcast a report about the Marienau Charterhouse.

literature

  • Otto Beck (Ed.): Charterhouse Marienau. A place of silence and prayer . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1985, ISBN 3-799-54091-1
  • Rudi Holzberger: Carthusians. The alternatives from Marienau , in: GEO 3/1987, pp. 36–54
  • Monks of the Marienau Charterhouse (Hrsg.): Marienau Charterhouse . Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2004, ISBN 3-89870-184-0
  • Art d'Eglise , no.132, St. André Monastery, Bruges 1964
  • Gisberth Hülsmann (ed.): Emil Steffann (= architecture and monument preservation; 18). Bonn: German Unesco Commission, 1981, ISBN 3-922343-10-4
  • Gisberth Hülsmann, architect. La Pierre Qui Vire monastery ; in: Zodiaque , No. 169, 1991; ISSN  0044-4952
  • Under the spell of the Triune God . Adamas, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-937626-06-2
  • Hubertus Maria Blüm: Marienau , in: Monasticon Cartusiense , ed. by Gerhard Schlegel, James Hogg, Volume 2, Salzburg 2004, 442–444.

Web links

Commons : Kartause Marienau  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carthusian Order. 2019, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  2. ↑ jos.m.betle: Marienau map. In: BRUNONIS. January 27, 2011, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  3. ↑ jos.m. betle: Marienau. In: BRUNONIS. November 27, 2011, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  4. ^ Website of the Carthusian Order , accessed on April 29, 2018.
  5. ↑ Otto Beck and Oskar Zerlacher: As a guest - life to pray: Marienau, the only Charterhouse in the German-speaking area. In: youtube. Jofichtel, September 29, 2011, accessed on March 25, 2019 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 54 ′ 21.7 ″  N , 9 ° 59 ′ 58 ″  E