Erlach Monastery

Former St. Johannsen Monastery Church (2016)

The former St. Johannsen monastery, graphic by Johann Ludwig Nöthiger .

The former Erlach monastery , later called St. Johannsen , is a former Benedictine abbey and today a center of action for male adults in the municipality of Gals in the canton of Bern .

history

Located in the diocese of Lausanne , the abbey was founded between 1093 and 1103 by Cuno von Fenis , Bishop of Lausanne, on a Zihlinsel owned by the House of Fenis. The first monks came from St. Blasien in the Black Forest. Around 1350 the monastery was in brotherhood with the monasteries Pfäfers, Frienisberg, Bellelay, Fontaine-André, Gottstatt and St. Petersinsel, as well as in castle law with the city of Biel . Under the abbots Louis de Vuillafans (1365–1390) and Johann von Neuenburg (1392–1412) the church and monastery were almost completely renovated. The rich monastery property extended over the Seeland, the Tessenberg , in the Vallon de Saint-Imier , in Neuchâtel , in the area of Bern, in the Emmental and in the border areas to Lucerne , Solothurn and Aargau . Erlach also owned the church clauses of Erlach, Diesse , Grenchen , Oberbüren , Nugerol , Walperswil , Biel and Ligerz .

In the years 1528 to 1529 the secularization and the conversion into a Landvogtei took place under the still common name St. Johannsen. The nave of the monastery church was demolished, the choir and the transept were used as a granary. From 1834 the buildings of the monastery housed a factory, from 1837 an additional brick factory , until they were bought back by the canton of Bern in 1883 and converted into a penal institution. Since 1978 this has been a concordat center of measures for male adults.

Erlach Monastery

history

literature

See also