Fahr Monastery

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View from the northwest

The Kloster Fahr is a Benedictine monastery in Switzerland and belongs to 1130 since its inception Einsiedeln Monastery . The 20 sisters shape their lives according to the rules of St. Benedict . The monastery has its own postcode "8109 Kloster Fahr". Fahr Monastery is a member of the Swiss Benedictine Federation.

The name of the monastery is derived from the passenger ferry that crosses the Limmat next to the monastery .

history

Fahr Monastery around 1800
Aerial photo from 100 m by Walter Mittelholzer (1919)

The Fahr monastery was founded in 1130 by the barons of Regensberg . The donation was made on the condition that a Benedictine nunnery was to be built and maintained at this location. The relationship with Einsiedeln is evident in the “To the Two Ravens” inn, which was built in 1679. The name can be traced back to the coat of arms of the monastery Einsiedeln with the ravens of St. Meinrad .

According to its own statements, the monastery is still the only remaining double monastery in the world with the Einsiedeln monastery. In the course of the Aargau monastery dispute , the abbey was closed in 1841, but reopened two years later.

The striking half-timbered house next to the entrance gate was built in 1946 and served as a schoolhouse for 20 years. On the upper floor was an apartment for the agricultural workers. Today the former classroom is used as a seminar room, the apartment is rented.

The baroque monastery garden in the inner courtyard is laid out in the shape of a cross and is considered one of the best preserved monastery gardens in Switzerland. In the middle of the garden stands a fountain as a symbol of life, the water of which flows in all four directions. In addition to flowers, numerous medicinal and culinary herbs grow in the beds.

Constitutional curiosity

Along with the Wonnenstein and Grimmenstein monasteries in Rhodes, the Fahr Monastery was one of the religious and political curiosities of constitutional law in Switzerland. The monastery complex on the Limmat has been a 1.48 hectare exclave of the Canton of Aargau , completely enclosed by the territory of the Canton of Zurich , the municipality of Unterengstringen , since 1803 .

Although the area has been part of the canton of Aargau and the Baden district since 1803 , it did not belong to any municipality until 2007. From 1803 the monastery was assigned to the municipality of Würenlos for administrative purposes only . The community provided, among other things, residents' registration and fire inspection. The residents also exercised their political rights in Würenlos.

Since January 1, 2008, Fahr Monastery has been part of the Aargau municipality of Würenlos, as the voters of Würenlos decided in a referendum on March 11, 2007. The Würenlos community assembly had already approved a 14-page contract between Würenlos, Fahr Monastery and the Zurich community of Unterengstringen without a dissenting vote. The contract brought clarity and many changes. The community of the Benedictine nuns has had to pay taxes to Würenlos since 2008. The community had previously been exempt from council taxes.

On January 22, 2009, the abbot of Einsiedeln Abbey, Martin Werlen , presented Fahr Abbey with a new seal . With the handover of the seal, the Benedictine Sisters in Fahr are able to conclude their own legal transactions again after 879 years of discourse. The first document dates from 1130.

Today's meaning

In the Convention today (2019) twenty nuns live. Like many other Benedictine convents , the monastery is devoted to economic activities in addition to the spiritual life. There are daily services and monastic prayer from the vigil to the evening Compline .

The sisters also deal with agriculture and viticulture and with the manufacture of vestments and paraments . From 1944 to the end of July 2013, the nuns ran a school for women farmers. The former school is on Zurich soil and is therefore not part of the exclave.

The writer and Benedictine nun Silja Walter lived in the monastery until her death on January 31, 2011. Irene Gassmann has been the prioress since 2003.

At the end of 2018, the Benedictines announced that they wanted to work as an investor in a project for intergenerational living with the Prosperita pension fund foundation ; Because of the proximity of Prosperita to the free church milieu, this decision raised concerns in Catholic circles.

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Description of the monastery complex. Description of the monastery church and its artistic furnishings. Description of the St. Anna Chapel
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

gallery

  • View from the west

  • Old school house and garden

  • Monastery church with exterior paintings

  • Monastery cemetery

  • Monastery chapel

  • Apse of the chapel

  • Altar area of ​​the monastery church

  • Ceiling fresco in the monastery church

literature

in order of appearance

  • Rudolf Henggeler : The Fahr Monastery. A guide through the monastery and its history. Kalt-Zehnder, Zug 1935. (2nd edition)
  • Silja Walter : The monastery on the outskirts of the city. Verlag Die Arche, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7160-1685-3 .
  • Silja Walter: The call from the garden. Paulus-Verlag, Friborg 1995, ISBN 3-7228-0370-5 .
  • Peter Hoegger: Art monuments of Switzerland. Volume 87: The Art Monuments of the Canton of Aargau. Volume VII: The Baden District II. Society for Swiss Art History (GSK), Bern 1995, ISBN 3-909164-44-7 , pp. 276–376.
  • Local council Unterengstringen, local council Würenlos (ed.): The monastery Fahr, two communities - one monastery. Festschrift. Unterengstringen / Würenlos, 2003, OCLC 633220349 .
  • Liliane Géraud, Martin Werlen , Susann Bosshard-Kälin, Josef Rennhard, Silja Walter: Life in Fahr Monastery. Paulus-Verlag, Friborg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7228-0719-5 .
  • Gabriela Simmen-Kistler: The Benedictine Convent Fahr (Swiss Art Guide, No. 893, Series 90). Society for Swiss Art History (GSK), Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-03797-021-8 .
  • Susann Bosshard-Kälin: In the car. The nuns tell from their lives . here + now Verlag für Kultur und Geschichte, Baden AG 2018, ISBN 978-3-03919-444-5 .

Web links

Commons : Kloster Fahr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information board on site
  2. ↑ Article: Fahr Monastery has the right to seal back from January 24, 2009 on medals accessed online on January 24, 2009
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ Helene Arnet: The nuns weave in prayers. Tages-Anzeiger , December 17, 2010.
  5. ↑ (cn.): Farmer's School in Fahr Monastery - It's over after 69 years. Article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung from July 29, 2013.
  6. ↑ Henry Habegger: Benedictine women rely on investors from a free church environment - Catholics are concerned. In: www.limmattalerzeitung.ch. December 22, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 24 '30.4 "  N , 8 ° 26' 21.5"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred seventy-five thousand five hundred twenty-seven  /  251329