Mörmter Monastery
The Franciscan Monastery Mörmter is an existing monastery in the southern Brazilian province of the Franciscans in Mörmter near Xanten .
history
When the Franciscans from Dorsten were given the right to collect natural produce on the Lower Rhine at the beginning of the 20th century , a monastery was to be founded in Xanten, Lower Rhine. However, the takeover of the former Xanten Charterhouse failed due to the purchase price demanded for the Karthaus. The farmers Beckmann, Seegers and Siebers then offered 19 acres of land in the Mörmter district. On July 31, 1921, the foundation stone for the construction of the monastery was laid by the provincial leadership; From November 23, 1922, the Mörmter monastery was completed by 7 members of the orderinhabited. Soon afterwards the Franciscans in Mörmter were obliged by the Bishop of Munster to provide pastoral care ; In consultation with the provost of the Xanten Viktorstift , baptisms and first communions were carried out and marriages were concluded. The planned expansion of the monastery with a retreat house was discarded due to Black Friday .
During the Second World War , the monastery was used for billeting of the Wehrmacht . In the autumn of 1944, the district administrator even decided to close the monastery and take over the building by the military. However, the implementation of this decision failed due to the resistance of the mayor of Wardt , to which Mörmter was subordinate during the time of National Socialism . In February 1945 the monastery was used as a hospital for nearly 800 wounded soldiers. During the entire course of the war, around 80 soldiers died there, who were buried on the monastery grounds until it was captured by Allied troops together with the city of Xanten in March 1945 . In April 1945 the monastery was re-established and initially inhabited by 3 members of the order; later the number of Franciscans living there increased to 9. In the post-war years, citizens of Xanten, whose houses had been destroyed during the bombing of Xanten, also found accommodation there.
In 1977 the Mörmter monastery was transferred to the Franciscans of the southern Brazilian province and since then has served the members of the order as a retirement home. However, as the number of religious relocating from Brazil was decreasing at the end of the 20th century, the closure of the monastery was announced at the beginning of 2007 by the Brazilian provincial leadership. Both the continued use by Franciscans, who are then to be temporarily involved in pastoral care with younger priests, and the use by Cenacolo as one of several possible options proposed by the newly founded Förderverein Kloster Mörmter are considered possible future uses.
Since 2009, the monastery has been used by the Brazilian Catholic community Fazenda da Esperança .
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 40 ′ 32.9 " N , 6 ° 24 ′ 22.8" E