Marienthal Abbey (Westerwald)

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The Marienthal Monastery was a Franciscan monastery in the Westerwald in today's Altenkirchen district in Rhineland-Palatinate . Today Marienthal is a district of Seelbach bei Hamm (Sieg) . On June 30, 2011 it had 55 inhabitants.

Marienthal Abbey (Westerwald), aerial photo (2017)
The former Franciscan monastery now houses the Marienthal monastery gastronomy

history

Marienthal pilgrimage site

The history of the monastery goes back to the first half of the 15th century. According to the founding legend, a shepherd is said to have carved an image of Our Lady and placed it on the spot where the first chapel was built around 1460. The oldest mention of the pilgrimage site is from 1428. Around 1460, the image of grace that is revered today was also created. The chapel and the pilgrims were looked after during the time of monks from the Cistercian monastery of Marienstatt (today Streithausen in the Westerwaldkreis ).

The chapel was named “Marienthal” (“Mergendaell”) in 1489, when the Cologne auxiliary bishop Johann Spender inaugurated a new altar in the pilgrims' chapel. Because the chapel was too small, a three-nave Gothic church was built between 1494 and 1503 and placed under the patronage of the Sorrowful Mother . In 1502 the bell tower with a high pointed roof was added, and in 1511 the church received a 1,800 pound bell, which was sold to the Florinskirche in Koblenz in 1828 . In 1503 at the latest, a fair was set up in connection with the pilgrimages, to which two more were soon added.

Marienthal was in the county of Sayn , the Counts of Sayn introduced the Lutheran denomination from 1561 and the Reformed denomination in 1605. Pilgrimages to the church have not taken place since then.

Founding of a monastery

The monastery in Marienthal was founded in 1666 by Count Salentin Ernst von Manderscheid.

Salentin Ernst (1630–1705) was Catholic and had married Ernestine von Sayn-Wittgenstein (1626–1661) in 1651 , the heiress of the Hachenburg part of the County of Sayn. From 1652 on, Salentin Ernst and Ernestine took over the reign of the County of Sayn-Hachenburg . Ernestine died in 1661, Salentin Ernst married the Protestant Christina Elisabeth von Erbach (1641–1692) in 1662. Because of the mixed marriage, he received a dispensation. Out of gratitude, Salentin Ernst donated the Marienthal Monastery in 1666. Even before that, on Palm Sunday in 1664, the first Catholic service was celebrated in the pilgrimage church. The church was looked after by Franciscans from the Thuringian order province , initially from the Hachenburg monastery .

The construction of the monastery was delayed, which was also due to the special location of the church and the monastery. Marienthal was in the 17th century directly on the border between the two counties Sayn-Hachenburg and Sayn-Altenkirchen , but still belonged to the parish of Hamm in the county of Sayn-Hachenburg. In both counties, Lutheran and Reformed parishes existed side by side, in Sayn-Hachenburg the Catholic faith has meanwhile been allowed again, in Sayn-Altenkirchen, however, not. The foundation stone was laid in early February 1668, before the electoral approval was granted.

An altar consecration by the Trier auxiliary bishop Johannes Petrus Verhorst was reported in 1688 . Since Count Salentin Ernst had not approved this, he ordered the Franciscans to leave Marienthal within 14 days, but the Friars Minor were able to avert this by pleading. In 1701 the Archbishop of Cologne confirmed the foundation of the monastery. As early as 1703 the first monastery building began to be replaced by a new, three-storey half-timbered building on the hill above the village, in 1704 the Franciscans moved into the monastery. Due to dilapidation, the half-timbered building was replaced by a quarry stone building in 1756. The building was carried out by the Franciscan brother Cornelius Schmitt from Wessobrunn, the plastering was carried out by Wessobrunn plasterers.

19th century

The monastery was secularized in 1803 due to the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss . Under the Nassau government, the monastery was vacated in 1813, and in 1815 it came into Prussian possession. The monastery buildings were auctioned for 1,315 thalers in 1836, and the monastery church was donated by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. 1838 to the Catholics of Marienthal. Baron Everhard von Geyr-Schweppenburg had the church and monastery renovated and in 1853 transferred the monastery to the Archbishopric of Cologne . The church was partially demolished in 1839 and rebuilt as a baroque church, small and without a tower.

Lazarists were active in Marienthal from 1853 to 1864 and Spiritans from 1864 to 1872 . In a travel guide from 1865, the "former Franciscan monastery Marienthal" is described as follows:

“Of the old church only the choir building in pointed arch style, which, like the monastery building, has now been restored, the church and monastery belong to the ore monastery of Cologne, which, supported by the government, bought the domain and, as a place of punishment for clergy, Demerite asylum (Demeritenhaus), used under the direction of Lazarists. Since the choir building of the half-destroyed church has been given back to the church service, it has been a much-visited place of pilgrimage as before. "

Franciscans of the Saxon Franciscan Province (from 1929: Cologne Province ) took over the monastery again in 1892, they stayed until 1974.

20th century

The miraculous image from the 15th century was restored and consecrated in 1911. It has been in a side chapel since 1969.

The church was rebuilt and renovated in 1969. Old frescoes and an old vault were discovered. In 1978 an extension was built on the monastery building.

The first Franciscans left the monastery in 1971, and the Franciscans continued to care for the pilgrims until 1974. From 1979 to 2007 a priest from the “ Order of Saint Michael ” from Poland worked in pastoral care. Since 2008, priests of the Archdiocese of Cologne have taken on the pilgrimage pastoral care.

Miracle books

In the years 1487 to 1492 a monk from Marienstatt described the Marienthaler Wunderbüchlein , also called Marienthaler Mirakelbuch , in which 81 miraculous healings are listed.

A book of miracles has also come down to us from Hilgenroth , only two kilometers away , which was also a popular Marian pilgrimage site from the 15th to the middle of the 16th century . The Hilgenrother Miracle Book was written between 1427 and 1430, in it more than a hundred miraculous healings are described.

Marienthal today

Former monastery

When the Franciscans left Marienthal in 1974, the Archdiocese of Cologne initially set up a branch of their rural adult education center in Rhöndorf on the premises of the monastery . Since 1982 the house has been run by the Archdiocese as an educational facility called “Haus Marienthal”, which was available for conferences and courses. In the years 1997 to 2013 this was also the seat of the office of the " Education Center of the Archdiocese of Cologne in the Rhineland-Palatinate Region ", which was moved to Bonn at the beginning of 2014. Due to deficiencies in fire protection, the rectification of which was considered uneconomical for further operation in this form, the Archdiocese of Cologne closed the conference at the end of 2014. In 2015 a tenant was able to be won for the house, who has been running the Marienthal monastery restaurant there since May 2016. The former house chapel of the monastery has been a branch of the registry office of the Hamm / Sieg community since 2017.

Monastery and pilgrimage church

The current pilgrimage church was built in 1839, only the eastern part of the original church, built around 1500, has been preserved in the original. The two western bays were reconstructed in a baroque style around 1970. The high, single-nave church interior is decorated with stitch cap vaults and rocailles . The church's two bells are from 1880 and 1950.

Interior

The baroque high altar was only erected here in 1968, it comes from Windorf an der Donau. The high altar picture " Maria Immaculata " was painted in 1841 by Clementine von Geyr-Schweppenburg. At the back of the church there is a baroque organ.

The miraculous image

The 105 cm miraculous image of the "painful mother" dates from the 15th century. She is attributed to an artist of the "Cologne School". The miraculous image is in a side chapel on the right side of the pilgrimage church.

Place of pilgrimage

Marienthal is still a place of pilgrimage . The main times of the pilgrimage are from May to the first half of October. The solemn festival with a procession of lights takes place on the first Saturday after September 15, the day of the memory of the Sorrows of Mary .

Environment / traffic

In the monastery area there are two half-timbered houses from the 18th and 19th centuries , which, like the church , are designated as cultural monuments .

To the left of the Marienthaler Bach lies the Marienthaler Kreuzweg on a hill ; it was built between 1853 and 1869.

The breakpoint is one of four stations in Germany with a monastery reference in the name, next to Keppel- Allenbach Abbey in Siegerland , Bronnbach Abbey near Wertheim and Oesede Abbey near Osnabrück .

literature

  • Devotional booklet for pilgrims to the place of grace Marienthal together with a compact history of the church of the monastery and the like. of the miraculous image: Mary, you painful mother, ... pray for us! ; with e. Steel engraving . - Linz a. Rh.: Krumscheid, not before 1853. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Jakob Wirtz: Five hundred years of Marienthal near Hamm an der Sieg . 2nd edition, Werl 1928.
  • Gabriel Busch (Ed.): Hilgenroth / Marienthal. Two pilgrimage sites , Siegburg 1982.
  • Daniel Schneider: The development of denominations in the county of Sayn in plan , in: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Kreis Altenkirchen 58 (2015), pp. 74-80.
  • Daniel Schneider: The history of the local community Obererbach (Westerwald). The villages of Hacksen, Niedererbach, Obererbach and Koberstein from the Middle Ages to the present . Obererbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-027494-7 (2 volumes, with numerous references to Marienthal).

Web links

Commons : Marienthal Monastery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Marienthal (Westerwald)  - travel guide

Individual evidence

  1. ^ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate - Official directory of the municipalities and parts of the municipality
  2. ↑ a b c Hellmuth Gensicke: Landesgeschichte des Westerwaldes . 3. Edition. Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1999, pages 125, 343, 345, 440, ISBN 3-922244-80-7
  3. ^ A b Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments - Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1984, page 951, ISBN 3-422-00382-7
  4. ↑ a b c d e Marienthal Chronicle  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 91 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / tagen.erzbistum-koeln.de  
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Homepage of the monastery and pilgrimage church “To the Sorrowful Mother” Marienthal, Westerwald - Historical outline ( memento of the original from April 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kloster-marienthal.eu
  6. ↑ On denominational development cf. Daniel Schneider: The development of denominations in the county of Sayn in the plan, pp. 74-80.
  7. ↑ Christian Plath: Between Counter Reformation and Baroque piety. Mainz 2010, p. 119ff.
  8. ↑ Ernst Weyden: Das Siegthal: a guide from the mouth to the source of the river and through its side valleys , 1865, page 241
  9. ^ Reference to a mistake made by the travel book author from 1885: The Archbishopric of Cologne was dissolved in 1803
  10. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - Altenkirchen district. Mainz 2019, p. 35 (PDF; 5.2 MB).

Coordinates: 50 ° 44 ′ 10.9 "  N , 7 ° 40 ′ 16.7"  E