Orbais Monastery

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The abbey church
Look into the crossing

The Orbais Monastery was a Benedictine monastery in what is now Orbais-l'Abbaye in the Marne department west-southwest of Épernay in Champagne in northern France .

history

The monastery was founded around 680 by the later canonized Bishop Rieul of Reims , who called monks from the Rebais monastery and assigned them a place in the wide valley of the Surmelin River, which flows into the Marne nearby.

Abbey plan

One of the first abbots was the later Bishop Rigobert von Reims († around 740), who was relieved of his office as bishop in 717 and banished to Gascony because of a dispute with Karl Martell because of his attacks on church property .

Probably the most famous clergyman who worked in Orbais was the theologian and poet Gottschalk von Orbais (803-869), who as a monk in Orbais from around 830 to 838/9, based on an intensive study of the teachings of Augustine , his doctrine of the developed a double predestination , for which he was condemned as a heretic in 849 , removed from his ecclesiastical ordination, scourged almost to death and sentenced to life imprisonment in the nearby Hautvillers monastery .

At the turn of the 12th to the 13th century, Jean d'Orbais , the architect and first master builder of Reims Cathedral , built the Gothic abbey church "Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul", which has been preserved to this day and is classified as a Monument historique of the great Gothic buildings of Champagne, as it were as a prototype of the cathedral in Reims. The church has an impressive choir , cloister and five side chapels. The stained glass windows and the carved choir stalls are remarkable .

Cancellation and current use

The monastery was closed during the French Revolution in 1798. A cable factory has been located in parts of the former monastery since 1996.

literature

Web links

Commons : Abbatiale Saint-Pierre d'Orbais  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 57 ′ 2 "  N , 3 ° 42 ′ 3"  E