Osek Monastery
| Cistercian Abbey Osek / Osegg | |
|---|---|
 Osek Monastery from the north |
|
| location |
 Czech Republic Bohemia
|
| Lies in the diocese | Leitmeritz |
| Coordinates: | 50 ° 37 '14.5 " N , 13 ° 41' 38.6" E |
| Serial number according to Janauschek |
507 |
| Patronage | Assumption Day |
| founding year | 1192 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1580 |
| Year of repopulation | 1624 and 1991 |
| Year of re-dissolution | 1950 and 2008 |
| Mother monastery | Waldsassen Abbey |
| Primary Abbey | Morimond Monastery |
The monastery Osek (dt. Monastery Ossegg ; lat. Abbatia BMV de Osseco ; Czech Klášter Panny Marie Osek ) is a former Cistercian - abbey and a monument of great historical and artistic value and one of the most important monasteries of northern Bohemia . It is part of the village of Osek (Ossegg) , which is located on the southern slope of the eastern Ore Mountains in the Czech Republic .
history
The monastery was founded by Cistercians from the Bavarian Waldsassen monastery in 1192 in Maschau near Kaaden . On June 20, 1196, the Bohemian prince and simultaneous Prague bishop Heinrich Břetislav III confirmed. the foundation. After a dispute between the landlord and the convent , the monastery was moved to Ossegg in 1197 to the property of the magnate Slavko , the ancestor of the Lords of Riesenburg .
The late Romanesque basilica of the Assumption of Mary was built from 1206 to 1221 and rebuilt in Gothic style after 1248 . It was a three-aisled basilica with the plan of a Latin cross and a right-angled choir with chapels and a transept. It had a length of 76 m, was one of the largest religious buildings in Bohemia at the time and also served as the burial place of the Lords of Riesenburg. The exact location of the tombs is not known. For the solemn inauguration, Pope Innocent III. who placed the monastery under his protection alongside the Prague bishop Daniel II (Milík) , relics of the holy martyrs Cosmas , Sebastian , Fabianus , Cyprian and the Blessed Virgin Petronilla . At the same time, all who attended the initiation or who attended Church a week after and on other anniversaries received absolution .
The cemetery on the north side was inaugurated in 1209. It was accessible through the Church and the Gate of the Dead ( Ianua morturorum ), which played an important symbolic role in the religious life of the Order. The church was provided with a flat ceiling and the three naves with pointed arcades. The walls were made of sandstone blocks, some of which are still preserved. The south wing of the convent with the early Gothic chapter house and parts of the cloister were completed around 1230.
The Lords of Riesenburg from the Hrabischitz dynasty made numerous donations to keep the monastery going. Slauko I. assigned them the place Ossegg, Haan ( Háj ) with the settlement Deutzendorf (Domaslavice) , Herrlich ( Hrdlovka ), Duban (Dubany) , Schönfeld bei Pfaffroda as well as income from field and wine growing and customs duties. Other members of the family also participated in the course of time with donations from entire villages or lands. In addition, the monastery did not have to pay any customs duties. The in 1234 Nížkov daughter monastery of St. founded. Bernhard was given up after only five years.
During the battles against his father Wenceslaus I , the army of Přemysl Otakar II caused severe damage to the monastery complex in 1248, and after the battle on the Marchfeld it was robbed by allies of Rudolf von Habsburg . The entire system could therefore only be completed around 1350.
In 1275, Abbot Theoderich (the Great) of the Ossegg Monastery in Ratschitz near Ossegg founded the pilgrimage site of Maria-Ratschitz , which survived the storms of time, and in the re-Catholicization in Bohemia in 1697 by a brotherhood of the "Sorrowful Mother of God" the laying of the foundation stone of today's church in 1698 revived the pilgrimage site. When completed, the pilgrimage church could accommodate 1,500 pilgrims.
The monastery was destroyed three times during the Hussite Wars . The campaign to northern Bohemia led by Jan Želivský in the summer of 1421 was defeated on August 5th near Brüx , but the monasteries in Doxan and Ossegg were burned down and the towns of Bilin and Dux were occupied by Želivský's troops. During the great Hussite campaign in 1426 under Andreas Prokop against Aussig and Brüx, the monastery was plundered again. The third attack led by radical Taborites in 1429 survived only a few monks of the monastery. During this time, the monastery was also strained by the befriended, Catholic Emperor Sigismund , who sold the monastery goods in order to gain money for further campaigns. The reconstruction after the Hussite Wars took a long time.
Due to looting and pledging , the monastery got into economic hardship in the 16th century, so that Pope Gregory XIII. the completely indebted monastery dissolved in 1580. During the interruption of the convent from 1580 to 1628, only the provost, who was in the service of the Archbishop of Prague, lived in the monastery. The facility was badly damaged during the Thirty Years' War . In the course of the re-Catholicization of Bohemia, the monastery was restituted in 1624 and endowed with endowments and donations .
Through intensive management of orden own lands and income from the monastery belonging to the oldest textile manufactory in Bohemia, the economic situation of the monastery improved. Abbot Benedikt Litwerig founded a wool sock manufacture in 1697 and a fine cloth manufacture three years later. The workers were trained by specialists from Germany. Many of the employees left the factories after a certain period of time, trained workers themselves and founded their own businesses, which later became the main economic focus, especially in Oberleutensdorf and the surrounding area. The art-loving abbot Benedikt Litwerig arranged for renovations and extensions of the monastery complex in the Baroque style from 1712 to 1718 , for which the master builder Octavio Broggio from Leitmeritz was commissioned.
Even during the Seven Years' War , the monastery suffered several visits by Prussian troops. In 1779, Emperor Joseph II visited the monastery. However , it was not affected by its reforms ; on the contrary, it received libraries and painting collections from other abolished monasteries.
1945 to 1990 there was a second interruption of the convention. In 1945 and 1946 the monks were expelled to the Raitenhaslach monastery in Upper Bavaria and for the second time in 1961 to the Langwaden monastery in the Rhineland. Until the expropriation in 1950 by the Czechoslovak state, the monastery served the religious order of the Salesians of Don Bosco as a youth education home, then as an internment center for Czech priests and from 1953 as a so-called retirement home for nuns who were not allowed to leave the monastery district. After the political change in 1991, the heavily damaged monastery complex was returned to the Cistercians by the Czech Republic , who are trying to repair it. The re-establishment of the convent in 1991 took place under the 48th Abbot Bernhard Thebes OCist († March 27, 2010) who came from Langwaden Monastery.
In 1995 the monastery complex was declared a national cultural monument, three years later the 800th anniversary could be celebrated.
After the last remaining religious, Father Charbel, was transferred to the Stiepel Monastery in Bochum , the monastery was closed in October 2008. The aim is to have the monastery restored with EU funds by 2013, whereby this measure would be linked to the condition that afterwards spiritual life move back into the monastery.
Monastery church
The interior of the monastery church still shows the original three-aisled basilica. Important artists were involved in its baroque design: the stucco work on the walls, the barrel vault and the side altars, as well as the sculptures of four apostles on the main altar, were made by Giacomo Antonio Corbellini (1674–1742). Johann Jakob Stevens von Steinfels created the fresco The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit from 1718 to 1723 . The other frescoes are by Wenzel Lorenz Reiner , as is a side altar painting . The altarpieces Martyrdom of St. Sebastian and Martyrdom of St. Mauritius were created by Michael Willmann , the main altar painting of the Assumption of the Virgin by his stepson Johann Christoph Lischka . The facade figures of the religious saints, evangelists and Bohemian patrons and also some sculptures inside as well as the pulpit , the choir stalls and the organ front were created by Franz Anton Kuen from 1714 to 1716 . Edmund Richter also created individual sculptures and was involved in the wood carving of the altars and the sacristy.
Monastery complex
The buildings of the old convent border the monastery to the south. The cloister with cross vaults and pointed arched windows is surrounded by a garden with three graves from the 14th to 16th centuries. In the early Gothic chapter house, built between 1225 and 1250, the vault of which is supported by two columns, there are valuable stone works. These include a particularly valuable lectern, the upper part of which can be rotated, and a statue of the Madonna (around 1340). The wall paintings were created by Johann Peter Molitor and Josef Kramolín . In a wall niche next to the chapter house there is a Romanesque relief depicting the Lamb of God . The monks' dining room occupies the southern part.
In the east is the convent building from 1705 to 1808 with the abbey library, the prelature and the ballroom . Contemporary paintings from the history of the monastery and tiled stoves have been preserved here. You can enter the garden through the monastery hospital. Before the prelature in the east and south of the monastery, Octavio Broggio laid out a three-tier terrace garden in the Italian style, which was equipped with pools, gargoyles, fountains and sculptures, some of which are no longer there. An English park was also set up in 1877 . The farm building with residential units is located in the south, which also includes the ruins of the brewery, the granary and the monastery mill.
Octavio Broggio created a richly stuccoed chapel of St. Barbara at the western entrance gate . The picture of the monastery is completed by the parish church of St. Catherine, an originally Gothic building, later rebuilt in Baroque style.
The baroque stucco of the refectory was created by Giacomo Antonio Corbellini.
Quote
Immediately behind the Ore Mountains you can find things that one looks for in vain from here to the Norwegian North Cape and beyond. In the whole of northern Europe such a prosperous, rich, beautiful and also beneficent monastery is only known from the novels. Here you grab it with your hands .
Personalities
- List of Abbots of Osek
- Karl von Lamberg (1570–1612), Archbishop of Prague, died in the monastery
- Laurentius Scipio (1611–1691), abbot of the monastery since 1650
literature
- Bernard Peugniez : Le Guide Routier de l'Europe Cistercienne . Editions du Signe, Strasbourg 2012, pp. 1076f.
- Joachim Bahlcke , Winfried Eberhard, Miloslav Polívka (eds.): Handbook of historical places . Volume: Bohemia and Moravia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 329). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-32901-8 .
- Erhard Gorys : DuMont art travel guide Czech Republic. Culture, landscape and history in Bohemia and Moravia. DuMont, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-7701-2844-3 .
- Mario Feuerbach: The Cistercian monastery Ossegg. Building history and design from its foundation in 1196 to 1691. Bernardus-Verlag, Heimbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-8107-9306-5 .
- Mario Feuerbach: The Osek Monastery, the pilgrimage site of Mariánské Radčice and the Cistercians. Development paths in the Bohemian-Saxon border area, places of Czech-German encounter / Klášter Osek, Poutní Místo Mariánské Radčice a Cisterciáci . Dialog, Litvínov 2012, ISBN 978-80-7382-151-7 .
- Mario Feuerbach: The tracery windows of the Gothic cloister in the Cistercian monastery in Ossegg (Northern Bohemia). In: Monumenta Misnensia. Yearbook for Cathedral and Albrechtsburg in Meißen , vol. 12 (2015), ISBN 978-3-9812406-4-1 , pp. 54–68.
- Mario Feuerbach: The Cistercian monastery Ossegg (Osek) and its pilgrimage site Maria Ratschitz (Mariánské Radčice) during the Counter-Reformation. A Roman Catholic Response to Luther's Teachings. In: Marco Bogade (Ed.): Transregionality in Cult and Culture. Bavaria, Bohemia and Silesia at the time of the Counter Reformation . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50132-7 , pp. 263-272.
- Bernhard Wohlmann: Chronological directory of the codex writers, the scholars, writers and artists of the Ossegg monastery . In: Xenia Bernardina , Vol. 3, Vienna 1891, pp. 243–249.
- The mountain vests and knight castles of the Austrian monarchy . Volume 9, Vienna 1840, pp. 91-93 .
Web links
- Site of the monastery
- History and architecture of the monastery as well as projects for preservation and restoration (Czech, German, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jaroslaus Schaller : Topography of the Kingdom of Bohemia . Volume 5: Leutmeritzer Kreis , Prague and Vienna 1787, pp. 146–152.
- ↑ Johann Gottfried Sommer : The Kingdom of Bohemia . Volume 1: Leitmeritzer Kreis , Prague 1833, pp. 149–150, item 1).
- ↑ Codex diplomaticus et epistoralis regni Bohemiae
- ↑ From a religious priest (di: Alexander Hitschfeld): Brief history and description of the parish and pilgrimage church Maria-Ratschitz and the miraculous image venerated there, the painful Mother of God under the cross. In the Kingdom of Bohemia, Leitmeritz diocese, belonging to the Ossegg monastery. 2nd, improved edition. Self-published, Brüx 1873.
- ↑ Now it is official: Osek Monastery closes its doors. In: Freie Presse, local edition Schwarzenberg, October 8, 2008
- ↑ From a travel report from 1842, quoted in: Johannes Arnold: Erzgebirge - Krusne hory. My travel destination for a summer. Rudolstadt 1979. p. 226.