Monastery of St. Mary the Angels
The St. Maria der Engel monastery was a Capuchin convent in Wattwil in Toggenburg , Canton St. Gallen . The monastery goes back to a beguinage community in the 14th century who lived on the Hünersedel on the Rickenpass and later on the Pfanneregg above Wattwils.
The community was particularly significant in terms of church history due to the development and spread of the Pfanneregger Reform . After a fire in 1620, a new building according to Tridentine rules was started on the Wenkenrüti in Wattwil and in 1622 they moved into. The Capuchin Sisters left the monastery in 2010. Since 2012 the community of the Fazenda da Esperança has lived in the monastery leasehold.
history
The Wattwil monastery goes back to a community of beguines who lived in a hermitage on the Hünersedel in the 14th century. A hermitage of forest brothers, who lived in a brother house on the Pfanneregg, also dates back to the 14th century. According to the monastery chronicle, the beguines swapped places with the monastery brothers in 1403 because they wanted more peace and quiet - located directly on the Rickenpass . The sister house on the Pfanneregg was first mentioned in documents in 1411, when Kuno von Stoffeln , Abbot of the St. Gallen Monastery , gave the sisters the farmstead of their house and imposed house rules on them.
In the 14th and 15th centuries the Beginism was increasingly put under political pressure to adhere to a papal order of life . The sisters on the Pfanneregg decided to adhere to the Franciscan rule of third order and thus to avoid the threatening measures of repression and allegations of heresy .
The monastery on the Pfanneregg was hit hard by the great upheavals of the Reformation . In 1525, the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli , who came from Toggenburg , managed to persuade his two biological sisters, who lived on the Pfanneregg, to leave the monastery. With them, 23 other sisters left the community and left behind eight old believers, who then lived in great poverty. From 1531 the situation of the Catholics in Toggenburg improved and the existence of the community was secured again.
The wife's mother Elisabeth Spitzlin , who was in office from 1574 to 1611, initiated significant reforms. After an encounter in Einsiedeln with the Capuchin Ludwig of Saxony , who represented a renewal of the Franciscan Order with the Capuchin Movement , she initiated the conversion of the convent into a Capuchin convent. The resulting Pfanneregger reform movement then covered most of the remaining monasteries of the Franciscan Third Order Rule and spread to Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Alsace.
In 1620 a fire led to the fact that the recently expanded monastery building burned down to the foundations and the community had to leave the Pfanneregg. In 1621, Prince Abbot Bernhard Müller laid the foundation stone for a new monastery on the Wenkenrüti near Iberg Castle and the village of Wattwil. The new building was carried out according to the regulations of the Council of Trento .
In 1727, at the instigation of the St. Gallen prince abbot (the visitation right had been with St. Gallen Abbey since 1579) Joseph von Rudolfi introduced the cloister . For this, the sisters had to take a public vow and organize the construction of a monastery wall. The strict enclosure was maintained in Wattwil Monastery until after the Second Vatican Council and then gradually relaxed. In 1771 the " Eternal Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar" was introduced.
In contrast to the monasteries of Magdenau and Neu St. Johann , the Wattwil monastery survived the Toggenburg War / Second Villmerger War relatively unscathed.
During the time of the French occupation of the Swiss Confederation , the monastery got into great financial hardship as the sisters were instructed to feed a large number of French soldiers. Another challenge for the monastery was the efforts of the officials of the Helvetic Republic to subordinate monastic property to the state. An expropriation or annulment could, however, be prevented. When the St. Gallen Abbey was finally abolished in 1805, this had no major disadvantages for the Wattwil monastery.
In the 19th and 20th centuries - in addition to the times of prayer and Perpetual Adoration - the manufacture of candles and the care and cleaning of liturgical textiles were of great importance. The clients and customers were parishes all over Eastern Switzerland. Between 1980 and 1996 the sisters also looked after the fire alarm center for the communities of Wattwil, Lichtensteig, Krinau and Ebnat-Kappel.
Most recently, seven Capuchin women lived in Wattwil Abbey. In 2010 they decided to close their convent and move to various other Capuchin convents. The ownership of the monastery complex passed to the diocese of St. Gallen , which commissioned a board of trustees to manage the property and the cultural heritage.
In 2012, the Fazenda da Esperança was set up in the monastery complex , which helps people to get away from addiction or other difficult situations. The community with a basic Christian attitude lives in the tenant house of the monastery and uses and maintains the facility. It also offers overnight accommodation for pilgrims on the Way of St. James . Since the Capuchin Sisters moved out, services in the Wattwil parish have been held regularly in the baroque monastery church .
Monastery church
After a construction period of only 1.5 years for the church and convent wing, the monastery church was consecrated on October 23, 1622 by the Constance Auxiliary Bishop Anton Trittl . According to the monastery chronicle, the church and the monastery were consecrated to the Mother of God and the monastery was given its definitive name «St. Mary the Angel ». The high altar of the new church was also consecrated to Mary, as well as to Joseph , Gallus , Franziskus , Antonius and Leonhard . Only a few parts of this first interior have been completely preserved. The Renaissance altar from 1623 in the adjacent nurses' choir is particularly significant in terms of art history . It was used as the main altar in the church until the monastery church was baroque. Also preserved from the initial the main entrance to the church, the offertory , the Sanctus candle holder at the choir arch wall , wall lamps at the side altars and the Apostles crosses.
In 1653 the translation of the catacomb saint Leander from Rome was celebrated. The two Leander paintings made for this purpose contain the oldest depictions of Wattwil. Two more catacomb saints were later transferred (St. Victoria in 1726 and St. Boniface in 1767), which were located under the canteens of the main and side altars and have been preserved there to this day.
In 1774 Abbot Beda Angehrn donated a new high altar, which was probably created by the St. Gallen monastery brother Gabriel Loser , who had also played a key role in the design of the monastery library and the monastery church in St. Gallen. In 1864 the monastery church was again subjected to a major renovation. The main altar was changed again and a neo-baroque canteen, a new tabernacle and an altar sheet from the Nazarene school were added. The two side altars were also newly added. From an art-historical point of view, they did little to complement Loser's work of 1774. In 1981/82 the monastery church was extensively restored and largely freed from the art-historically controversial furnishings of the 19th century in order to restore a more authentic state from the late baroque period.
literature
- Andrea Engler: The monastery of St. Mary the Angels. In: Hans Büchler (Ed.): Wattwil. Central municipality in Toggenburg. Wattwil 1997.
- Christian Schweizer: Pfanneregg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Arthur Kobler: The Terziarinnenkloster Wattwil. 1970.
- Johannes Huber: Capuchin convent Maria the Angels . In: Johannes Huber: Along the Fürstenland-Strasse. The cultural landscape of St. Gallen Abbey, Volume 2 . St.Gallen 2008.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Christian Schweizer: Pfanneregg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland. 2009, accessed June 10, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Andrea Engler: The monastery of St. Mary the angel . In: Hans Büchler (Ed.): Wattwil. Central municipality in Toggenburg . Wattwil 1997, p. 104-110 .
- ^ Christian Schweizer: Pfanneregg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland. 2009, accessed June 10, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Arthur Kobler: The Terziarinnenkloster Wattwil . 1970.
- ↑ a b story. In: Stiftung Kloster St. Maria der Engel Wattwil. 2018, accessed June 10, 2020 .
- ↑ Fazenda da Esperanca Wattwil. 2017, accessed June 10, 2020 .
- ^ Church services Parish Wattwil. In: Pastoral Care Unit Neutoggenburg. Retrieved June 10, 2020 .