St. Marienthal Monastery
| St. Marienthal Monastery | |
|---|---|
 Cistercian abbey St. Marienthal on the Neisse (aerial photo, 2019) |
|
| location |
 Germany Saxony Ostritz |
| Lies in the diocese | Dresden-Meissen |
| Coordinates: | 50 ° 59 '52.7 " N , 14 ° 55' 28.7" E |
| Patronage | Assumption Day |
| founding year | before 1234 |
| Congregation | 2014 incorporated directly into the Order (OCist) |
|
Daughter monasteries |
|
Kloster St. Marienthal ( Latin Abbatia Vallis BMV ) is a Cistercian - Abbey in the Saxon Oberlausitz . It is the oldest women's monastery of the order in Germany, which has existed without interruption since its foundation.
location
St. Marienthal is located south of the small town of Ostritz in the Marienthal district, directly on the left bank of the Lusatian Neisse , which has formed the German-Polish border here since 1945 . To Görlitz in the north the distance is about 20 kilometers.
history
Following the monastic tradition, the monastery was founded in 1234 by Kunigunde , daughter of Philip of Swabia and wife of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia , near a trade route that led from Prague via Zittau to Görlitz. However, the corresponding document only proves the donation of the now desolate village of Seifersdorf von Kunigunde to an existing convent . Recent research suggests that the original founding initiative could have come from the Burgraves of Dohna shortly before , who were about to build up their own rule around Ostritz and in this context - as a typical conclusion to successful rule formation - Marienthal as a family burial place and place of family memory planned. A few years later, the Přemyslids would have incorporated the monastery into their own rule policy in the course of confirmations required under feudal law .
As early as 1235 St. Marienthal was incorporated into the Cistercian order and assigned to its Bohemian province. The abbot of Altzella Monastery initially acted as the visitor . After Wenzel had sealed the foundation, subject to the bailiwick, in 1238, the Prague bishop , whose diocese the area originally assigned to the Meißner bishop had been assigned to, consecrated the church in 1245. It was not until 1783 that the church's ties to Prague were broken and the monastery was subordinated to the Bautzen cathedral dean . Previously, in 1242, the king transferred the village of Jauernick to the monastery. a. Hertwicus de Sprewemberch acted as guarantor.
The abbey subsequently acquired extensive property, including a. the city and rule of Ostritz and half of the rule of Rohnau . St. Marienthal also benefited from donations from the nobility in the area, in particular the burgraves of Dohna mentioned above. After the monastery was freed from lower jurisdiction in 1238 , King John of Bohemia also granted it high jurisdiction in 1346 . The nuns operate on part of their property own economy . A Vogt, usually a nobleman from the area, represented the monastery in economic and later also in legal matters.
The abbey was destroyed in the Hussite Wars in 1427. Until the restoration in 1452, the convent had to remain in its house in Görlitz. In 1515, 1542 and - particularly devastating - in 1683, fires again caused severe damage. In 1685 the reconstruction began in the baroque style. The Northern War drove the nuns again in 1707, this time to Bohemia.
During the Reformation , the abbey could not prevent numerous monastery villages from becoming Protestant. This led to the curious situation that the Catholic convent had to appoint evangelical pastors as patron saint and even the bailiffs of the monastery were evangelical. In St. Marienthal, too, the “New Doctrine” evidently found such a response that three abbesses had to be deposed in the 16th and 17th centuries, which prevented them from being converted into a secular women's monastery. While the convent in the pre-Reformation period consisted almost exclusively of nobles from Upper Lusatia, after the Reformation it was dominated by commoners. The abbesses often came from Silesia or Bohemia. After the Reformation, the visitations were taken over by the abbots of Neuzelle Abbey or Bohemian monasteries ( Königsaal , Ossegg ).
The traditional recession of 1635 and the constitution of 1831 ensured the abbey continued existence as well as all traditional rights and freedoms, even under Saxon rule. At the beginning of the 19th century, St. Marienthal was the landlady in 21 towns and four other districts; in the 20th century it still had numerous patronage rights in surrounding places. In 1838 the monastery founded an orphanage and a school that had to close in 1938. The Himmelspforten monastery in Moravia , which was dissolved in the course of the Josephine reforms , was re-established from Marienthal in 1901 .
The “great water shortage” in Saxony in 1897 also had a devastating effect in St. Marienthal. The Neisse flood destroyed v. a. the baroque interior of the monastery church. During the Second World War in the monastery u. a. a hospital set up. The sisters' refusal to leave the monastery prevented the SS from blowing up the building at the end of the war; only the Neisse bridge was destroyed. With the new demarcation after 1945, the abbey lost extensive property in what is now Polish areas; however, the expropriation of the remaining property in the course of the land reform could be prevented. In 1952, the monastery was given back the status of a public corporation , which had been revoked by the National Socialist rulers.
In 1955 the monastery established the St. Joseph nursing home for disabled women and girls, followed in 1979 by the Pater Kolbe farm in Schlegel - a home for disabled men.
Along with 25,000 people celebrated the Convention 1984 - still under socialist conditions - its 750th anniversary, before the turn of the year 1989 opened freedom and more room for maneuver: in 1992, the Convention established the International Meeting Center St. Marienthal , dedicated to reconciliation and understanding in the tri-border region dedicated . After the Pater-Kolbe-Hof was expanded and renovated, the women and girls also moved there in 1999, and St. Josef was converted into a guest house.
After numerous resources and efforts had been put into the renovation of the monastery since 1989, a flood of the Neisse River in August 2010 caused devastating damage estimated at several million euros. In 2018 the Chapel of the Cross and St. Michael of the East Saxon Monastery of Sankt Marienthal will be completely restored.
present
In 2016 there were 15 sisters in the convent . Elisabeth Vaterodt has been the abbess since 2016. Her predecessor Regina Wollmann , who succeeded Pia Walter in 1993 , had resigned as abbess at the age of 75 in January 2016.
The St. Marienthal Convent owns large agricultural areas, most of which are leased. The vineyard leased from the monastery is the easternmost in Germany. The abbey supports the Pater-Kolbe-Hof (home for the disabled) with 74 residents in Schlegel . The associated workshop for disabled people offers 30 jobs.
The extensive monastery complex is historically significant. It includes the convent buildings with the abbey as the abbess's residence, the monastery church, the provost's office (formerly the provost's apartment ), the cross chapel and ancillary buildings such as a bakery , a sawmill , a former mill and a brewery . The monastic brewing license was transferred in 1998 to the private brewery Eibau , which now produces the new monastery beer - St. Marienthaler Klosterbräu “St. M ”.
The international meeting center offers an extensive seminar program and overnight accommodations in several guest houses.
Due to financial constraints, a 9 square kilometer forest that had belonged to the monastery since it was founded had to be sold to an investor in 2010.
Until 2014 the abbey belonged to the Bohemian Cistercian Congregation of the “Purest Heart of Mary” ( Congregatio Purissimi Cordis BMV ), which was formed in 1923 . After its dissolution due to the scandals in the Danish Cistercian Abbey of Sostrup , which was closed in 2013 , originally a foundation of the Marienthal subsidiary Porta Coeli , it was directly subordinate to the Abbot General of the Cistercian Order and no longer belongs to an internal monastery association.
In 2019 a television thriller " Wolfsland - The Holy Grave " was filmed in the monastery and broadcast on November 28, 2019 on ARD.
See also
Literature and Sources
- Lars-Arne Dannenberg : The St. Marienthal Monastery and the Burgraves of Dohna. In: New Lusatian Magazine . New series, Volume 11, 2008. Gunter Oettel, Görlitz 2008, ISBN 978-3-938583-23-4 , pp. 89-104.
- Walter Schlesinger (Ed.): Handbook of the historical sites of Germany . Volume 8: Saxony (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 312). Unchanged reprint of the 1st edition 1965. Kröner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-520-31201-8 .
- Josefine Schmacht: The Cistercian Abbey of St. Marienthal from 1800 to 2000 in the mirror of its abbesses. StadtBILD-Verlag, Görlitz 2004.
- Joseph Bernhard Schönfelder: Documented history of the Royal Jungfrauenstift and St. Marienthal Monastery in the Royal Saxon Upper Lusatia. Schöps, Zittau 1834.
- Jan Zdichynec: Klášter Marienthal mezi králi, městy a šlechtou (1234–1547). In: Lenka Bobková (ed.): Korunní země v dějinách českého státu. Volume 1: Integrační a partikulární rysy českého státu v pozdním středověku. Prague 2003, pp. 166-218.
- Cornelius Gurlitt : St. Marienthal. In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 29. Issue: Amtshauptmannschaft Zittau (Land) . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1906, p. 109.
- Lars-Arne Dannenberg, Jan Zdichynec, Gisela Rieck: Bohemian protection and wise tolerance. The path of St. Marienthal Abbey through the turmoil of the Reformation era. In: Cistercienser Chronik , 125th vol. (2018), pp. 20–27.
Web links
- Monastery site of St. Marienthal near Ostritz
- International meeting center (IBZ) with training events in St. Marienthal
- Services of the St. Marienthal monastery operations (shop, guided tours, food, accommodation, spirituality)
- Elenchus Monasteriorum Ordinis Cisterciensis (List of Cistercian Monasteries), edition of May 28, 2018, pp. 71-72
- Entry to St. Marienthal Abbey on Order online
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Lars-Arne Dannenberg: The St. Marienthal Monastery and the Burgraves of Dohna . In: New Lusatian Magazine . New series, Volume 11, 2008, Gunter Oettel, Görlitz 2008, ISBN 978-3-938583-23-4 , pp. 89-104.
- ↑ Peter Schilder: The Neisse simply jumped over the wall . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . August 9, 2010, accessed February 13, 2011.
- ↑ Sankt Marienthal: Chapel restored after flood damage. Retrieved January 26, 2019 .
- ^ The St. Marienthal Convent , accessed on May 19, 2016.
- ^ Catholic News Agency, May 18, 2016.
- ↑ https://www.bierbasis.de/bier/St-Marienthaler-Klosterbraeu-Dunkel
- ↑ http://www.kloster-service.de/Kloster-Service/Markt/markt.html
- ↑ Blue blood in the monastery forest. Sächsische Zeitung, July 20, 2015, accessed on November 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Congregation Purissimi Cordis BMV in the Cistopedia .
- ↑ Elenchus Monasteriorum Ordinis Cisterciensis (Directory of Cistercian Monasteries), edition of May 28, 2018, p. 41.