Marienberg Monastery (Neuss)
The Klostermarienberg was from 1439 to 1802, a convention of the Regulated Choir Women in Neuss ( Rhine district of Neuss ), according to the Augustinian Rules lived. From 1857 until today it has been a convent of the Sisters of the Poor Child of Jesus . The late Gothic monastery church of St. Mary's Birth is used three times today. As a monastery church, as a school church for the archbishop's high school for girls and the Marienberg vocational college, and as a place of worship for the Italian Roman Catholic community of Neuss.
history
The name of the monastery as Marienberg ("mons beatae Mariae") has been documented since 1464. The branch of the Regulated Choir Women of the Windesheimer Congregation was founded in 1439 by the Neuss citizen Adelheid vom Stade. The spiritual direction was taken over by the prior of the upper monastery in Neuss , which had been founded nine years earlier by the Windesheim Congregation. The monastery church was consecrated in 1462, a simple, cross-ribbed hall building made of brick.
The main task of the nuns was the choir service, the reading of scriptures, the deepening in the life of Christ according to the rules of the Windesheim Congregation. Therefore there was also a library with spiritual literature, which was lost when the monastery was dissolved in 1802.
During a visitation in 1569 - similar to the upper monastery - deficiencies in compliance with the rules of the order were found. According to the report, friends came to visit, so the women choir neglected the service.
On the night of May 8th to 9th, 1585, 40 foot soldiers penetrated the city at the garden wall of the monastery in the course of the Truchsessian War and were able to allow 1750 soldiers of Count Adolf von Neuenahr to enter the city by forcibly opening the Rhine gate . The troops used brutal force to oppose resistance and looted the city. The mayor and other struggling citizens were killed. A year later, the Spaniard Alexander Farnese stormed Neuss in a fight against the Dutch and burned down parts of the monastery and church.
During the Thirty Years' War Neuss was occupied by the Hessians and in 1643 the monastery had to leave the church to the Protestant preacher Nikolaus Brill. In 1651 the nuns moved from the Holzheim monastery , which was also run by regular women of the Windesheim congregation and was destroyed by the Hessians during the war, to Marienberg. As a result, the convent grew and had to make extensions to the monastery in 1671 and 1710.
The convent was abolished in 1802 in the course of secularization and the sisters were expelled by the French occupying forces, which the church used as a magazine. In 1805 it was given to the Neuss Evangelicals as a parish church by a decree by Napoleon. In 1911, the sisters of the poor child Jesus from Aachen took over the house of God after they had already taken over the monastery, the orphanage and the secondary school for girls, today's Marienberg high school, in 1857 .
On December 31, 1944, the monastery church was destroyed except for the outer walls. In 1953/54 it was rebuilt, externally in the old form. Inside, a flat wooden ceiling was drawn in and a side aisle with a gallery above was added to the north and the choir windows walled up. A thorough renovation took place from 1996 to 1998. After removing the flat ceiling, the roof structure was opened to the interior with a wooden and steel construction in blue and brown, and the choir windows were opened again.
literature
- Manfred Becker-Huberti (ed.): Neuss churches. The Catholic churches in the Neuss District Dean's Office. Bachem, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-7616-1966-9 .
- Erich Wisplinghoff : History of the City of Neuss, Part 4: The Church of Neuss until 1814 , Neuss 1989.
- Karl Emsbach, Max Tauch : Churches, monasteries and chapels in the Neuss district. Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1986 ( series of publications of the Neuss district 13, ZDB -ID 1357699-9 ).
- Else Rümmler: The Princely Jülichsche Wedding in Düsseldorf 1585. The festival and its prehistory. Publisher Hans Marcus Düsseldorf 1983.
- Katharina Braeckeler: 500 Years of Praise to God on the Marienberg , in: 125 Years of the Marienberg School , Neuss 1982.
- Karl Tücking : Regulated choir women in the Marienberg canyon , in: Karl Tücking: History of the Church Institutions in the City of Neuss , Vol. 2 Congregations to Neuss 1887, pp. 171–180.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 12 ′ 0.9 ″ N , 6 ° 41 ′ 36.3 ″ E
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Katharina Braeckeler: 500 years of praise to God on the Marienberg . In: 125 Years of the Marienberg School . Neuss 1982, p. 100 .
- ^ Erich Wisplinghoff: The church Neuss until 1814 . In: History of the City of Neuss . tape 4 . Neuss 1989.
- ↑ Else Rümmler: The Princely Jülich Wedding ec. , P. 39