Meyendorf
Meyendorf is a district of the city of Wanzleben-Börde in Saxony-Anhalt . From 1267 until the secularization in 1810 there was a Cistercian convent in the village, which today houses a care center.
History of the monastery
From the hospital to the Cistercian monastery
The Archbishop of Magdeburg , Ludolf, is said to have mentioned Meyendorf in a deed of donation in 1192. And it was also Ludolf who in 1200 was probably the first in the German Reich to donate a piece of land to the Teutonic Order for a hospital for poor and sick care in the western part of Halle an der Saale and thus perhaps a destination for the first mention of Meyendorf Present should give. Because today people in need of care are looked after here. Initially, however , Meyendorf was a farming village in the Middle Ages and the seat of the noble family of the same name. Finally, the brothers Heinrich von Gronenberg, provost and cantor of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, and Knight Gebhard founded a Cistercian monastery there in 1267 . From then on, the village itself was less important than the monastery. However, the monastery soon gained reputation and prosperity through acquisitions and donations.
Between Halberstadt and Magdeburg , Meyendorf was the youngest of the monasteries founded in the Middle Ages. Among other things, the donors donated the church to the monastery to be founded, the pastoral care of which was to fall to the provost , released it from the jurisdiction of the archdeacon of Seehausen and handed it over to Bishop Volrad . The papal confirmation followed in 1268. Immediately a hasty desire to buy and earn a living was asserted, as if it was a matter of catching up on the lead of the neighboring older monasteries.
The nuns (43 virgins and 48 lay sisters) put up aggressive resistance to the Reformation . Before the visitation , Heinrich vd Asseburg complained as court lord in 1563 that “the nuns in the same monastery were not alone in front of their people in their damned papisterey and the like. faithful abotterey wantonly u. defiantly persist, but also his people and the like. secretly pulling vndertanen u. to such their abotterey. ”But all attempts at reform had only the success that in 1624 the provost and half of the convent were Protestant.
The devastating fire of 1610
On August 1, 1610, a great fire reduced the Gothic monastery to rubble and ashes. Not much has been preserved from the first monastery buildings and the church. Today in the baroque monastery church there is still a beautiful tombstone of Abbess Christina (d. 1508), a Gothic winged altar of Mary from 1477, a Pieta and a Madonna from the time before the fire (around 1450-90). Abbess and Madonna lived right and bad Nuns in the monastery ruins and the marauding Imperial and Swedish troops of the Thirty Years' War continued to damage monastic life. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 secured the existence of the monastery. At a visitation in 1650 the convent again consisted of six professed sisters and four novices. At that time they had a Catholic provost who was forbidden by the visitors of the Evangelical administrator in Magdeburg to marry married couples, even if they were Catholic. The evangelical servants of the monastery were looked after by the evangelical pastor of the neighboring village.
The battle for the provost's office lasted from 1684 to 1710. The monastery had to bow to the pressure of the Prussian king and fill the position with Protestant lay people. Nevertheless, the internal and external construction of the monastery continued. In 1709 Theresia Henkel was elected abbess. When she died in 1733 she was called the second founder of the monastery. In 1712 the convent had grown again to 19 conventual women. The abbess began to rebuild the monastery and the church in the baroque style around 1720. At that time, the offspring came mainly from Eichsfeld and the Diocese of Hildesheim .
In 1766 the abbess Johanna Vollmer was elected. Together with the now Catholic provost Father Alanus Hartung, she continued the construction of the monastery. An important decision by the Prussian king fell during her reign. In 1769 the old Fritz , King Friedrich II., Allowed the Catholics who lived in Meyendorf and on the Vorwerk Gehringsdorf to be looked after by the Catholic clergyman. However, they had to pay the fees for baptisms and weddings to the local evangelical pastor. In return for the discount, the monastery had to agree to settle 22 colonist families ( Huguenots ) on the monastery grounds.
In 1810 the monastery was closed
In 1774 the monastery was given permission to elect a Catholic provost in the future. However, the convent had to make a donation of 2000 Talers for the construction of St. Hedwig's Church in Berlin. Since then, the Meyendorfer monastery provost has full parish rights again. In 1775, for example, Father Alanus Hartung from the Cistercian Abbey of Reifenstein in Eichsfeld was elected provost by the convent. Under his administration, the new construction of the monastery and the interior of the church were completed. But the sisters couldn't enjoy their new monastery for a long time. On September 16, 1810, the abbess Maria Elisabeth Kellner and the sisters were informed of the dissolution of the abbey by decree of King Jerome Bonaparte . The state recognized the parish. With the exception of the church and the buildings necessary for the parish, the Magdeburg industrialist Johann Gottlob Nathusius bought the monastery property. The Catholic community at that time had 325 believers.
present
The parish, which is one of the original parishes of today's diocese of Magdeburg, was abolished in 2012 and incorporated into the newly founded parish of St. Bonifatius Wanzleben. The monastery buildings house an old people's and nursing home.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ History , accessed December 3, 2017
- ↑ 750 years of Meyendorf Monastery , accessed on December 3, 2017
Mountains | Blumenberg | Bottmersdorf | Book | Domersleben | Three life | Eggenstedt | Groß Rodensleben | Hemsdorf | Hohendodeleben | Klein Germersleben | Klein Rodensleben | Meyendorf | Remkersleben | Schleibnitz | City of Frankfurt | City of Seehausen | City of Wanzleben | Zuckerdorf Klein Wanzleben
Coordinates: 52 ° 5 ' N , 11 ° 20' E