Lennep Minorite Monastery

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Monastery church in Lennep

The Minoritenkloster Lennep was a monastery of the Franciscan Minorites in Lennep (today Remscheid- Lennep) in North Rhine-Westphalia . The church building is considered to be the oldest completely preserved sacred building in Remscheid and is currently used as a cultural center.

history

As early as 1400, but no later than 1444, there was a Franciscan monastery in Lennep, in which they operated a three-class Latin school from 1454. However, like the entire city, the monastery fell victim to a city fire on September 26, 1563. The city was rebuilt in the following years, but at the same time the Reformation also took hold in small steps (clothing, festivals, confession, communion, etc.). For example, in the church where the first Protestant pastor Johann Becker preached in 1595, there was still a Catherine altar. For this altar there was still income from a Katharinenvikariegut and two candles were allowed to burn on it, but the masses linked to it were no longer allowed to be read there. The St. Kunibert Abbey in Cologne could no longer exercise its right to fill the pastoral position; it failed because of the objections of the city's magistrate.

In 1641 the sovereign, the Duke of Berg , allowed Minorites from Cologne to settle in Lennep and to set up a hostel for their confreres on their way from Cologne to Dortmund or Münster. On March 8, 1642, three brothers were able to purchase a house from the only married couple who remained in Lennep and move into it at short notice. They received parish rights in 1643. At first they were dependent on donations, but only in 1664 did they receive income from the Katharinenstiftung. On July 6, 1677, they began building a three-winged monastery on the property on the outskirts of the city, which was completed in 1681. The fourth wing around the cloister was the single-nave, late Gothic church, which was consecrated to the patron saint Bonaventura on August 24th, 1700 by Abbot Joh.Jakob Lohe of the Altenberg monastery and also served as a parish church for parishioners from Lennep, Remscheid and Lüttringhausen. The church was 30 m long, 11 m wide and 13 m high and, as is usual with minorite churches, has a baroque roof turret instead of a tower . Side altars showed Antony of Padua and Our Lady. The image of the local saint Catherine was also transferred here from the Protestant church.

The dispute with the Knights of the Cross from Beyenburg about the membership of the approximately 500 parishioners, some of whom also came from Lüttringhausen and Remscheid, was won by the Minorites in 1732. The minority community had been given the privilege of teaching Lennep, Lüttringhausen and Remscheid. At first this took place in the rented house, later in the monastery. Around 1732 the number of - not only Catholic - schoolchildren had grown to such an extent that a school building was built.

The twelve or so brothers in Lennep understood the surrounding area, whose population now largely followed the Lutheran or Reformed creed, as a mission area. They preached on the market square at an altar erected there and organized processions from Wermelskirchen and Burg to Lennep. In September 1744 they invited three Jesuits for the mission. Then Catholics from Elberfeld, Hückeswagen, Beyenburg, Wipperfürth, Solingen, Burg and other places in the area came to the city. After protests by the evangelical community, these mission attempts were not made. Due to its peripheral location in the city, the monastery was one of only a few houses to remain undestroyed when the city burned again on October 6, 1746. In 1760 the Minorites established a house of prayer in Ronsdorf for the small Catholic community there. In 1803 the monastery was secularized , but the church continued to be used as a parish church. The monks had to leave the monastery and the school was closed. The Lutheran congregation and the magistrate campaigned for Father Albert Rinck to continue to look after the congregation as a pastor.

After the secularization, the inventory of the monastery was auctioned. Parts of a library came to the Electoral Library in Düsseldorf, whose holdings were later transferred to the University and State Library of Düsseldorf . The Lennep merchant Johann Daniel Fuhrmann acquired the property in 1810.

Due to the increasing industrialization, the community quickly grew to around 3,000 members. To create additional space in the church, the side altars were removed in 1820 and a gallery was added in 1831. A separate church was built there in 1847 for the parishioners from Remscheid. However, all of this was not enough. As far as Koblenz and Trier, the community in the Rhine province collected money for a new building. After two years of construction, the Church of St. Bonaventura, a three-aisled, neo-Gothic hall church, was inaugurated near the Schwelmer Tor in 1868. The Minorite Church was given up.

After a long period of vacancy and temporary use as a locksmith's shop, the textile manufacturer Carl Mühlinghaus acquired the ensemble of buildings in 1887. He had five false ceilings moved into the church in order to be able to set up weaving machines there and run a jersey factory. The drive was initially supplied by a steam engine on the ground floor, the outbuildings served as storage and administration offices. In 1975 the company was closed for financial reasons.

In 1983 citizens united in the association Klosterkirche RS-Lennep eV to prevent the former church from being torn down. With donations and financial resources from the city and the state, the restoration of the entire complex began in 1985 and was completed in 1987. During the renovation, the original floor window frame on the north window of the choir apse was exposed. With the renovation, the building ensemble could be preserved as a community and cultural center with a stage, parts are run as a restaurant Klosterschänke .

source

  • Hans Jürgen Roth: History of our city, Remscheid with Lennep and Lüttringhausen , RGA-Buchverlag, Remscheid, 2009, ISBN 978-3-940491-01-5 (pp. 203, 207-210, 215, 235, 269)

literature

  • Erika Bornewasser: On the history of the Catholic school Lennep. In: Festschrift on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Catholic school and the 25th anniversary of the Catholic school Am Stadion. Lennep 1991.
  • Paul Clemen (Ed.): The art monuments of the cities of Barmen, Elberfeld, Remscheid and the districts of Lennep, Mettmann, Solingen. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1894, (reprint: ibid 1995, ISBN 3-89618-126-2 ), p. 53 ( Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, Volume 3, Section 2).
  • Konrad Eubel : History of the Cologne Minorite order province. J. & W. Boisserée, Cologne 1906, pp. 224–228 ( publications by the Historisches Verein für den Niederrhein 1), online at archive.org
  • Johannes Kistenich: mendicant monks in the public school system. A manual for the Archdiocese of Cologne 1600 to 1850. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2001, ISBN 3-412-13001-X , pp. 1143–1151 ( City and Society 1).
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Oediger: Abbey and monastery archives. Inventory overviews. Respublica-Verlag, Siegburg 1964, p. 227 ( The main state archive in Düsseldorf and its holdings 4).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statistical Yearbook 2008 of the City of Remscheid ( Memento from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), ISSN  0930-2034 , p. 14, online on the City of Remscheid's website, viewed March 12, 2010 (PDF)
  2. ↑ a b c d Otto von Mülmann : Statistics of the government district of Düsseldorf , Bädeker, Iserlohn, 1864, therein entry on Lennep pp. 434–435, online at books.google.de, viewed March 14, 2010
  3. ↑ a b c Founding of the monastery ( memento from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Lennep Monastery Church, as seen on March 12, 2010
  4. ↑ Otto von Mülmann: Statistics of the government district of Düsseldorf , Bädeker, Iserlohn, 1864, therein entry on Ronsdorf p. 449, online at books.google.de, viewed March 15, 2010
  5. ↑ Secularization ( memento of September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Lennep Monastery Church, viewed March 12, 2010
  6. ↑ Cultural Heritage ( memento of March 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the University and State Library, viewed March 15, 2010
  7. ↑ Entry on the purchase agreement in the finding aid of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Archives, viewed March 12, 2010
  8. ↑ Production site ( memento from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Lennep Monastery Church, viewed March 12, 2010
  9. ↑ The ruined monastery became a gem  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.klosterkirche-lennep.de   by Gisela Schmoekel, in: Bergische Morgenpost from March 26, 2005, viewed March 12, 2010 (PDF)
  10. ↑ Isabel Klaas: Heavenly living , Bergische Morgenpost, March 15, 2006

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 33 "  N , 7 ° 15 ′ 32.4"  E