Sophia von Alvensleben

Sophia von Alvensleben (* April 20, 1516 ; † 1590 ) was the abbess of the Althaldensleben monastery in what is now Saxony-Anhalt .

Life

Sophia von Alvensleben came from the Low German noble family von Alvensleben . She was the daughter of Matthias (I.) von Alvensleben († 1552) from the red line, lord of the castle on Calvörde , later Letzlingen , and Erxleben , and Gertraud von Trotha († 1540). She entered the Althaldensleben monastery near Haldensleben , became its abbess in 1558, and remained Catholic until her death in 1590, although the other nuns had long since accepted Protestant teachings. After her death, Sophia von Alvensleben was buried in the choir of the monastery church. Her broken tombstone is still in the floor of the former chapel.

plant

In 1824, Peter Wilhelm Behrends described the abbess and the conflicts at the time of the Reformation in the Althaldensleben monastery as follows:

As a well-educated lady, with great sophistication and even not without some learned, especially theological, knowledge, she knew how to bring the monastery in its constitution and independence through the most slippery circumstances. Not only did she end several disputes between the monastery and the neighbors, and especially the town of Neuhaldensleben, in a mostly desirable way, but also raised the income of her foundation, which, in her time, and specifically in 1570, received 36 conventuals and 33 lay sisters in the monastery could become. With regard to the introduction of the Reformation in the monastery, which was desired by the state government at the time and tried several times, she agreed in 1562 by appointing a Protestant preacher - Jodocus Sinwing - to the monastery. But she was by no means meant to introduce the Reformation herself in her convent. Rather, she tried to inhibit the influence of this already weak man in many ways, and did not want to allow him to distribute Holy Communion under both guises until this was expressly ordered during the great visitation in 1563. The abbess herself, with her sister Ursula von Alvensleben, the prioress, and most of the nuns, decidedly in favor of the traditional belief, but did not want to prevent some of the other nuns from gradually following their convictions to the purified doctrine and even received Holy Communion under both forms. The monastic service in the choir continued uninterrupted in the old way, except that the Protestant nuns did not attend the mass of the Catholic priest, but the sermon of the Protestant clergyman in the monastery church. When, therefore, a sovereign commission appeared in the monastery in 1577 and 7 nuns - Gertrud von Randau at the head - immediately assured their adherence to God's Word and pure teaching; so the abbess declared after listening to the evangelical doctrine: that the angry disagreement of our theologians and the constant innovations still made it impossible for her to agree with them. And another monastery visitation in Althaldensleben, in 1585, carried out with this aim in mind, was just as fruitless. The abbess therefore died in the confession of the Catholic faith in 1590, like her sisters earlier, Ursula von Alvensleben, who had been prioress of the monastery for thirty years, in 1580 and Anna von Alvensleben, a nun who had left this world in 1573 .

literature

• Peter Wilhelm Behrends: Neuhaldenslebische Kreis-Chronik, first part, Neuhaldensleben 1824, pp. 331–333, (there are further details from the visitation report from 1577 reproduced).
• Siegmund Wilhelm Wohlbrück: Historical news of the Alvensleben family and their goods. Volume II, Berlin 1819, pp. 280-281.

Web links

• familie-von-alvensleben.de