Pielenhofen Abbey (german: Kloster Pielenhofen) is a former

Cistercian nunnery Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church. History The first Cistercian monastery for women, Le Tart Abbey, was established at Tart-l'Abbaye in t ...

(founded in 1240), in

Pielenhofen Pielenhofen is a municipality in the district of Regensburg in Bavaria in Germany. It lies on the Naab River. Buildings It is the site of Pielenhofen Abbey, formerly a Cistercian nunnery, now a house and school of the Visitandines , image ...

in the valley of the

Naab __NOTOC__ The Naab (Czech: ''Nába'') is a river in Bavaria, Germany, and is a left tributary of the Danube. Including its main source river Waldnaab, it is long. Its average discharge at the mouth is . The Naab is formed by the confluence of t ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It was occupied until 2010 by the

Visitandines , image = Salesas-escut.gif , size = 175px , abbreviation = V.S.M. , nickname = Visitandines , motto = , formation = , founder = Saint Bishop Francis de ...

, also known as the Salesian Sisters. The

Diocese of Regensburg The Diocese of Regensburg ( la, Dioecesis Ratisbonensis) is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory seated in Regensburg, Germany. Its district covers parts of northeastern Bavaria; it is subordinate to the archbishop of Munich and Freising. , ...

maintains a school here.

History

The abbey at Pielenhofen for

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

nuns, dedicated to the

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

, was founded in 1240 by the lords of Hohenfels and Ehrenfels. In 1542, during the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

in Pfalz-Neuburg, it was placed under secular administration. In 1655 it was subordinated to

Kaisheim Abbey The Imperial Abbey of Kaisersheim (German:''Reichsstift Kaisersheim'' or ''Kloster Kaisersheim''), was a Cistercian monastery in Kaisersheim (now Kaisheim), Bavaria, Germany. As one of the 40-odd self-ruling imperial abbeys of the Holy Roman Emp ...

as a sub-priory. During the

secularisation In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...

of Bavaria in 1803 the priory was dissolved; the nuns' church became a parish church. In 1806

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Car ...

nuns from

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

and

Neuburg an der Donau Neuburg an der Donau (Central Bavarian: ''Neiburg an da Donau'') is a town which is the capital of the Neuburg-Schrobenhausen district in the state of Bavaria in Germany. Divisions The municipality has 16 divisions: * Altmannstetten * Bergen, Neu ...

moved into the premises as a joint nunnery. In 1838 the Visitandines, also known as Salesian Sisters, bought it, and established a girls' school here. In 1981 the Pielenhofen Primary School, a boarding school of the Regensburg Cathedral Choir, replaced the earlier school. In 2010 the five remaining nuns moved to the community of the Visitandines at Zangberg.Visitandine website
/ref>

Abbey church

The

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

church has two towers of three storeys, two aisles and a

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

, under a cupola in the centre. The church contains a late Baroque high altar with eight columns. The ceiling with a depiction of the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

is by Jacob Carl Stauder. The pictures of the

twelve apostles In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles (also known as the Twelve Disciples or simply the Twelve), were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament. During the life and minist ...

are by Johann Gebhard of

Prüfening Abbey Prüfening Abbey (german: Kloster Prüfening) was a Benedictine monastery on the outskirts of Regensburg in Bavaria, Germany. Since the beginning of the 19th century it has also been known as Prüfening Castle (''Schloss Prüfening''). Notably, its ...

Notes and references

Sources and external links

Klöster in Bayern: Pielenhofen - Zisterze im Naabtal

{{Authority control Cistercian nunneries in Germany Monasteries in Bavaria 1240s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire 1240 establishments in Europe Buildings and structures in Regensburg (district)