DEUTSCHLAND | GERMANY |
Bundesland: Rheinland-Pfalz | Rhineland-Palatinate |
Landkreis: Ahrweiler |
The monastery of Maria Laach, situated at the lake Laacher See, was founded in 1093 (Maria ad Lacum) and became a Benedictine abbey in 1112. The monastery was secularised during the times of the French government in 1802. The complex then served as a private farm estate. After most of the former monastery buildings were destroyed by fire in 1855, the German province of the Jesuit Order used the complex for their Collegium Maximum beginning in 1863. Benedictine monks from the archabbey Beuron recolonised the monastery in 1892.
The Romanesque abbey church Sankt Maria am See (Our Lady at the Lake) was founded in 1093 and was completed in 1250. The interior was refurnished in Baroque style in 1662–1668, but most of the Baroque decorations were removed after 1802. The church is one of the most important Romanesque churches in Germany. In 1926 the church received the papal title of a Basilica minor.
(see also list of other basilicae minores depicted on glasses of this collection)