Rüegsau Priory

The monastery Rüegsauschachen is a former Benedictine monastery in Rüegsauschachen, Canton Bern, Switzerland.

Rüegsau was probably like the monastery Trub by Thüringstrasse of Lutzelfluh in the first half of the 12th century founded. The first documented evidence of the convent date from 1256 or 1274th It was spiritually subordinate to the abbot of Trub and won in the course of time a far-flung Country Estate, to which, for example, included a courtyard in Walterswil and a vineyard in Le Landeron and 1500 grew to about one hundred farms and plots of land.

1495 burned the monastery, but was rebuilt thanks to a subsidy granted by the Bernese authorities fundraiser. At that time a Klosterglöcklein was donated, which hangs in the church Rüegsauschachen today.

Three years before the Bernese Reformation of 1528 married a nun the Thuringian nobles of Wintersei. The remaining five nuns left the convent in 1528, after they had received financial compensation. The former monastery assets, the pastor of Rüegsauschachen and Lutzelfluh were henceforth salaried, and from a part of the monastic buildings was a vicarage. The remaining buildings were gradually removed, and the last remnants of walls have been eliminated 1825-1831.

The monastery church of St. John was the village church was renovated from 1789 to 1790 and 1874 provided with an extension. Other renovations were carried out in 1947, 1990 and 1999. Places of interest in the church, the glass window of the contemporary artist Walter Loosli.

For the history of the monastery there is a small exhibition in the church hall Rüegsauschachen where finds from excavations in the years 1964, 1965 and 1968 are shown and 1978-1979 (glazed stove tiles, pottery shards, tools and fragments of a reliquary ). During the excavations, a Madonna statue from the monastery time came to light, a copy of which is placed in the mortuary to the church.

The monastery still existing chapel of St. Blaise was in the neighboring village of Rüegsbach, which has the oldest church bells in Switzerland ( from the 12th and 13th century).