St. Bernard's Abbey, Hemiksem

Daughter monasteries

No

Monastery Hemiksem (Sint Bernaerdts op Scheldt or Sint Bernardusabdij ) is a former Cistercian abbey and in Belgium, in the municipality Hemiksem in the province of Antwerp.

History

The 1243 in Lier, donated, but already in 1246 after Hemiksem at Antwerp moved abbey was a daughter house of the monastery of Villers -la- Ville, the filiation of Clairvaux Abbey Primary. It owes its founding in mainly the dukes Henry I and Henry II of Brabant. At the foundation of the Diocese of Antwerp in 1559 she fell in Coming and the bishop was also Dept. During the iconoclasm was temporarily abandoned in 1578. 1649, she was again separated from the diocese. It burned down in 1672 largely. In the French Revolution in 1797 the monastery was dissolved. The remaining monks bought in 1836 the monastery Bornem, which still exists today as a Cistercian monastery.

Abbots

See list of abbots of Hemiksem

Plant and buildings

The existing buildings date from the 17th and 18th centuries. The west facade is built of brick and sandstone. The window openings on the ground floor wearing a Hahnenkamm motif. The crowned by a dome vaulted rotunda central tower rises considerably above the building. The Gothic abbey church was demolished in the 19th century. The protected since 1973 the monastery buildings were converted after the French Revolution in a sailor's home and later in a prison camp for collaborators and a military camp. In 1988 the church building in which today houses administrative facilities and a museum.

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