Himmelpforten Convent

Himmelpforten Convent was founded as a monastery of nuns following the Cistercian Rule during the 13th century in Himmelpforten, in today's Lower Saxony, Germany. During the 16th century, it was converted into use as a Lutheran Damsels' Convent. The Himmelpforten Convent was founded before 1255 and finally dissolved in 1647. The convent complex was built between 1300 and 1330. After 1645 the buildings, including the abbey, increasingly decayed, until they were little by little demolished. The dilapidated abbey was demolished in 1737 and replaced by today's St. Mary's Church which partially covers the foundations of the former abbey.HistoryThe convent was founded in the mid-13th century on Westerberg hill in, a location later indicated by St. Andrew's Chapel. As the Cistercian Order had restricted the incorporation of the growing number of women's monastic communities who followed the Cistercian Rule, and since no existing deed neither records the incorporation of the Himmelpforten Convent, nor the appointment of a Father Abbot, as usual for an affiliated community of women, Porta Coeli most likely never officially joined that Order.In 1244 and 1245 the Cistercian general chapter had determined that a monastery of nuns could be incorporated into the Cistercian Order only if the competent bishop and the competent cathedral chapter exempted the community's temporalities and spiritualities from their control. However, such a wide-ranging exemption from their sovereignty is exactly what Bremen's cathedral chapter and the prince-archbishop did not want, as is described below.