Heiligengrabe is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality ...

in the

Ostprignitz-Ruppin Ostprignitz-Ruppin is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the northwestern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring are (from north clockwise) the districts Müritz and Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the districts Oberhavel and H ...

district, in

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 square ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Geography

The municipality counts 13 villages (''Ortsteil''): Blandikow, Blesendorf, Blumenthal, Grabow bei Blumenthal, Herzsprung, Jabel, Königsberg, Liebenthal, Maulbeerwalde, Papenbruch, Rosenwinkel, Wernikow and Zaatzke.

Architecture

Abbey

Heiligengrabe Abbey (literally in en,

Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hy, Սուրբ Հարության տաճար, la, Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri, am, የቅዱስ መቃብር ቤተክርስቲያን, he, כנסיית הקבר, ar, كنيسة القيامة is a church i ...

; formerly also known as Techow) was founded here as a

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 ...

in 1289 by Heinrich, Bishop of Havelberg and the Margrave

Otto of Brandenburg Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded ...

, initially for 12 nuns. It held an important

relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tang ...

in the form of a Bleeding Host which, so it was said, had been violated in a

host desecration Host desecration is a form of sacrilege in Christian denominations that follow the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It involves the mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated host—the bread used in the Eucharistic ...

by a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

. The nunnery acquired considerable wealth and estates in the area, partly through the revenue from pilgrims to the Bleeding Host, and partly through donations from the noble families round about, especially when one of their daughters entered the convent. Among the nuns of local great houses were members of the families

Gans zu Putlitz The Gans Edle Herren zu Putlitz (Edle Herren = noble lords, until 1919 a title, it became a part of the official surname with the transformation of most noble titles into surname elements to be ignored at alphanumerical sorting) is a German nobl ...

von Quitzow The von Quitzow family is a noble family of Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well ...

von Rohr The earliest recorded family member was Otto von Rohr (c. 1350–1427), the German Bishop of Havelberg from 1401 to 1427. The Von Rohrs are Swedish House of Nobility noble family number 807 and Finnish House of Nobility noble family number 85. ...

, von Winterfeld and

von Blumenthal The von Blumenthal family are Lutheran and Roman Catholic German nobility, originally from Brandenburg-Prussia. Other (unrelated) families of this name exist in Switzerland and formerly in Russia, and many unrelated families (quite a few of them J ...

. Some of the abbesses were great characters. The Abbess Henriette von Winterfeldt had a quarrel with the Duke of Mecklenburg, who refused to pay a debt to the abbey. So she borrowed a large artillery piece and declared war on Mecklenburg, bombarding it across the nearby frontier. At the time of the

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

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 i ...

, Abbess Anna von Quitzow would have nothing to do with the new denomination, and refused to pay tax. After the Reformation the prior function of the nunnery, to provide sustenance for unmarried women mostly from local noble families, wasn't to be given up with its secularisation. So the formerly Roman Catholic nunnery turned into a Lutheran women's convent (german: das Stift, more particular:

Damenstift The term (; nl, sticht) is derived from the verb (to donate) and originally meant 'a donation'. Such donations usually comprised earning assets, originally landed estates with serfs defraying dues (originally often in kind) or with vassal tenan ...

, literally in en, Ladies' foundation), with its conventuals now called secular canonesses (''Stiftsdamen''). The canonesses of nobility were obliged to show sixteen quarterings in their arms before being permitted to enter. File:Heiligengrabe, Kloster Stift zum Heiligengrabe, Westflügel der Abtei -- 2017 -- 0109.jpg, Convent building File:Heiligengrabe, Kloster Stift zum Heiligengrabe, Heiliggrabkapelle -- 2017 -- 7338.jpg, Blood Chapel File:Heiligengrabe, Kloster Stift zum Heiligengrabe, Heiliggrabkapelle -- 2017 -- 7314-20 -- 2.jpg, Interior of the Blood Chapel File:Heiligengrabe, Kloster Stift zum Heiligengrabe, Abtei, Innenhof -- 2017 -- 7345.jpg,

Cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against ...

Other infrastructures

In Heiligengrabe is the Blumenthal Observation Tower.

Demography

File:Bevölkerungsentwicklung Heiligengrabe.pdf, Development of population since 1875 within the current Boundaries (Blue Line: Population; Dotted Line: Comparison to Population development in Brandenburg state; Grey Background: Time of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

; Red Background: Time of communist

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

) File:Bevölkerungsprognosen Heiligengrabe.pdf, Recent Population Development and Projections (Population Development before Census 2011 (blue line); Recent Population Development according to the

Census in Germany A national census in Germany (german: Volkszählung) was held every five years from 1875 to 1910. After the World Wars, only a few full population censuses have been held, the last in 1987. The most recent census, though not a national census, wa ...

in 2011 (blue bordered line); Official projections for 2005-2030 (yellow line); for 2017-2030 (scarlet line); for 2020-2030 (green line)

Gallery

Image:Blumenthal_church.jpg, Church in Blumenthal Image:Blumenthal Aussichtsturm.jpg, View tower in Blumenthal File:Blumenthal_Horst_Park.jpg, Palace grounds in Blumenthal-Horst File:Glienicke_Rundling.jpg, Rundling Glienicke File:Glienicke_Schinkel_church.jpg, Church in Glienicke File:Jabel_Rundling.jpg, Rundling Jabel File:Jabel_church_2013.jpg, Church in Jabel File:Jabel_Altlutherische_Kirche.jpg, Church in Jabel Image:Heiligengrabe_Koenigsberg_church.jpg, Church in Königsberg

References

External links

{{Authority control Localities in Ostprignitz-Ruppin