Monastery Gottstatt, Premonstratensian monastery in Orpund, Switzerland

Gottstatt Monastery is a former Premonstratensian monastery in Orpund, Canton of Bern. Its church, built in 1300, served as the burial church for the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau. The complex also includes residential and farm buildings, and the Reformed Church has been buying back sections since 1965.

Count Rudolf I von Neuchâtel-Nidau founded the monastery in 1255 after a failed attempt in 1247. The church, built around 1300, served as the burial place of the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau until their line died out in 1375. In 1528 the Reformation closed the monastery, which then housed the bailiwick and low court until 1798; it was sold to private owners in 1803.

The monastery is no longer a religious community: it was closed in 1528 during the Reformation, and since 1965 the Reformed parish has gradually bought back sections of the former complex. The monastery church, built in 1300, now serves as the parish church of Orpund. The name appears in Latin sources as Locum Dei and in German from 1290 as Gotstat.

The former monastery is now the Reformed parish church of Orpund, so the church is the part to visit; the surrounding convent buildings passed into private hands in 1803 and were only gradually bought back by the parish from 1965. Expect a working church rather than a museum, and check locally before assuming other buildings are open.

The physicist Georg Simon Ohm once taught within these walls, using the monastery spaces for his scientific work alongside the religious community. This unusual connection between a scientific mind and a religious institution is rarely remembered today.