St. Ludger's Abbey, Benedictine monastery in Helmstedt, Germany

St. Ludger's Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery in Helmstedt, founded around 800. Its grounds combine a Romanesque double chapel in the courtyard, with St. John the Baptist above and St. Peter below, and Baroque convent buildings rebuilt after the Thirty Years' War. The complex also includes an 18th-century ornamental gateway known as the Turks' Gate and a dovecote.

The monastery was founded around 800 by Saint Ludger and held authority over Helmstedt until the 15th century. It continued as an Imperial Abbey afterward, eventually losing independence in the early 1800s.

Helmstedt's town coat of arms shows Saint Ludger, the monastery's founder, and the abbey's own arms carry twin abbots' staffs because it was always led in personal union with Werden Abbey. In the community hall hangs a plastic copy of the Werden Crucifix, said to have been brought back to Werden from here in 1547.

The monastery church of St. Ludgeri has about 300 seats and is the oldest church in the Wolfsburg-Helmstedt deanery. The convent building, acquired by the Diocese of Hildesheim in 1980, has served since 4 June 1986 as a Catholic meeting centre. The former estate grounds were crossed by a new road completing Helmstedt's town ring in 1977.

The Türkentor, or Turks' Gate, is an ornamental Baroque gateway added in the 18th century, not a victory monument. Its name is the only military echo on the site. Look for it beside the dovecote, also an 18th-century addition to the rebuilt monastery grounds.