Münchenlohra Abbey, Romanesque church building in Münchenlohra, Germany.
St. Gangolf in Münchenlohra is a three-aisled Romanesque basilica on a cruciform plan with a twin-towered westwork, rebuilt in that form by Carl Schäfer between 1882 and 1885. The choir and both transept arms end in apsides, and beneath the westwork a two-aisled hall with three free-standing columns carries a partly painted groin vault. The main apse holds a Gothic Marian altar made between 1510 and 1515.
The monastery was founded around 1170 by the Counts of Lohra, whose seat was Lohra Castle nearby, and was named after Saint Gangolf; it housed Benedictine nuns and Augustinian choir women. Secularised in 1546, it passed to the von Gladebeck family in 1590, and in 1732 towers, west apse and side aisles were demolished, leaving a village church. From 1882 to 1885 Carl Schäfer rebuilt it close to the original after Ferdinand von Quast's 1845 proposal.
The church is dedicated to Saint Gangolf, and the monastery housed Benedictine nuns and Augustinian choir women, not monks. Since 2010 the Förderverein Kloster Münchenlohra has held Klosterbautage on the grounds, and the community breakfasts together in the newly made Klosterstube at Easter. On some Saturdays the parish celebrates Vesper according to the old church rite.
The church stands in the centre of Münchenlohra, in the Großlohra municipality of the Nordhausen district. Since 2009 the parish has owned the former monastery grounds around the basilica; volunteers meet for Klosterbautage to restore the site. Vespers in the old church rite is held on some Saturdays, and concerts take place in the warmer months.
The large bell, named Maria, was cast in 1316 and weighs about 700 kg; it came from the church of Großkayna, destroyed in 1944, and has rung in Münchenlohra since 1950. The smaller bell was cast in 1894 by Peter Schilling in Apolda. Nothing survives of the monastery's original peal.
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