St. Augustin Abbey

The Mission House St. Augustin (named after Saint Augustine of Hippo) is a branch of the Steyler Missionaries in the city of Sankt Augustin, which is named after the Mission House. The campus today houses the Museum Haus Völker und Kulturen, the order's own Philosophical-Theological University SVD St. Augustin with its scientific institutes Anthropos-Institut, Steyler Missionswissenschaftliches Institut, Monumenta Serica, the Mission Procuratorate, the Steyler Bank and the China Center. In addition, the Provincialate is currently located in Sankt Augustin.

The Mission House St. Augustin was founded for the purpose of providing assistance in pastoral care and as a home for members of the order in need of recuperation and was occupied in 1913.

During the First World War, it was used as a reserve hospital, with members of the order helping to care for the wounded. After the end of the war, occupation soldiers took over the Mission House to quarter themselves there. In September 1919, the last soldiers withdrew, leaving the building to the Steyler Missionaries again.

Since September 1919, St. Augustin served as a novitiate, and in 1925, a seminary with an order university was added, today's Philosophical-Theological University SVD St. Augustin, which was state-recognized in 1983.

In 1941, the National Socialists confiscated the Mission House and expelled all residents. In the following war years, several aerial bombs hit the building and severely damaged it. When the immediate surroundings were conquered by American troops, approximately 5,000 people from the surrounding villages of Menden (Rhineland), Mülldorf and Niederpleis were evacuated for 24 hours to the still standing rooms of the Mission House on March 25, 1945. After the end of the war, the ruin briefly served as a transit camp for the return of French forced laborers. Already in 1945, the first Steyler residents returned to St. Augustin and began with repair work. In March 1947, the building, with the exception of the church, was repaired. In 1948, the church could also be occupied.

In 1946, the Steyler Missionaries took in a Catholic retirement home in one wing of the Mission House, whose previous premises were partially destroyed in the war. In 1960, the home moved to its own new building a few hundred meters away - to today's CBT-Altenheim St. Monika - because the Steyler Missionaries claimed it for their own use.

After the war, St. Augustin again served for the training of young members of the order. Already in 1946, nine deacons received priestly ordination.

In 1962, the Steyler ethnological Anthropos-Institut moved from Froideville, Switzerland, to St. Augustin. The Steyler Bank was founded in 1964 in Sankt Augustin and is located on the Mission House grounds. The sinological institute Monumenta Serica moved from Los Angeles to the campus in Sankt Augustin in 1972. The Ethnological Museum Haus Völker und Kulturen was opened on the grounds in 1973.

The almost ten-meter-high Christ statue was erected in the spring of 2009. It stands in front of the building of the Mission Procuratorate and overlooks the Hangelarer Heide. Originally, the statue stood on the roof of the Prosper Hospital in Recklinghausen. When the building was replaced by a new building in the 70s, the statue was placed in the hospital park, where it was stored until the Steyler Missionaries expressed interest in the statue.