Stift Wietmarschen

The Benedictine monastery Sünte Marienrode was founded in 1152 on the southern edge of the Bourtanger Moor. Countess Gertrud von Bentheim enabled its establishment, and on September 14, 1152, the monk Hildebrand was chosen as the first superior. A wooden collegiate church was also completed in 1152. Until the 13th century, the monastery served as the burial place for the Counts of Bentheim and was initially a double monastery for monks and nuns. After the monks moved to Utrecht in 1259, it became a pure women's monastery. The first stone church, built in Romanesque style, was constructed in the second half of the 13th century. Between 1320 and 1489, the monastery experienced its heyday, particularly due to a revered statue of the Mother of God. In 1500, a Gothic extension of the collegiate church took place, and in 1544, the nuns successfully resisted the Reformation. After the Thirty Years' War, the monastery abandoned the Benedictine rules in 1659 and was operated as a secular women's collegiate foundation from 1675, admitting unmarried or widowed noblewomen. This led to an economic upswing, enabling the expansion of the church and the construction of further buildings. In 1811, the foundation was dissolved as part of the Napoleonic annexation, and the monastic church became a Catholic parish church. In 1921, the site was elevated to an official pilgrimage destination, and in 1927, the construction of the current large pilgrimage church was completed. After war damage in 1944 and the demolition of many monastic buildings after World War II, four remaining collegiate buildings were saved and restored in the late 1970s.

The former monastery Sünte Marienrode is located in Wietmarschen, a municipality in Lower Saxony, Germany.

Today, within a spacious park area around the pilgrimage church of St. John the Apostle, four restored buildings of the former women's collegiate foundation are preserved. The complex also houses the collegiate and pilgrimage museum, as well as a Lourdes grotto. The adjacent forest area, Stiftsbusch, which includes two chapels, serves as the site for the annual family pilgrimage.

• Gut Klausheide (manor house, approx. 5786 m away)
• Kloster Frenswegen (sacred building, approx. 9525 m away)
• Schloss Beversundern (castle, approx. 10355 m away)
• Schloss Herzford (castle, approx. 11226 m away)