Bad Münstereifel - St. Chrysanthus und Daria

In 720 Charlemagne´s great grandmother Bertrada had founded the Prüm Abbey, from where in 830 the Benedictine monastery "Novum Monasterium" was founded here. While the Prüm Abbey owned the "Sandals of Jesus", important relics in Medieval times, the newly founded convent got the relics of Chrysanthus und Daria, who had been martyred in Rome during the Diocletian persecution.

The existing church of the abbey burnt down around 1100, so the abbey church, seen here, was built within the 12th and 13th century. The design of the westwerk is very similar to that one of St. Pantaleon in Cologne (about 50kms northeast).

The Benedictine monastery existed upto the end of the 12th century, when it was converted into a college of canons, that existed upto 1803. Since then the church serves the parish, but it was in a miserable status. One of the towers collapsed in 1872. The rebuilding was completed in 1890.

Only a part of the remarkable baptismal font suvived the times. It is carved from "bluestone", that probably came from Namur or Tournai. Exactly this type of font (with four heads) was very popular in Northern France in the 12th/13th century.