Hadmersleben - St. Peter und St. Paul

Kloster Hadmersleben (Hadmersleben monastery) was founded in 961 by the (six-year-old) King Otto II. There was quite a row because Bishop Bernhard von Halberstadt had refused to cede Magdeburg to Otto I as an archbishopric, even though the Pope wanted it. The bishop's refusal led to his nickname "Eisenkopf" (ironhead). The nunnery was not a really great success, and so the then bishop of Halberstadt wrote in 1120: "The piety of the nuns of Hadmersleben has not only fallen asleep but has completely died out." Thanks to a capable abbess, the convent soon became successful and in 1160 the building of the chapter house began. Around 1320 the construction of the Gothic monastery church began.


But then the convent fell into disrepair again until the nuns joined the Bursfeld congregation. Hadmersleben Abbey is one of the few monasteries in the Archdiocese of Magdeburg that remained Catholic beyond the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 made this possible.

In 1809, by decree of the King of Westphalia Jérôme Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, the dissolution of the monastery was ordered. However, the affiliated parish remained.

St. Peter and St. Paul was the monastery church and has been a parish church since the Reformation. Since the 10th century, three construction phases can be identified. This is the oldest part of the church, today the basement of the baroque nuns' choir.