page_title: Jerichow Monastery
section_title: Secularization
hierarchical_section_title: Jerichow Monastery / History / Secularization
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kloster Jerichow (Brandenburg), Innenraum
context_page_description: The Jerichow Monastery is a former Premonstratensian monastery located in the northern outskirts of Jerichow, near the shores of the Elbe River, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt of Germany.
  Founded by the Premonstratensians, it was not a monastery but the Collegiate Church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas. Except of the towers built in the Late Romanesque style, it is one of the oldest brick buildings in northern Germany and a prime example of the Brandenburg style of brick architecture. It is one of the stops of the "Romanesque Road".
context_section_description: But, when the Reformation came to Germany, the monastery was secularized in the 16th Century and the remaining canons had to leave.  During the Thirty Years War, the Imperial and Swedish armies devastated the village and churches of Jerichow, including the monastery, in 1631.  In 1680, the whole district of Jerichow went from the Archbishopric of Magdeburg to the Electorate of Brandenburg-Prussia.  Under the direction of the Great Elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg, the Collegiate Church was restored in 1685 to be used as a new Reformed church for the Huguenot refugees.  But the actual repairs were not made for another two hundred years.  Between 1853 and 1856, at the request of King Frederick William IV of Prussia, Ferdinand von Quast restored the monastery and its church.
  But the indignities continued for the former Jerichow Monastery.  Fourteen years later, around 1870, it was used as a brewery and a distillery.  Near the end of World War II, the west front of the church was damaged by the artillery of the American army during the firefight with the German forces.  After the war, in 1946, a fire went to the roof in the east and south wings.
caption: Interior of the church,
  towards the altar
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