Maria-Mödingen, Convent of
MARIA-MÖDINGEN, CONVENT OF
Former house of Dominican nuns now occupied by Franciscan teaching sisters, near Dillingen, Bavaria, Germany. The convent was founded by Hartmann IV of Dilligen before 1239 and affiliated to the dominicans in 1246. At first it was one of the most noted convents of southern Germany and the home of the mystic Margaret Ebner. Religious observance there, however, declined late in the 14th century. It was restored in 1468. The nuns
resisted all attempts to protestantize them, but they were driven out when the monastery was confiscated in 1546. Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg, a Catholic, returned the monastery to the Dominicans; it was reconstituted by nuns from St. Catherine's in Augsburg in 1616. It was again suppressed in 1802. Since 1842 Franciscan teaching sisters have occupied the buildings. The present church, built from 1716 to 1718, enshrines the tomb of Margaret Ebner in a chapel built in 1755.
Bibliography: f. zoepfl, Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins Dillingen… (Dillingen 1960) 7–77; Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 7:47–48. j. schÖttl, Kloster M.-M. (2d ed. Zurich 1961).
[j. a. doshner]