Johanniskloster

The Johanniskloster in Stralsund stands in the heart of the city’s old town, a former Franciscan monastery founded in 1254. Its buildings mix Gothic, Baroque and Classical styles, reflecting centuries of change. The entrance opens onto Schillstraße, where the address marks the site’s long presence in the town. Part of the UNESCO-listed ensemble of Stralsund’s historic centre, it now houses parts of the city archives. The monastery once stretched close to the shore of the Strelasund, where Rügen’s prince Jaromar II first granted the land.

The site’s history is marked by moments of both devotion and upheaval. By the early 14th century the church and convent were largely complete, hosting provincial chapters of the Franciscan order. In 1525 the monastery was stormed during the Stralsunder Kirchenbrechen, its altars destroyed and food stores plundered. After the Reformation it became a poorhouse, later a school for deaf children and a day-care for poor children. A 1624 fire gutted the great hall church, leaving only the choir rebuilt by 1651. Bombing in 1944 finished what remained of the church and cloister.

Visitors today find the monastery’s surviving wings arranged around a quiet courtyard. The west wing shelters archives and a concert hall where Gothic frescoes were uncovered in 1983. The east wing once held a school for up to thirty deaf pupils until its timber building was removed in 2018. In the ruined nave stands a replica of Ernst Barlach’s Pietà, a memorial to war’s horrors. The cloister walk, rebuilt in the 1970s, leads beneath the Räucherboden, the smoke-blackened attic once lived in by elderly residents.