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Pirita Convent is an abandoned Roman Catholic religious complex that dates to the 15th century. It was constructed on the North- East outskirts of Tallinn. In the Middle Ages it was the largest monastery of Livonia region.
History of the Monastery of St. Bridget in Tallinn - the Pirita
Monastery - dates back to the 15th century. The idea of founding a
monastery in the capital of Estonia was put forward by the merchants
of Tallinn (H. Huxer, G. Kruse, H. Swalbart) in 1400. In 1407, two
monks from Vadstena Abbey, located on Lake Wetter in Sweden, came to
Tallinn to advise merchants. Initially, the building was wooden. The
permission to extract stone for building material was obtained in
1417 thanks to the help of the national master of the Livonian
branch of the Teutonic Order. The Order also donated a plot of land
for construction. The monastery was built according to the design
and supervision of the architect Heinrich Swalbart.
The
central building of the monastery - the church - was consecrated on
August 15, 1436 by Bishop Heinrich II of Tallinn. In its heyday, it
was the largest Catholic monastery in Livonia, thanks to its
convenient location on the trade route between the east and the
west. It was built in the heyday of medieval construction.
Construction works lasted until the early 1590s. The Pirita
Monastery operated for over 175 years.
The first monastery dedicated to St. Bridget was founded in Sweden
and had strictly defined rules of operation. According to them, the
Pirita Monastery also operated. The monastery church was a spacious,
hall, three-nave building on a rectangular plan with dimensions of 24 ×
56 m, with massive, two-stage buttresses strengthening each 1360 m² wall
from the outside. The facade of the temple was decorated with a
triangular peak with a height of 35 meters. It was also built according
to the principles of St. Bridget. The interiors were dominated by an
ascetic grayish-blue color.
According to the rules, there were 13
chapels in the church, bearing the names of the apostles, so that each
priest had his own altar. In addition, the church had several auxiliary
altars, including the chapel of St. Bridget and St. Michael. To the
north of the church, there were four wings of monastery buildings,
forming a rectangular courtyard inside.
Both men and women lived
within the monastery walls, but it could not have more than 85 members -
60 sisters and 25 brothers, including 13 priests, 4 deacons and 8 lay
brothers. The nuns' convent and the monks' convent were separated by a
church where, during communal masses, the nuns and monks did not see
each other - the nuns were in the gallery and the men were downstairs.
They could only talk to each other in special rooms called parlors,
which were divided by a wall with small holes in it. The interlocutors
did not see each other, but they could exchange information or pass on
some items.
The decline of the monastery began in 1525 in connection with the progressing Reformation. Both the Livonian Wars (1558–1583) and the fire that ravaged the economic part of the monastery in the spring of 1574 led to the destruction of the old Pirita Monastery. In the first years of the Livonian War, the Tallinn City Council discussed the demolition of the monastery for strategic reasons, but the demolition ideas were not implemented due to the opposition of the knights. In 1577, the monastery was attacked by the troops of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, who robbed and set fire to the convent buildings during the siege of Tallinn. It has been in ruins ever since. For a long time, the vicinity of the monastery was used by local residents as a cemetery.
After Estonia regained its independence in 1991, Mother Tekla
Famiglietti, head of the Order of the Most Holy Savior (St. Bridget),
sent a letter to the Estonian government asking about the ruins of the
Pirita Monastery.
In the autumn of 1993, she made her first visit
to Estonia. The ruins of the historic Pirita Monastery made a great
impression on her. Famiglietti decided to restore the continuity of the
order in Estonia. On April 16, 1994, four nuns arrived in Tallinn -
Mother Teresa with sisters Riccard, Patrizia and Hedvig. At the end of
1995, the order became the owner of a plot of land of 0.9 hectares on
the site of the former Mihkli farm, directly on the north side of the
old monastery. The new monastery complex was built according to the
design of the architectural office Luhse & Tuhal from Pärnu.
The
foundation stone for the construction was laid in autumn 2000, and on
September 15, 2001, the new sanctuary was consecrated. In the years
2001-2004, the convent was run by Mother Patrizia, since 2004 it has
been run by Mother Riccarda from Mexico. Eight nuns, born in Mexico and
India, live in the convent.