KlOOSTER TER APEL

At Ter Apel, in the middle of vast forests, the contours of a Gothic monastery loom.
In 1464 the vicar of Loppersum donated the area between Winschoten and Ter Apel to the Order of the Holy Cross on the condition that a monastery would be built.
Five Brothers of the Cross started building their Domus Novae Lucis (House of the New Light), which was finished almost a century later. Not only a church and lodgings for the residents were erected, but also a gatehouse, water mills, a parchment house, baking and brewing house and a guest house, because every traveller was allowed to catch his breath with the hospitable priests.
A little more than a century after its foundation (the monastery had only just been completed), the province of Groningen joined the Republic of the United Netherlands and the Reformed Church became the state church. This meant the end for the many monastic communities in the province. Monasteries were demolished and it is a miracle that Ter Apel Monastery survived this period and the centuries that followed.
The former monastery was inaugurated in 1988 as a museum of ecclesiastical art and religious history. Since 1992, Ter Apel Monastery has even been one of the UNESCO Top 100 of immovable objects in the Netherlands.

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