9 Famous Monasteries With Morbid Secrets

Monasteries and convents have lengthy been locations of peace and contemplation — a retreat the place these with a sacred calling may withdraw from the world to commit their lives to their religion. Some have been so devoted that they by no means left, even after their mortal lives have ended. In different instances, the monastery denizens had been concerned in darkish or morbid actions which have left an indelible mark on the buildings they as soon as inhabited.

The well-known monasteries listed under nonetheless echo with power or sounds from the occasions that darkened their corridors, centuries after they occurred. For vacationers who’ve morbid curiosities and a penchant for the peculiar, websites like these can yield once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Some have witnessed apparitions, and others have heard disembodied voices.

In the event you’re taken with visiting a few of these beautiful but harrowing websites since you love each historic structure and macabre tales, make sure to embrace these iconic monasteries with darkish histories under in your journey plans, lots of that are thought of dark tourism locations around the world worthy of your bucket list.

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9 Snagov Monastery, Bucharest, Romania

Vlad the Impaler’s last resting place (or so we hope)

Snagov Monastery in southern Romania, believed to be the ultimate resting place of Vlad the Impaler.

On an island in southern Romania, not removed from the regions of Bucharest where Wednesday was filmed, stands a startlingly stunning Byzantine construction. Snagov monastery was established within the early 1400s by Orthodox Christian monks and was a totally practical non secular neighborhood till the nation was secularized in 1864.

As we speak, it’s a thriving vacationer attraction due to its affiliation with one of the violent and feared rulers of all time: Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s character Depend Dracula.

This bloodthirsty tyrant is famously recognized for torturing and impaling over 20,000 folks, and he had over 60,000 extra killed for transgressions such as infanticide and adultery. Throughout his reign, he had additional fortifications constructed round Snagov monastery and had a prison, torture chamber, bell tower, and escape tunnel built on the island’s grounds as nicely.

After this brutal ruler was decapitated by Ottoman troopers, rival households tried to forestall him from receiving a Christian burial. Legend has it that the monks from Snagov stole his physique components and buried him contained in the monastery, the place he rests to today.

8 Previous Ursuline Convent Museum, Louisiana, USA

The place French “casket women” supposedly launched vampires to New Orleans

Because of Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris, Louisiana will ceaselessly be generally known as a hive of vampire exercise. That stated, though the tales these authors wrote centered round vampire exercise within the New Orleans space, they weren’t those who began these legends.

Lengthy earlier than N’awlins grew to become the bustling hive of the vibrant NOLA jazz clubs and festivals that individuals love to go to immediately, it was a small French colony the place unwed younger ladies had been shipped off to marry strangers to be able to populate the brand new territory.

The eligible brides had been housed on the Ursuline convent — now the Old Ursuline Convent Museum — till such time as they could possibly be married off, however many eligible bachelors had been frightened by each the younger ladies’s pallor (likely caused by severe seasickness, lack of sunshine, yellow fever, and/or tuberculosis) and the casket-shaped baggage wherein they carried all of their worldly possessions.

The nuns sealed the women within the third-floor attic to “shield their advantage”, however after mysterious native occasions similar to crop failures and bodies showing up drained of blood, the nuns threw the younger ladies out and nailed the doorways and home windows of the attic shut, locking their caskets inside. It was believed that the women had introduced small vampires throughout the ocean, and the shutters of the previous Ursuline convent are nonetheless nailed shut to today within the hopes of retaining the vampires safely locked inside.

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7 Byland Abbey, UK

Misplaced souls are stated to hang-out the ruined monastery grounds

The ruins of Byland Abbey within the North York Moors, England

The ruins of what was as soon as a really magnificent Gothic abbey nonetheless stand within the North Moors of Yorkshire, England. Byland Abbey was based by Savigniac monks in 1135, nevertheless it was absorbed into the Cistercian order 12 years later. Numerous monks lived there in the course of the Medieval period, working carefully with the encompassing neighborhood by providing non secular providers in addition to on a regular basis labor.

In some unspecified time in the future within the fifteenth century, a monk wrote down the stories of a dozen different ghosts who had been stated to roam across the abbey neighborhood in quest of penance and absolution. These ghosts, who had been native residents whose crimes ranged from theft to adultery, died with out having been absolved and it was thus believed that they could not get to heaven with out intervention from the monastic neighborhood.

It could seem that not all of them managed to get the holy assist they wanted, as paranormal investigators have recorded evidence of spirit activity on the website as just lately as 2022.

6 Wessobrun Abbey Monastery, Bavaria, Germany

The ghost of a disgraced nun nonetheless haunts the abbey neighborhood

The previous clock tower and cloister partitions of Wessobrun Abbey, Bavaria, Germany.

Lots of the gorgeous historical sites near Munich that you can visit had been constructed within the Romanesque architectural type, and this one is not any exception. The abbey monastery in Wessobrun, Bavaria, is a medieval construction that also homes a number of Benedictine nuns. These sisters have devoted themselves to their sacred calling, and carry out the identical rites and providers that their predecessors would have finished a thousand years in the past.

When nuns take the veil, they take three formal orders to stick to for the remainder of their lives: poverty, chastity, and obedience. Two of these orders have been straightforward to observe for many cloistered nuns, however chastity appears to be essentially the most tough one to keep up.

One younger nun, the sister of a knight named Joseph Diethalm von Wileyhin, took holy orders shortly after her brother died in 1211. It is not sure who she broke her vows with, however legend has it that she was so ashamed of her actions that she fled by way of an underground hall, intent on taking refuge in her previous household house.

Sadly, she both acquired misplaced or trapped in that hall and starved to demise, and her remains weren’t found for several years. Ever since then, guests have noticed what seems to be the spirit of a girl in a nun’s behavior and veil transferring across the grounds, chanting prayers or crying softly.

5 Mortemer Abbey, Normandy, France

Reputed to be essentially the most haunted monastery in France

Mortemer Abbey is a medieval monastery wreck in Normandy, France.

Normandy is a picturesque region in France, and other people flock to it to see beautiful sights like Mont St. Michel and Rouen Cathedral. One other gorgeous construction you possibly can go to there’s Mortemer Abbey, which is rumored to be essentially the most haunted monastery within the nation.

Henry I had this abbey built as a gift to the Cistercian monks in 1134, and the construction was added to within the seventeenth century. Only some components of the unique construction stay intact immediately, however they provide a glimpse at how stunning the constructing will need to have appeared virtually a thousand years in the past. The monastic neighborhood thrived there for hundreds of years till the French Revolution threw the complete area into chaos.

Though many of the public’s ire was directed in direction of the ruling class, some of us additionally took subject with what they believed to be the posh wherein the monks lived at Mortemer Abbey. On a darkish day in 1790, revolutionaries dragged the 4 remaining monks into the cellar and slaughtered them there.

The ghosts of these monks are stated to nonetheless hang-out the premises, and along with strolling round or chanting, they’ve even been recognized to assist folks close by. One such story includes the spirit of a monk apparently helping an English paratrooper escape from German troopers in WWII earlier than disappearing into skinny air.

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4 Monastery Of San Juan Capistrano, California, USA

Haunted by the ghosts of former residents and captured slaves

Positioned midway between Los Angeles and San Diego lies the city of San Juan Capistrano, house to the oldest established neighborhood in California. The mission monastery there was established by Spanish settlers in 1776, and the chapel there — in-built 1782 — is the oldest constructing in California that is nonetheless in use. That does not imply it was all the time a preferred location, or that its historical past has been notably nice.

Spanish missions in California horribly mistreated local Indigenous populations, taking many as slaves and killing those that refused to transform. Moreover, the world was tormented by tragedies similar to pirate assaults, illness, and earthquakes.

The monastery at San Juan Capistrano is apparently haunted by not less than 4 spirits: a faceless monk who wanders the grounds, in addition to a girl in white, a headless soldier who stands guard close to the previous garrison constructing, and a young woman named Magdalena who died in the 1812 earthquake.

3 Sicignano Monastery, Naples, Italy

Recognized regionally as “The Convent of the Satan’s Monks”

The now-abandoned Sicignano monastery in Naples, Italy.

Naples, Italy, has lengthy been a middle for religious contemplation. There’s an ancient cave where Romans went to consult with a prophetess known as The Sibyl, in addition to remnants of monuments to Mithras: a pre-Zoroastrian god. The monastery at Sicignano was established in 1578 and shortly grew to become a thriving neighborhood.

Legend has it that in 1720, a young man showed up at the monastery in a wretched state, begging for some meals and water. The monks agreed to assist him, so long as he agreed to affix their order. He consented, after all, however apparently wasn’t nicely suited to monastic life. He fell in love with a neighborhood village lady not lengthy afterward, a lot to the monks’ chagrin.

Naturally, the younger lady was accused of witchcraft for having seduced that poor, harmless monk away from his vows, and she was tortured before being burned at the stake. The younger monk was forgiven, however he was so heartbroken by the expertise that he cursed every monk in the monastery and died shortly thereafter. It is stated that the monks began dying off one after the other and that a number of of their ghosts nonetheless wander the premises.

2 Good Shepherd Convent, Cork, Eire

Related to appalling abuse of unwed moms and illegitimate infants

Lodge and gates of the previous Good Shepherd Convent, Cork, Eire.

Convents have an extended historical past of serving to these in want, however some have a darkish stain on them because of the atrocities that occurred inside their partitions. From the 18th by way of to the late twentieth century, many Roman Catholic convents in Ireland ran the Magdalene Laundries: workhouses for “fallen ladies”, i.e. those that had gotten pregnant out of wedlock.

Though they insisted that they had been offering shelter and coaching for these younger ladies, and discovering good houses for the infants they bore, the reality was far darker. For 100 years, the Good Shepherd Convent — together with dozens of others — detained 1000’s of girls in opposition to their will, many of whom died due to terrible conditions there, together with their youngsters.

The remains of at least 188 women and an unknown number of infants and children had been present in a mass grave behind this convent’s partitions. Though most of the infants had been adopted into American households, records show that many others were used for medical trials as an alternative. There might not be spectral ghosts on this deserted constructing, nevertheless it’s actually haunted by the cruelties that occurred there.

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1 Kirti Gompa/Gerdeng Monastery, Sichuan, China

A number of monks have self-immolated to protest in opposition to China’s therapy of Tibet

Kirti Gompa monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist neighborhood in Sichuan province, China.

China’s Sichuan province and capital of Chengdu is a popular travel destination if you would like to cuddle child pandas or go to large Buddha statues. The area additionally has a big Tibetan inhabitants, particularly across the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture area (also called “Aba”).

The Kirti Gompa monastery, which can be known as “Gerdeng” within the native Chinese language dialect, was established within the fifteenth century and has housed 1000’s of Tibetan Buddhist monks through the years. Most just lately, nevertheless, this monastery has been the middle of a neighborhood Tibetan rebellion in opposition to the Chinese language authorities, which sees Tibetan Buddhists as troublemakers within the “free Tibet” motion.

In 2008, Chinese police fired into a crowd of monks and laypeople demonstrating in opposition to Chinese language rule, killing 23 civilians. Hundreds of monks have been arrested and detained for various lengths of time, and between 2009 and 2016, 13 monks from this monastery self-immolated (set themselves on hearth) to protest China’s mistreatment of Tibetans.

There are just a few monks in residence now, and the temple is underneath strict surveillance by the Chinese language authorities to make sure that potential dissidents are handled shortly.