Steyl

Steyl (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈstɛil]; Limburgish: Sjteil) is a village in the Tegelen district of the municipality of Venlo, the Netherlands.

In the late Middle Ages and modern times, Steyl was a port on the Meuse for unloading marl, wine, coal and other items for the Duchy of Julich.

The Moubis mansion was sold in 1876 to a monastic community of German nuns from Münster, who then significantly expanded it (St. Joseph's Monastery).

The Moubis wine warehouse was sold around the same time to another religious order of nuns from Essen (St. Gregory's Monastery).

From the late 19th century, the village attracted religious institutions from five Roman Catholic congregations – each of which built their own monastery.

He emigrated to the Netherlands in the 1870s because the Catholic Church was put under great pressure in the newly founded German Empire of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (see: Kulturkampf).

Janssen founded in Steyl the Society of the Divine Word (Latin: Societas Verbi Divini, SVD), a worldwide catholic missionary congregation.

Not until 1933 was Steyl elevated to the status of an independent parish by Bishop Lemmens of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Roermond.

The 3 monasteries founded by Arnold Janssen are still active today, all 3 functioning as motherhouses for their respective religious orders.

The Sacred Heart Monastery is the motherhouse of the "Blue Nuns", a large brick building built in 1902–04, surrounded by gardens.

[1] A major visitor attraction in Steyl is the botanical garden Jochumhof, named after the SVD biology teacher Father Peter Jochum.

The taxidermic collection includes local stuffed mammals, as well as animals from the polar regions and the South American jungles.

The ethnographic collection consists of artefacts from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, China, Japan, and many other countries where SVD missionaries worked.