The transition from Catholicism to Protestantism sometimes got bloody. This was also the case in Bern where the Antonite monks of Antoniterkirche had been residing for centuries. Cast out, their former churches and chapels were left desecrated, but did they truly leave the city?
In the twisted veins of Bern’s Old Town, where cobblestones whisper and centuries sleep behind shuttered windows, stands a building most passersby ignore. They shouldn’t. Tucked behind Postgasse 62 is the Antoniterkirche, now a shell of holy ground that once echoed with prayers and plague, now just as likely to echo with ghostly footsteps and the whispers of dead monks.
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The Bern Disputation was a debate over the theology of the Swiss Reformation that occurred in Bern from 6 to 26 January 1528 that ended in Bern becoming the second Swiss canton to officially become Protestant. After this, the monks were expelled from the city, but according to some ghost stories, some never left.
The Antonites and their History in Bern
The Antonites, a medieval order of monks known for their care of the sick and their infamous symbol of the Tau cross, settled here in Bern before 1283 as servants of St. Anthony the Great. They were healers, yes—but also collectors of bone relics and donations, said to tend to the ill with both herbs and dark rituals. As their presence grew, so did the unease around them. Something about the way they looked at you, it was said. Something about the smell that clung to their robes.
Their grand church, rebuilt in 1444 and again in the 1490s, stood proud for just a few short decades. By the 15th century, they had rebuilt their chapel into a grand Gothic church, welcomed the Shoemakers’ Guild and the Society of Rebleuten to worship at its altars, and staffed their hospital with six brothers and several lay nurses.
Then came the Reformation—a righteous blaze that burned through Bern and cast the Antonites into shadow. In 1528, the last friar was expelled. Mobs ransacked the sanctuary. Altars were shattered. Candles snuffed. Statues dragged and burned in the streets.
Hatred had also accumulated against the Antonite brothers, as against all monks, in the years before the Reformation. People complained about their shameless begging, the decline in morals, and their unexemplary lifestyle. This hatred now erupted. Lynchings of monks were not uncommon. But did the monks ever truly leave?
The Haunting of The Antoniterkirche
After its secularization, the church served many purposes: a granary, a saddlery, a fire station. The pews were torn out, the partitions fell, and the prayers ceased. But not the presence. In every incarnation, workers reported strange noises. Moaning. Shuffling. Cold hands where there should be none. Rats, people claimed. But rats don’t whisper in Latin. Rats don’t sigh from behind the walls.
And then there’s the woodcutter’s tale that was written down in a collection of ghost stories from Bern. He was working alone in a partitioned room when a cold wind passed through the boarded walls. Something moved behind him. He turned, expecting vermin. Instead, there stood a tall figure in the black robes of a monk, cowl drawn, eyes large and sorrowful. The monk raised his hands slowly. No sound, no breath, just that chilling gaze. The woodcutter dropped his saw. “It was the prior,” he said later, trembling. “The last one. The one who never left.”
The Haunted Former Church
The building today is shared by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bern, and the Russian Orthodox chapel hides quietly in the basement. The altar is long gone, the pews removed, but those who enter the chapel still speak of feeling watched. Of cold drafts that move against the grain of the wind. Of whispered invocations they didn’t speak.
The faithful come and go. But beneath the floorboards, something still lingers. In the coldest months, neighbors speak of low chanting beneath the stone. Of muffled crying. Of ghostly figures moving along the old monastic paths.
The Antoniterkirche was meant to be a place of healing. But after centuries of misuse, desecration, and silence—it seems the wounds here go too deep. And in Bern’s dark heart, the dead do not always rest easy.
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References:
Die Geschichte der Antonierkirche | Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Bern
https://www.maerchenstiftung.ch/maerchendatenbank/11839/im-antonierkloster
Antoniterkirche (Bern) – Wikipedia