A former Cistercian nuns' convent from 1248 in Marianowo, with a Gothic church, a Renaissance altar with a painting by Glockendon from 1546 and Sydonia's oak.
The monastery complex in Marianowo consists of the buildings of a former Cistercian nuns' convent, later transformed into an institution for Pomeranian noblewomen. For about fifteen years, from 1604 to 1619, Sydonia von Borck, accused of witchcraft, lived here. The Gothic church and the west wing of the monastery still stand today.
In 1248 Barnim I, Duke of Szczecin, founded a convent for Cistercian nuns on the St Mary's stream. Its foundation and operation were helped by Pomeranian knightly families, among them von Osten, von Borck, von Jerichow, von Regedanz and von Wedel, who gave the order numerous land grants. The monastic domain covered about 1,100 hides of land with many villages, rivers, lakes and forests. The convent housed on average 20 to 30 nuns, and the office of prioress was usually held by nuns from ducal or knightly families.
The original buildings were probably wooden and were later replaced with brick ones. The complex consisted of a five-bay hall church and two two-storey monastery wings, along which ran a cloister around a garth. The whole was surrounded by a wall. After Protestantism was introduced in Pomerania in 1534 the monastery was dissolved, and within its walls an institution for young women from noble houses was set up. A fire in 1637 destroyed the east wing and the cloisters, which were never rebuilt. In the 19th century the west wing was rebuilt, and the western bay was demolished from the nave of the church and a tower was raised in its place.
Sydonia von Borck lived in the institution as a resident. Her family deprived her of her right to the estate, and she was accused of witchcraft and of laying a curse on the House of Griffin. After a long trial she was sentenced to beheading, and her body was burned at the stake in 1620. Near the monastery grows Sydonia's oak, a natural monument.
The brick Gothic church, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, dates from the second half of the 13th century. The tower with bells from 1825 and 1890 was added in 1892. In the walls two modest portals have survived, the southern one for the nuns and the northern one for the other believers, and the upper parts of the walls are decorated with a painted cornice with a quatrefoil motif. Above the nave there is a wooden beamed ceiling.
The main altar, a pentaptych from the 16th century, was originally a triptych, and the wings were probably added around 1730. In the predella there is the painting Entombment of 1546, painted by the court painter of Duke Barnim XI, Gabriel Glockendon, and regarded as the most valuable part of the altar. The Baroque pulpit of 1726, the work of the Stargard sculptor Bartholome Frantz, has a basket supported on a figure of Moses. A Baroque epitaph of the councillor Jerzy Andrzej von Thun from the end of the 17th century has also survived. The side altars are neo-Gothic, from 1956. A wooden crucifix from about 1260, coming from the nuns' church, can today be seen in the National Museum in Szczecin.
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