Partly to combat Protestantism, three Dominican sisters arrived in Sittard from the Engelendael monastery in Bruges in 1649 with the assignment to found a monastery there. They were Mother Superior Maria Sibylla Bronckhorst, originally from Kampen (had been married to a patrician from Zwolle), her assistant the Antwerp sister Ida Crokx and a novice Willemken van Limet, from Waalwijk, who was the first lay sister in Sittard to wear the habit of order was put on. They took up residence in two medieval buildings: the Guardianship and Dobbelsteinporte. The Guardianship was the home of the city guardian, an official of the Duke of Jülich. Dobbelsteinporte was the refuge house (refuge within the city walls) of the noble family of the same name.
The sisters named their new monastery "St.-Agnetenberg" after the patroness Saint Agnes de Montepulciano, the same name as the Zwolle monastery, of which mother Bronckhorst had fond memories. The Dominican sisters built the monastery in a square shape around the pandhof. The date 1662 is affixed to the inner wall of the pandhof in wall anchors. The monastery church was the last of the four sides built in 1699. In the meantime, great calamity came upon the town and the monastery. The French armies conquered Sittard and set the city on fire in 1677. Because it was rumored that valuables were hidden in the monastery, it was looted by the French and thoroughly destroyed. More than a hundred years later, the French again brought disaster to the monastery. Because the sisters refused to take the oath to the new French constitution, St. Agnetenberg was closed in 1801. The sisters had to take off their habit and return to the civilian world. Most also continued to lead a religious life as private individuals. An accurate inventory was made. Pastor Page from Limbricht acquired the organ. Other items were bought by wealthy citizens of the city to be able to return them later. In 1803, with the cooperation of the French prefect, the monastery was bought by the Poor Administration to accommodate the needy. In 1831 the city school and a teacher's family were established there.
The Miracle Figurine “Salvation of the Sick”
When the first Dominicans moved from Bruges to Sittard, they brought a small wooden statue of the Virgin with them. Mary carries the child Jesus on her right arm, who is holding the globe in his hand. The statue was told that it was the rescue of the Dominicans in the Sittard Disaster Year 1677. When this was known, pilgrims came from far and wide, even entire processions, especially on Saturdays and on public holidays. Then the monastery church could often not contain the devout crowd. The bishop of Liège granted indulgences.Various healings of the sick, “Saving the sick”, the blind and the crippled are recorded in the memorial book of St. Agnetenberg. This is how the honorary title: “Saving the sick”. When the sisters had to leave the monastery in the French period (1801), the statuette remained in the monastery church. To restore Saturday devotion, the pastor of the Grote Kerk transferred the statue to his church. It is said that the next day it stood again in its old place, in the church of St. Agnetenberg. This was considered a sign. A grand ceremony was organized and the statue was brought to the Grote Kerk in a solemn procession, in which the whole of Sittard took part. The statue, 19 cm high, stands in a glass tube on the Mary altar of the Grote of St. Peter's Church.
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