Broumov Abbey

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Braunau Monastery

The Broumov Abbey (German Stift Braunau ) is a Benedictine monastery in the town of Broumov in the Náchod district in the Czech Republic . It forms together with the Archabbey of Břevnov the double abbey Břevnov-Broumov.

history

King Ottokar I Přemysl gave the Benedictines of the Břevnov Abbey (German Breunau Abbey) the Politz area in eastern Bohemia , where they began colonization activities around 1213. Later they penetrated into the adjoining valley and built the Propstei Braunau on a rock , which led to the founding of the town of the same name around 1255. Abbot Bavor von Netschetin (1290–1322) built the provost house into a castle-like monastery complex with the St. Laurentius Church. A Latin school was founded in the 14th century, which later became the monastery high school. When the abbot and convent of Břevnov fled to Braunau because of the Hussite Wars in 1420 , the era of the Břevnov-Braunau double monastery began. The abbots later resided mainly in Břevnov. In 1672 the monastery acquired Sloupno, halfway between Břevnov and Braunau .

After the destruction of the Thirty Years War , the monastery church of St. Adalbert was rebuilt in baroque style at the end of the 17th century by Christoph Dientzenhofer and Martino Allio. The wall paintings are by Johann Jakob Stevens von Steinfels , the stucco work was done by Tommaso Soldati. Under Abbot Othmar Daniel Zinke , the monastery complex was completely rebuilt from 1728 to 1738 according to plans by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer , and other important artists were also involved in the design.

From 1703 to 1810 the monastery complex and the monastery church in the Silesian Wahlstatt were also a branch of the Braunau monastery.

The emergence of Czech nationalism in the Habsburg Empire even before the First World War had far-reaching consequences for the abbey, in which both nationalities were represented. Informally, a German and a Czech abbot were elected alternately, which ensured the continued existence of the monks as a unit.

After the annexation of the Sudetenland to the German Empire , the Břevnov-Broumov ( Breunau-Braunau ) double abbey was separated from the Holy See at the insistence of the Czech monks in 1939 and declared to be two independent abbeys: the German Benedictines remained under Abbot Dominik in Braunau, while the Czech Monks in Brevnov got an independent abbey with their own monastery chief. In 1939 the collegiate high school was confiscated by the Nazi regime . During the Second World War , two monks were brought to the Dachau concentration camp by the National Socialists and after the war two German monks were murdered in the monastery by a Czechoslovak militia . As a result of the Beneš decrees , the remaining German monks had to leave the monastery in 1946. After their expulsion to Germany, they re- founded the Lower Bavarian Rohr monastery. (→ For the further history of the evicted Benedictines see the entry: Kloster Rohr (Lower Bavaria) ). At the same time, Benedictine monks from the USA tried to repopulate and manage the monastery, but were expelled from the country by the communist regime of Czechoslovakia as early as 1950. The monastery buildings then served as a political prison for the nuns from various monasteries from all over Czechoslovakia who were arrested by the communist regime as part of Aktion K.

After the political upheaval in 1989, the monastery was restituted by the Czech Republic . The monastery area has been owned by the Břevnov Abbey in Prague since then and is administered by an economic council (to which the Rohr monastery belonged until 2018). The Braunau monastery building has been largely empty since the restitution. Among other things, it houses the Broumov City Museum and is inhabited and managed by a manager. The Broumov Monastery Education and Cultural Center was opened in 2018 .

On February 7, 2018, the long-desired reunification of the Břevnov ( Breunau ) abbeys in Prague and Broumov ( Braunau ) became legally binding by decree of the Vatican Congregation . The Archabbot has since held the title Archabbot of Břevnov and Broumov .

literature

Web links

Commons : Broumov Abbey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Abbey history , accessed on February 12, 2019

Coordinates: 50 ° 35 ′ 18 ″  N , 16 ° 19 ′ 56.3 ″  E