Weltenburg Abbey
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The Weltenburg Abbey is a Benedictine Abbey ( Abbey of St. George ) in Burgenland, a district of Kelheim on the Danube in Lower Bavaria . It lies above the Danube breakthrough in a loop of the Danube. The monastery belongs to the Bavarian Benedictine Congregation . The main tasks of today's Weltenburg Abbey are pastoral care (looking after two parishes) and the reception of guests in the “St. Georg meeting place”.
history
As early as 45 AD, the starting point of a Roman border and military road that followed the Danube upstream to the Hüfingen fort near Donaueschingen was near Weltenburg on the south bank of the Danube . This southern Danube road has long been one of the two most important east-west connections north of the Alps . At Burghöfe she started the traffic of the Via Claudia Augusta coming from Northern Italy . Over the current monastery complex, on the Frauenberg, people have settled again and again since prehistoric times. Archaeological finds and excavations suggest that a Roman military station was located there.
Local tradition says that the monastery was founded around the year 617 by the Iro - Scottish monks Eustachius and Agilus from Luxeuil according to the rules of Saint Columban . This is now considered refuted in research, but archaeological finds show that the area around Weltenburg was influenced by Christianity around 600. The question of whether Weltenburg is the oldest monastery in Bavaria cannot be answered unequivocally. Around the year 700, St. Rupert , the " Apostle of Bavaria ", is said to have opened the monastery church to St. Georg have consecrated . This tradition is based on the Weltenburg Martyrology , which, however, was not created in Regensburg until 1047/49 and reached Weltenburg 50 years later. However, this drawing can also be related to the appointment of the first abbot of Prüll Monastery .
In the 8th century the Weltenburg monks probably adopted the rules of the order of St. Benedict , possibly in the course of the church reform of Boniface . Tassilo III. , Duke of Bavaria from 748 to 788, was one of the supporters of the monastery, after its disempowerment by Charlemagne it became immediately imperial . Because of this tradition, which is also shown in the vault of the chancel of the monastery church, Tassilo was considered the founder of the monastery for a long time. In the list of Franconian imperial monasteries from 817, one monastery is named Altemburc . When Weltenburg is meant, this document is the oldest documented mention of the abbey. During the Hungarian invasions in the early 10th century, the monks left the abbey. In 932, Weltenburg was repopulated from the Sankt Emmeram monastery as an own monastery of the diocese of Regensburg . A newly built church was consecrated in 1191. In the years 1123 to 1328 lived in Weltenburg Augustinians - Canons .
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the monastery experienced a period of frequently changing abbots and administrators . The Chancellor reforms were therefore introduced under Abbot Conrad V (1441–1450) . During the Schmalkaldic War the monastery was plundered, Abbot Michael II. Häusler (1553–1556) had to sell valuable holdings of the monastery library due to economic hardship. Despite looting during the Thirty Years' War , Abbot Matthias Abelin (1626–1659) was able to leave the monastery in order. In 1686 the monastery was one of the founders of the Bavarian Benedictine Congregation .
During the time of Abbot Maurus I. Bächl (1713–1743) the Frauenberg Church , 1714–1716 the baroque convent building, churches in the incorporated parishes and several farm buildings surrounding the monastery courtyard were built. The main construction project was the shell of the monastery church ( Klosterkirche Weltenburg ), which was built between 1716 and 1718 and was dedicated to St. Georg is consecrated and was largely designed by the Asam brothers until 1735 . The Freising Prince-Bishop Johann Franz Eckher von Kapfing and Liechteneck laid the foundation stone for the new abbey church on June 29, 1716 and consecrated the church on October 9, 1718. In 1721, Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria visited the monastery and was impressed by the architecture of the church.
In the course of secularization in Bavaria , the Weltenburg monastery was also dissolved on March 21, 1803, but was rebuilt by King Ludwig I as the priory of Metten Monastery on June 1, 1842 , and on August 25, 1913 by Prince Regent Ludwig, later King Ludwig III . , raised again to the abbey.
Because of its direct location on the Danube, the building complex is at high risk of flooding; the Water Authority Landshut realized from January to October 2006, flood protection for the monastery, which was inaugurated on October 12 of 2006.
On September 2, 2008, the Weltenburg monastery archivist P. Leopold Lörnitzo ( OSB ) died at the age of 53 from severe scalds that he suffered in the bathroom of the monastery. The responsible Landshut criminal police ruled out a crime as the cause of death.
Well-known people related to Weltenburg Abbey
- Benno Grueber (1759–1796), father and since 1785 music director of the monastery
- Johann Simon Mayr (1763–1845), composer, father of Italian opera, student in Weltenburg from 1769 to 1774
- Thomas Niggl (1922–2011), abbot from 1976 to 1995, also an activist of the Engelwerk
Monastery church
Monastery brewery
The fact that monks brewed beer in Weltenburg is documented for the first time in 1050, which is why Weltenburg advertises as the "oldest monastery brewery in the world". The annual output of the Klosterbrauerei Weltenburg GmbH is almost 30,000 hectoliters. A beer garden has been set up in the cloister courtyard where brewery products are served. Since April 2007, guided tours through the brewery have been offered on weekends. The “Weltenburger Kloster Barock Dunkel” was awarded the “ World Beer Cup ” as the best dark beer in the world in 2004, 2008 and 2012 .
Transport links
From Kelheim, Weltenburg Abbey can be reached in a few minutes via State Road 2233 by car or bus. About a kilometer from the monastery there is a (paid) car park; A shuttle bus runs from there for people with reduced mobility. Passenger ships commute between Kelheim and Weltenburg from spring to autumn , so that a visit to the monastery can be combined with a trip through the Danube gorge . The area around the monastery is criss-crossed by numerous scenic hiking trails . From the left bank of the river, hikers can cross over in small boats at the level of the monastery. In addition, a few hundred meters upstream there is a small ferry that is also suitable for a car up to 1.7 tonnes in weight. Weltenburg Abbey is located on the international Danube Cycle Route , the European EuroVelo 6 (the so-called river route from the Atlantic to the Black Sea) and the German Limes Cycle Route . This follows the Upper German-Raetian Limes over 818 km from Bad Hönningen on the Rhine to Regensburg on the Danube .
Special geographical location
Apart from the geological connections described in the article Danube Gorge near Weltenburg - concerning the spectacular Jura rocks and the Danube river - and the historical-religious connections described in this article - mainly concerning the history of the monastery - the location of the settlement is also of purely geographical interest: it gives namely a particularly appropriate example for the reference pair impact slope- sliding slope of the flow on a river loop. The monastery is built directly above the gravel bank of the sliding slope, which is characteristic for such situations , and on the other hand is protected by the high Jura rocks - mainly on the opposite side of the impact slope. Because of the specific “breakthrough situation” and the tightness of the spatial context, there is protection here (not just “space”) on the sliding slope side as well.
literature
- Lothar Altmann: Benedictine Abbey Weltenburg ad Donau. History and art . (= Great Art Guide 86). Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-7954-1117-3 .
- Hans Christian Egger: The Weltenburg Abbey and the Asam brothers - a correction. The new building history of a baroque jewel . Dissertation. disserta Verlag, Hamburg 2014. ISBN 978-3-95425-526-9 .
- Georg Schwaiger (ed.): Weltenburg Abbey . Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn 2014. ISBN 978-3-87437-472-9 .
Web links
- Website of the Benedictine Abbey of Weltenburg (there you will find detailed information on the history and current situation)
-
Weltenburg Monastery , basic data and history:
Stephanie Haberer: Weltenburg Monastery - Bavaria's first monastic settlement in the database of monasteries in Bavaria in the House of Bavarian History - Website of the Weltenburg monastery brewery
- Aerial photos of Weltenburg Abbey
- Flood protection Kloster Weltenburg, Whitsun flood 1999 on the website of the Landshut water management office
- Flood protection Weltenburg on the website of the Landshut water management office
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Störmer : The Baiuwaren. From the Great Migration to Tassilo III. CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-47981-2 , p. 76.
- ^ Introduction on the Weltenburg Monastery website
- ^ History of the monastery on the Weltenburg monastery website
- ↑ On the activity of the Prince-Bishop in Weltenburg
- ↑ Annual report 2008 of the Weltenburg monastery.
- ↑ Before his death, Mönch lay in water at 60 degrees Celsius , Augsburger Allgemeine , September 25, 2008.
- ↑ Heiner Boberski : The angel work. Theory and Practice of Opus Angelorum. Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1993, p. 235
- ↑ Peter Eichhorn, From Ale to Zwickel: the ABC of beer, Explorise Grebennikov, 2012, ISBN 3-941784-13-7 , p. 19
- ↑ Weltenburger beers: Awards
- ↑ webmaster: EuroVelo 6: explore the European rivers by bike! - EuroVelo. Retrieved April 28, 2017 .
Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 56 " N , 11 ° 49 ′ 11" E