Spring Bank Cistercian Abbey
The Cistercian Abbey Spring Bank (Latin Abbatia Beatae Mariae Virginis ad Fontem ; English Cistercian Abbey of Spring Bank ) was an American monastery of the Cistercians from 1928 to 2011 , first in Oconomowoc , Wisconsin , from 1985 in Sparta (Wisconsin) .
history
The Austrian Schlierbach Abbey under Abbot Alois Wiesinger (in cooperation with the Mehrerau Abbey and the Mariënkroon Abbey ) founded the first American monastery of the General Observance of the Cistercians in Oconomowoc near Milwaukee in 1928 at the invitation of the Archbishop of Milwaukee , Sebastian Gebhard Messmer , who came from Switzerland . In 1947 Spring Bank took in monks from the Zirc Monastery who had fled Hungary and founded Our Lady of Dallas Monastery in Irving, Texas in 1955 . Spring Bank was elevated to an abbey in 1963 and incorporated into the Mehrerau congregation in 1977 . In 1985 the convent moved to Sparta (Wisconsin) and hit the headlines for the successful sale of laser print cartridges, but lost all of its assets in the financial crisis of 2008/2009 and was dissolved in 2011.
Superiors, priors and abbots
- 1930–1934: Thomas Roos
- 1934-1947: Romuald Pecasse
- 1947–1971: Raymond Molnár
- 1972–1989: Joseph van Grevenbroek (1897–1990)
- 1989–1997: Blaise Fűz (1922–2008)
- 1997-2002: Gregory Norman
- 2002–2006: Robert Keffer
- 2006-2011: Bernard McCoy