Religious sites in Germany
Schuttern Abbey Church
Schuttern Abbey was a Benedictine monastery which was, according to tradition, founded in 603 by the wandering Irish monk Offo. After some initial difficulties the monastery and the settlement round it, at that time known as Offoniscella ('cell of Offo'), gradually flourished. In the 8th century Saint Pirmin introduced the Rule of St. Benedict and revived the fortunes of the abbey, as demonstrated by the rush of ...
Founded: 603 AD |
Location:
Schuttern, Germany
St. Lawrence's Church
St. Lawrence"s Church in Zudar was built from the middle of the 13th century and was once a popular place of pilgrimage. That changed in 1372 when a ship sank on its way to the church and all the people aboard perished. The altar screen from the Stralsund workshop of Hans Broder (dated 1707) consists of different architecturally framed paintings. Its main painting dates back to 1726. The pulpit (1765) is of late-Baro ...
Founded: c. 1250 |
Location:
Zudar, Germany
Mallersdorf Abbey
Mallersdorf was formerly a monastery of the Benedictine Order and is now a Franciscan convent in Mallersdorf-Pfaffenberg. The monastery, dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist, was founded in 1107 by Heinrich of Kirchberg, a ministerialis of Niedermünster in Regensburg, and settled by monks from either the monastery of Michelsberg in Bamberg or St. Emmeram's Abbey in Regensburg. Under Abbot Eppo (1122-1143) the reformi ...
Founded: 1107 |
Location:
Mallersdorf, Germany
Prüfening Abbey
Prüfening Abbey was a Benedictine monastery on the outskirts of Regensburg. Since the beginning of the 19th century it has also been known as Prüfening Castle (Schloss Prüfening). Notably, its extant dedicatory inscription, commemorating the founding of the abbey in 1119, was created by printing and is a unique document of medieval typography. The monastery is situated on the western edge of the town of Re ...
Founded: 1119 |
Location:
Regensburg, Germany
St. Peter's Abbey Church
St. Peter's Abbey on the Madron was a Benedictine monastery in Flintsbach. The church, now a pilgrimage church known as the Peterskirchlein, still stands on the site. The Madron is a mountain known also as the Petersberg. It was occupied in ancient times, showing traces of Bronze Age settlement. A poorly documented monastic foundation dating from sometime in the 8th century and settled by monks from St. Peter's Abbey in ...
Founded: 1130 |
Location:
Flintsbach am Inn, Germany
Gerleve Abbey
Gerleve Abbey was founded by the monks of Beuron Archabbey. The community, dedicated to Saint Joseph, was established in 1899 on the farm given for the purpose by the Wermelt family. It was formally declared an abbey in 1904. The first abbot was ordained in 1906, Raphael Molitor OSB. In 1941 the community was expelled from Westphalia by order of the National Socialists, but the monks were able to return in 1946. There ...
Founded: 1899 |
Location:
Billerbeck, Germany
Gutenzell Abbey Church
Gutenzell Abbey was a Cistercian nunnery but its origins are unknown. According to legend, the monastery was founded in the 12th century by two sisters of the aristocratic family Schlossberg, whose castle was nearby. However, the first record of Gutenzell Abbey was its refoundation, or possibly confirmation, charter from 1237 as a Cistercian monastery. In its early days the monastery was favoured and supported particular ...
Founded: 1237 |
Location:
Gutenzell, Germany
St. Catherine`s Church
St Catherine`s Church in Trent, first mentioned in a document dating to 1318, is special due to its rib-vaulted choir (c.1400) alongside the middle axis. Today"s nave was built at the end of the 15th century in the form of a Gothic hall. Apertures in the wall of the three-story west tower indicate that it served a defensive purpose at times of war. The curved dome was added to the tower only in 1602. The elaborate ca ...
Founded: 14th century |
Location:
Trent, Germany
St. Mary's Church
St. Mary’s Church in Anklam is one of the most beautiful Brick Gothic churches in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It was founded in the middle of the 13th century. To this day, one part of the church's double tower and a square-shaped presbytery have been preserved. St. Mary's was mentioned for the first time in written documents in 1296. At the end of the 15th century, the church’s presbytery was enlarged by three aisles, an ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Anklam, Germany
Ilmmünster Abbey Church
Ilmmünster Abbey was formerly a collegiate foundation and originally a Benedictine monastery. The original site was a Benedictine monastery, founded in about 762 by the brothers Adalbert and Otker, traditionally supposed to be members of the Huosi, an ancient Bavarian noble family. The monastery was dedicated to Saints Arsatius, whose relics were here, and Quirinus, whose relics were at Tegernsee Abbey, founded by th ...
Founded: 762/1060 |
Location:
Ilmmünster, Germany
Braunau in Rohr Abbey
Braunau in Rohr Abbey is a monastery of the Augustinian Canons dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was founded in 1133 by Adalbert of Rohr. It was dissolved in the secularization of 1803 when the German princes substituted church lands for property they had lost through Napoleon. In the east wing the parish priest's offices and a school were accommodated, and in a part of the west wing, an inn. The ...
Founded: 1133 |
Location:
Rohr in Niederbayern, Germany
Reisach Priory
Reisach Priory, dedicated to Saint Theresa, was founded as Urfahrn Priory in 1731 by Johann Georg Messerer, a counsellor at the Bavarian court, and was built between 1737 and 1741 by Abraham Millauer and his son Philipp to plans by the master builder Johann Baptist Gunetzrhainer. The interior of the church is by the Munich court painter Balthasar Albrecht. Urfahrn Priory was dissolved in 1802, during the secularisation o ...
Founded: 1731 |
Location:
Reisach, Germany
Windberg Abbey
Windberg Abbey was founded by Count Albert I of Bogen with the assistance of Bishop Otto of Bamberg on the site of the original seat of the Counts of Bogen. Initially it was not a specifically Premonstratensian foundation, but was transferred to the order as an already established community between 1121 and 1146. The quire of the church was dedicated in 1142 by Heinrich Zdik, Bishop of Olmütz, in the presence of Coun ...
Founded: 1121-1146 |
Location:
Windberg, Germany
Rebdorf Abbey
Rebdorf Abbey was founded around 1156 by Bishop Konrad I. von Morsbach. It flourished until the Thirty Years War, when it was badly damaged. The restoration took place in the 18th century and the new Baroque style church was built in 1732. The abbey was securalized in 1806.
Founded: 1156 |
Location:
Eichstätt, Germany
Dobbertin Abbey
Dobbertin Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery of monks, afterwards housed a community of nuns, and later still a women"s collegiate foundation. The abbey was founded during the Christianisation of Germany in about 1220 by Prince Heinrich Borwin II of Mecklenburg and was the first field monastery in Mecklenburg. The founder gave it to the Benedictines for a community of monks. 15 years later it was turned into a B ...
Founded: 1220 |
Location:
Dobbertin, Germany
Vornbach Abbey
Vornbach Abbey, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Benedict, was founded in 1094 by Count Ekkebert of Formbach and his wife Mathilde, and also by Count Ulrich of Windberg. It was dissolved in 1803 during the secularisation of Bavaria. The monastic buildings came into the possession of Franz X. Bachmayr, and in 1857 into that of the Baron von Schätzler. The abbey"s Austrian possessions were taken by the stat ...
Founded: 1094 |
Location:
Neuhaus am Inn, Germany
Wettenhausen Abbey
Wettenhausen Abbey was an Imperial Abbey of Augustinian Canons until its secularization in 1802-1803. Being one of the 40-odd self-ruling Imperial Abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire, Wettenhaussen Abbey was a virtually independent state. Its abbot had seat and voice in the Imperial Diet, where he sat on the Bench of the Prelates of Swabia. The abbey, dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin and Saint George, was founded in 1130 b ...
Founded: 1130 |
Location:
Wettenhausen, Germany
Herrgottskirche
Herrgottskirche (Church of Our Lord) was built in the mid-14th century after a farmer is said to have found an undamaged communion host in the field that he was ploughing. It is most famous for its wooden altar by the woodworker Tilman Riemenschneider which is considered as one of the most valuable examples of religious altar carving in the Middle Ages.
Founded: c. 1350 |
Location:
Creglingen, Germany
Bobbin Church
Nothing remains of the preceding structure of Bobbin Church (mentioned in 1250, originally owned by the Bergen monastery). The present church is an imposing, fieldstone structure with shaped brick elements plastered so as to leave the underlying surface visible. Brick is used for the corners of the building, gables, buttresses, vaults, and all ornamentation. The nave, choir, and sacristy were built in about 1400. It has a ...
Founded: c. 1400 |
Location:
Glowe, Germany
Baumburg Abbey
Baumburg Abbey was founded by Count Berengar II of Sulzbach in 1107-09 to fulfill his oath on the death of his wife Adelheid von Megling-Frontenhausen. Count Berengar appointed Eberwin as provost of the monastery. He moved Augustinian canons to the new abbey from the Berchtesgaden Provostry, which he and Eberwin had previously peopled with canons from Rottenbuch Abbey. He also appropriated property from Berchtesgaden for ...
Founded: 1107 |
Location:
Baumburg, Germany