Waldsassen Abbey

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Waldsassen Abbey. Engraving by Johann Ulrich Kraus from the "Churbaierische Atlas" of Anton Wilhelm Ertl, 1687

Waldsassen Abbey is a Cistercian nunnery, formerly a Cistercian monastery, located on the River Wondreb, Oberpfalz in Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Bohemia.

[edit] First foundation

The monastery, the first Cistercian foundation in Bavaria, was founded by Gerwich of Wolmundstein, a Benedictine monk of Sigeberg Abbey, with the permission of his former abbot Kuno, then Bishop of Regensburg, and built between 1128 and 1132. The original community was sent to Waldsassen from Volkenroda Abbey in Thuringia, of the line of Morimond Abbey. The first abbot was elected in 1133.

Soon the abbey became one of the most renowned and powerful of the times. As the number of monks increased, several important foundations were made at Sedlitz and Ossegg in Bohemia, at Walderbach, near Regensburg, and in other places. In 1177 Konrad III, King of Germany, granted it reichsunmittelbar status, making it an Imperial abbey. Several of its thirty-seven abbots up to the Reformation were illustrious for sanctity and learning; of them, Herman, the seventh abbot, and John, the seventeenth, as well as Gerwich, its founder, and Wigand, the first prior, are commemorated in the menology.

From the middle of the 14th century Waldsassen alternated between periods of prosperity and decadence; wars, famines, excessive taxation, and persecution from the Hussites made it suffer much. During the Bavarian War (1504) the monastery, church, and farm- buildings were burned, but immediately afterwards rebuilt, and the new church consecrated in 1517.

A few years later part of the buildings were again destroyed during war, and beautifully restored by Georg III (1531-37), who was the last of the first series of abbots.

From 1537 to 1560 administrators were appointed by civil authorities: Frederick III, Elector Palatine, named his brother Richard for this office. The monks were then forced to apostatize or flee, or were put to death. For about a hundred years it remained in this condition, during which time it was almost totally burned in the Thirty Years' War.

After the Peace of Westphalia Catholicism was restored in Bavaria. In 1669 Waldsassen was restored to the Cistercians, and in 1690 Albrecht, first of the second series of abbots (who were six in number), was elected. The buildings were sumptuously rebuilt, and the number of religious again became considerable. It became especially renowned for its hospitality, particularly during the famines of 1702-03 and 1772-73, and during the French Revolution. Under Abbot Athanasius (1793–1803) science and learning were highly cultivated.

When the monastery was dissolved and secularised under the laws of suppression in 1803 it numbered over eighty members, who were dispersed after having been granted a pension by the Crown, which confiscated all their possessions.

[edit] Second Foundation

In 1863 the remnants of the old abbey were bought by the Cistercian nuns of Seligenthal, who in the following year they took possession, established monastic enclosure, and opened an institute for the education of girls. At first a priory, the nunnery was raised to the status of an abbey in 1925.

The church was declared a basilica minor in 1969.

The spectacular Baroque library is particularly noteworthy. Part of the former monastic premises now accommodates the International Ceramics Museum.