Wilhering Abbey
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Wilhering Abbey (Stift Wilhering) is a Cistercian monastery in Wilhering in Upper Austria, about 8 km from Linz.
It was founded on 30 September 1146 by Ulrich and Kolo of Wilhering, who gave the family's old castle for the purpose after they moved to their new castle at Waxenberg. It was settled by twelve monks from Rein Abbey, but the first years were problematic, and after less than forty years only two monks remained. The monastery was therefore re-settled by monks from Ebrach Abbey, who were able to establish the community on a secure footing.
The abbey almost came to end during the Reformation, when the abbot absconded with the abbey's money to Nuremberg, where he married, and by 1585 there were no monks left at all. The abbey was only saved by the efforts of Abbot Alexander a Lacu, installed by the Emperor in the Counter-reformation.
The abbey buildings were almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1733; the contemporary rumour that the monks had started it themselves in order to have the monastery rebuilt, was however not true. Of the previous buildings, only a Romanesque doorway, parts of the Gothic cloister and two tombs remain. After the fire the abbey church was rebuilt in the Rococo style, and is now one of the most significant Rococo buildings in the German-speaking world.
The monks were expelled from the abbey during the National Socialist period, and were either imprisoned or taken into military service. It was used at first to accommodate the seminary from Linz, and then from 1944 for displaced Germans from Bessarabia and as a military hospital. In 1945 American troops took over the buildings, and the community returned shortly afterwards.
The abbey secondary school was established in 1895.
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