!!!Benediktiner

Benedictines (OSB = Ordo Sancti Benedicti), a Catholic order founded 
in the 6%%sup th/%  century by St. Benedict of Nursia. The first 
Benedictine houses in Austria were founded from the 7%%sup th/%  to 
the 10%%sup th/%  centuries. They were for the main part responsible 
for clearing and cultivating the land, and converting the population 
to Christianity. Their work was destroyed by incursions of the Magyars 
in the 10%%sup th/%  century. This was followed by a flourishing of 
the order in the period 1060-1230, when most of the Austrian 
monasteries were founded. 13 of the monasteries originating in the 
12%%sup th/%  century still exist today. The  Melk Reform in the 
15%%sup th/%  century revigorated the Benedictine spirit in Austrian 
abbeys. The Benedictine order flourished in Austria in the Baroque era 
of the 17%%sup th/%  and 18%%sup th/%  centuries. The country's most 
prominent artists were employed for the construction of what have been 
called palace monasteries, which were centres of knowledge and the 
arts, of Baroque theatre and religious drama. One renowned institution 
was the Benedictine University in Salzburg (1623-1810). The most 
prevalent activities of the modern order are the ministry, education 
and research. Most Benedictine abbeys own and run secondary schools 
and other educational facilities. The Austrian congregation was 
founded in 1930, but this did not end the autonomy of the individual 
abbeys.

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Austrian Benedictine houses, in order of their year of foundation:  
Sankt Peter, city of Salzburg (approx. 700);  Kremsmuenster, province 
of Upper Austria (777);  Michaelbeuern, province of Salzburg (approx. 
785);  Sankt Gerold (priorate of Einsiedeln, Switzerland), province of 
Vorarlberg (approx. 1000);  Lambach, province of Upper Austria (1056); 
 Admont, province of Styria (1074);  Melk, province of Lower Austria 
(1089);  Sankt Paul im Lavanttal, province of Carinthia (1093);  
Goettweig, province of Lower Austria (1094),  Sankt Lambrecht, Styria 
(1096),  Seitenstetten, province of Lower Austria (1112);  Sankt 
Georgenberg-Fiecht, province of Tirol (1138);  Altenburg, province of 
Lower Austria (1144);  Schotten, Vienna (1155);  Seckau, province of 
Styria (1883);  Mariazell, province of Styria (1956).

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Benedictine nuns formerly had 14 convents in Austria, of which only 
the one at  Nonnberg Mountain in the province of Salzburg remains. In 
1918, a new abbey (St. Gabriel) was founded by Benedictine nuns 
in Bertholdstein (province of Styria).

!Literature
M. Heimbucher, Die Orden und Kongregationen der 
katholischen Kirche, vol. 1, 1933; Benediktin. Moenchtum in 
Oesterreich, 1949.


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