St. Stephen's Abbey in

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

, Germany, was a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monastery, founded c.1013. It existed until 1803.

History

St. Stephen's Abbey dates back to the collegiate monastery of St. Peter and Paul, founded by Henry of Rothenburg,

Bishop of Würzburg A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role ...

about 1014, for

regular canon The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious ...

s who followed the Rule of St. Chrodegang. In 1057 Bishop

Adalbero of Würzburg Adalbero of Würzburg (or Saint Adalbero; 1010 – 6 October 1090) was Bishop of Würzburg and Count of Lambach-Wels. Life Born around 1010 in Lambach, Adalbero was the youngest son of Count Arnold II of in Upper Austria (of the family of th ...

replaced the canons by thirty Benedictine monks from

Ansbach Ansbach ( , ; ) is a city in the Germany, German state of Bavaria. It is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk, administrative region of Mittelfranken, Middle Franconia. Ansbach is southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the river Fränk ...

.Ott, Michael. "Würzburg Abbeys." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 22 September 2021 The canons moved to the newly founded collegiate monastery of

Neumünster Neumünster () is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. With more than 79,000 registered inhabitants, it is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein (behind Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg). The ''Holstenhallen'' and ...

. After the transfer of relics of St. Stephen, it was named only after him, while the name of St. Peter and Paul was transferred to the new parish church. In the first years the monastery was a double monastery with a hermitage of pious women was attached to the monastery of St. Stephan. The transfer of the nuns from St. Stephan to St. Afra took place at the end of the 12th century. After a short period of decline in the first half of the fifteenth century, the abbey joined the reform

Bursfelde Congregation The Bursfelde Congregation, also called Bursfelde Union, was a union of predominantly west and central German Benedictine monasteries, of both men and women, working for the reform of Benedictine practice. Named after Bursfelde Abbey, it included ...

in 1459. The abbey of St. Jakob zu den Schotten was founded around 1134 by from the Scots monastery at Ratisbon. The monks at St. James's were all Irish or Scots until 1497, when their number had dwindled down to one or two and the abbey was then given over to St. Stephen's for a time. The historian Ignaz Gropp (1695–1758) was a monk of St. Stephen's. He wrote the history of several

Franconia Franconia ( ; ; ) is a geographical region of Germany, characterised by its culture and East Franconian dialect (). Franconia is made up of the three (governmental districts) of Lower Franconia, Lower, Middle Franconia, Middle and Upper Franco ...

n saints and monasteries, and edited "" (4 vols., Frankfort and Würzburg, 1741–50). In 1789, the monks under Abbot Gerhard III von Winterstein replaced the Romanesque basilica with a new neoclassical building, designed by Johann Philipp Geigel. The monastery was dissolved in 1803 in the course of secularization. The abbey church and the monastery were then used as a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

parish church and school. In 1840, parts of the buildings became the seat of the government of Lower Franconia.

The monastery buildings were totally destroyed and demolished in 1945. The church was rebuilt in 1949-1955 as a flat-roofed hall building, consecrated in 1952 and is now the deanery church of Würzburg. Around the church, institutions such as the Rudolf Alexander Schröder House, a Protestant bookstore and a counseling center, make the place the Protestant center of Würzburg.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:St. Stephen's Abbey, Wurzburg Benedictine monasteries in Germany 1013 establishments in Europe