Admont Abbey in the past and present

(From Johann Tomaschek)

Just a few kilometres before the Enns enters the wild and romantic Gesäuse, the market town of Admont with the Benedictine monastery of the same name, the oldest existing monastery in Styria, lies in a magnificent mountain landscape. The area here is the site of an ancient settlement and is mentioned in documents as early as 859. However, the name "Admont", which is probably derived from an Old Slavic name for the location and reads "Ad[a]mun-t[on]" in the earliest surviving spellings, is even older. The popular and until recently widespread derivation from the Latin "ad montes" ("to the mountains") therefore proves to be incorrect, even though the landscape itself with its magnificent mountain scenery seems to justify such an interpretation.

The entire area along the middle Enns was originally a royal estate, which over the course of time passed into various hands through donation, primarily to the Archbishops of Salzburg and the Counts of Friesach-Zeltschach. Before her death in 1045, the most famous member of this family, St Hemma of Gurk, transferred these Upper Styrian possessions to Archbishop Balduin of Salzburg with the instruction to use them for the foundation of a monastery. However, three more decades were to pass before this order was realised and it was only thanks to the great Archbishop Gebhard, who had shortly before converted the Gurk nunnery, also founded by Hemma, into an episcopal see, that a monastery for men was founded in Admont. Gebhard himself consecrated the monastery church in 1074 and the first monks came from St Peter's in Salzburg.

However, the foundation of Admont Abbey was not under a very favourable star in terms of external circumstances. During the turmoil of the Investiture Controversy, the abbey suffered much hostility and violence due to its founder's loyalty to the Pope; Archbishop Gebhard found refuge here during these troubled times and was buried in this favourite foundation of his even after his death (1088). The remains of the monastery founder, who is venerated by the church as blessed, rest today in the high altar of the cathedral, which he once consecrated in honour of the martyred bishop Blasius; the anniversary of his death (15 June) is celebrated in Admont every year just as festively as the memorial day of St. Hemma (27 June), who laid the foundation for the material existence of the abbey with her generous endowment.

After the turbulent decades of its earliest history, the monastery recovered surprisingly quickly under the influence of the great Hirsau reform movement and with the active support of the Salzburg archbishops and soon developed into a cultural and spiritual centre of the highest order. Around 1120, a women's monastery based on the Benedictine rule was also attached to the monastery, whose nuns gained an important reputation for their high level of education and literary activity. The men's monastery itself was an important promoter of monastic reform in the 12th century - no fewer than thirteen monks from Admont were appointed abbots in various Austrian and southern German monasteries at the time.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Admont was one of the most outstanding centres for the cultivation of culture and science in Styria. As the abbots were able to further expand the abbey's holdings through clever economic management, the monastery was soon also richly endowed outside the province - in Carinthia, Tyrol, Salzburg and Bavaria as well as in Lower Austria and Vienna. This strong economic position formed the basis for the monastery's spiritual, cultural and social endeavours, such as the famous writing and painting school, as well as its extensive clearing activities and exemplary welfare system for the population. The most remarkable figure of this period and probably one of the most important personalities in the history of the abbey was undoubtedly Abbot Engelbert (1297 -1327), who can be considered one of the greatest scholars of his time and left behind a wealth of scientific treatises.

After the long-lasting period of late medieval prosperity, which also manifested itself in extensive building activity, the monastery, like almost all religious houses in the country, fell into a period of decline from the early 16th century, which was in turn influenced by the external circumstances of the time. To finance the Turkish wars, the monastery had to sell a quarter of its possessions and make the proceeds available to the emperor. At that time and in the following decades, almost all of the monastery's estates outside Styria were sold, but the remaining property was still of a respectable size. More serious than the reduction in economic substance, however, was the extensive depopulation of the monastery due to the penetration of Reformation ideas, so that by 1580 the convent's staff was reduced to just two priests. The nunnery had fallen victim to the circumstances of the time and was never rebuilt.

However, in the course of the Catholic reform that began to take hold in the late 16th century and with the advance of the Counter-Reformation, the abbey experienced a new consolidation and was subsequently able to develop very favourably. Efficient abbots - initially appointed here from other monasteries - placed the abbey on a secure human and economic footing and thus created the opportunity for the renewed development of a rich cultural life. Soon after 1600, the abbey buildings were extensively remodelled and rebuilt, whereby the medieval building fabric of the monastery was not treated with care. Around the middle of the 17th century, Admont Abbey was thus already in a largely new structural state, which characterised the external appearance of the monastery for around a century.

Under Abbot Urban Weber, who left his mark as a builder everywhere in the monastery and on its parishes and estates, a grammar school was established in Admont in 1644, which was organised along the lines of the Jesuit schools and established the tradition of higher education that is still an integral part of the abbey's activities today. - Artistic activity in Admont also reached a remarkable peak in the 17th century in the embroidery school founded by the monastery brother Benno Haan, which produced a large number of magnificent textile artworks.

The later Baroque period at Admont Abbey, on the other hand, is inextricably linked with the name of the sculptor Josef Stammel, who dedicated the majority of his life's work to this monastery and created an immortal monument to himself, particularly in the sculptures in the abbey library. However, the ambitious plans for a further Baroque redesign of the monastery buildings around the middle of the 18th century were only partially realised. The plans submitted by Gotthard Hayberger for an almost gigantic new building proved to be unfeasible from the outset and were only tackled on a more modest scale. This building activity, later continued by Josef Hueber, also came to a complete standstill after a few decades, so that the monastery then appeared as a picturesque combination of the "old" monastery building from before 1650 and the "new building" from the 18th century; at that time it was probably not only the largest religious house in terms of size, but also the largest building in Styria.

Admont Abbey was fortunately able to escape the threat of dissolution at the time of the Josephinian monastic storm, although the government had already decided to dissolve this time-honoured abbey, which had done so much to promote culture in the province. It was precisely in this respect that the abbey excelled in the years around 1800 and the claim that Admont was the largest educational centre in Styria at this time after the provincial capital of Graz is no exaggeration. In addition to a "normal secondary school" built in 1777, to which a teacher training college was also attached, the monastery also housed the aforementioned grammar school, a philosophical college, where the natural sciences were mainly taught, and a theological college, where the young monks of the monastery and other monasteries were trained. From 1804, the teaching posts at the grammar school in Graz were also filled for a time by Benedictine monks from Admont, who also held several teaching posts at the university in the provincial capital around this time.

The soul of this active educational centre in Admont Abbey was Abbot Gotthard Kugelmayr, who, in addition to his wide-ranging activities as head of the abbey, also carried out many a task in the service of the public. For example, during the founding phase of the "Joanneum" in Graz, which was established by Archduke Johann, he was entrusted with the supervision of this institution and it is thanks to his skill that this important centre for the cultivation of science in Styria soon stood on firm foundations and was able to fulfil the tasks assigned to it by its founder.

At this time, the monastery had an unusually large staff of more than eighty priests, but in addition to the aforementioned educational establishments, there were of course also the numerous parishes that had been entrusted to the monastery over the centuries. As splendid as Admont Abbey was in the early 19th century in terms of its cultural activities, its economic situation had become just as bad, to which the political events of the time - the French wars and their consequences - had made a considerable contribution. It was only with great effort and under the most difficult conditions that the abbey administrator and later Abbot Benno Kreil managed to reorganise the finances and later keep the large economic entity on a viable footing even after the end of the manorial business structure.

This promising development under the now changed circumstances was accompanied by a catastrophe that surpassed all previous strokes of fate in the course of the monastery's history. On 27 April 1865, a fire broke out in a house in the village and spread to the monastery buildings with unprecedented speed, reducing most of the monastery to ashes in a very short time. The magnificent library hall with its precious collection of books was saved, and the fact that this jewel had survived the catastrophe without damage may have given the homeless convent additional courage to tackle the difficult and costly task of rebuilding. The 17th century wings of the "old building", which were particularly badly damaged by the flames, had to be almost completely demolished, while the three large wings of the "new building" were largely restored to their original form. The church destroyed by the fire was rebuilt on the old foundations in neo-Gothic style.

However, just as Hayberger's grand plan had only been partially realised at the time, the reconstruction after the fire of 1865 also remained a torso - neither the planned connecting wing between the prelature and the church nor the transverse wing through the "Rosarium" were completed. When the necessary funds were finally gathered at the beginning of our century, the First World War thwarted this project. The foundation had exhausted its financial reserves by subscribing to an enormous amount of war loans and soon found itself unable to fulfil its current liabilities. The general economic crisis did the rest, so that the monastery was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 1930s. The management of the abbey was then transferred to the apostolic administrator and later Abbot Bonifaz Zölß, who was able to restore the monastery's economy through a policy of extreme thrift and numerous sales. However, the joy of this success was short-lived. After the "annexation" of Austria to the German Reich, the monastery was dissolved under the completely unfounded pretext of poor economic management and administered by the Nazi rulers. The monastic community had to leave their monastery house and lived scattered in the various parishes, but the administrator was able to maintain the community's sense of togetherness, so that in autumn 1945, with the return of the monastery buildings and properties, the fathers were able to resume monastic life in its usual form.

After initial difficulties, the new beginning following the re-establishment of the abbey was soon characterised by an extremely pleasing development, which is inextricably linked to the name of Abbot Koloman Holzinger (1956 - 1978). What was created during his reign contributed to giving the abbey the reputation it enjoys within the order, the diocese and the public in the spiritual-pastoral, educational, cultural and economic fields. The jubilee year 1974 brought further notable activities in this context, including the complete rebuilding of the abbey grammar school and the transfer of the abbey's Röthelstein Castle to the youth hostel organisation.

The current areas of responsibility of the abbey are extensive and varied and are performed to a lesser extent by members of the monastery, but for the most part by secular staff. The majority of the priests are involved in pastoral care, as there are an impressive total of 27 parishes to look after - half as many as the other four Styrian abbeys have to fill with their clergy. The Admont parishes are all located in Upper Styria, particularly along the Enns and Salza rivers and in the Palten and Liesingtal valleys. They include the charmingly situated pilgrimage site of Frauenberg with its magnificent Baroque church and the idyllic Johnsbach in the Gesäuse with its famous mountaineers' cemetery.

In the monastery itself, the grammar school, which looks back on a centuries-old tradition, is one of the main areas of activity for the fathers. At this school, which is housed in a generously designed new building, around 650 boys and girls receive their education every year. The grammar school, which enjoys full public status, has a humanistic, a modern language and an artistic-mathematical branch and thus offers a wide range of educational programmes.

The number of workers and employees in the abbey's businesses is similar to the number of pupils at the abbey grammar school. Although the majority of jobs are in the extensive forestry and wood-processing industries, there are also many people working in agriculture and gardening, in the power station, which has existed since 1911, and in the building department as well as in the school and public sector, which is why Admont Abbey can be considered one of the largest employers in the wider area. This time-honoured site thus combines the more than 900-year-old tradition of monastic life with the requirements of the present in the church and the world, true to the principle of the Benedictine rule "that in everything God may be glorified".