Krzeszów Abbey

Krzeszów Abbey
**National Heritage of Poland**
Krzeszów Abbey; National Heritage of Poland;
Native name; Polish: Opactwo Cysterskie w Krzeszowie
	Churches of the Krzeszów Abbey
Location	Krzeszów, Poland
Coordinates	50°44′04″N 16°04′20″E / 50.73444°N 16.07222°E
Area	Europe
Architectural style(s)	Baroque
Historic Monument of Poland
Designated	2004-04-14
Reference no.	Dz. U. z 2004 r. Nr 102, poz. 1057
	Location of Krzeszów Abbey in Poland

Krzeszów Abbey (

Krzeszów, Lower Silesia

, Poland.

The Abbey, a 1242 Benedictine foundation, from 1289 to 1810 was run by Cistercians, until it was secularized by the Prussian state. Since 1919, it was again run by Benedictines, exiles from Prague. The new location in post-war West Germany was referred to as Grüssau Abbey or Grüssau-Wimpfen. The site of the abbey in Krzeszów, Poland, is known as Krzeszów Abbey. The abbey's Basilica of the Assumption contains a mausoleum of dukes of the Świdnica line of the Polish Piast dynasty.

The name Grüssau Abbey refers to a house of the

Benedictine Order founded in 1947 in the town of Bad Wimpfen in Baden-Württemberg, where the German Grüssau (Krzeszów) community moved, after Krzeszów became again part of Poland following World War II

.

The original abbey is now one of Poland's official national

National Heritage Board of Poland.^[2]

History

Silesia

On 8 May 1242, the monastery at Krzeszów in Lower Silesia in

Anna of Bohemia, widow of the High Duke of Poland Henry II the Pious, who had been killed at the Battle of Legnica during the first Mongol invasion of Poland. It was settled with Benedictine monks descending from the abbey of Opatovice in Bohemia. In 1289 Anna's grandson Duke Bolko I of Świdnica again acquired the abbey's lands and gave them to the Cistercians at Henryków, who consecrated the new Assumption of Mary Monastery Church in 1292. In 1392 the Silesian Duchy of Świdnica was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire

.

The Abbey was destroyed during the

secularised in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars. The church became a parish church and the remaining premises were used for various governmental purposes within the Prussian Province of Silesia

.

After

naturalists including, among others, Georg Marcgrave (Marcgraf) and botanist Ferdinand Bauer. This collection was stored at the abbey during World War II, and remained missing for over 30 years.^[3]

The territory became again part of Poland according to the 1945

expelled in accordance to the Potsdam Agreement by the Soviet-installed Polish communist government shortly afterwards on 12 May 1946. In 1946 a mysterious convoy called at the monastery and loaded thousands of manuscripts — autographed scores of Mozart (¼ of his known music), Beethoven, Bach and other composers — and disappeared.^{[citation needed]} Several volumes were restored to East Germany in 1965, the remaining Berlinka collection at the Cracow Jagiellonian University and its status as "looted art

" is still a matter of dispute.

In 1947 Krzeszów Abbey was resettled by Polish Benedictine nuns expelled from Lviv (Lwów) in pre-war eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

Baden-Württemberg

In 1947 the expelled community under Abbot Albert Schmitt purchased the former Ritterstift (collegiate foundation or canonry) around the Gothic monastery church of Saint Peter in Bad Wimpfen, that had been abandoned since its secularisation in 1803, and became known as Kloster Bad Wimpfen. The last abbot, Laurentius Hoheisel, resigned in 1997. As the membership of the community had declined too far for it to be legally independent, it has been directed since 2001 by the abbot of Neuburg Abbey near Heidelberg.

By the autumn of 2006 no monks remained, the last having moved to Neuburg, although Kloster Bad Wimpfen still remains nominally a Benedictine monastery and is still a member of the

Beuron Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation

. A small community (consisting at the end of 2006 of a priest and a layman) maintain the facilities as a Benedictine guest house and venue for retreats, under the management of Neuburg Abbey.