Viktring Abbey

Geschichte

Viktring Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Stift Viktring is now the name of the Roman Catholic parish in Viktring, since 1973 a district of the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt.HistoryViktring Abbey was established in 1142 by Cistercian monks from Villers-Bettnach Abbey in the Duchy of Lorraine (in the modern Saint-Hubert), of the filiation of Morimond. Its lands were probably a gift of Count Bernhard of Spanheim-Marburg (Maribor), brother of Duke Engelbert of Carinthia, and his wife Kunigunde, daughter of Margrave Ottokar II of Styria. As early as 13 May in the following year the first abbot, Eberhard, was consecrated. The abbey church was dedicated 60 years later by Eberhard of Regensburg, Archbishop of Salzburg, in 1202.In 1234 the Carinthian duke Bernhard von Spanheim founded Landstrass Abbey, latterly also known as Kostanjevica Abbey, a daughter house of Viktring in the March of Carniola, in the modern Kostanjevica in Slovenia.