Capuchin Monastery Salzburg

The Capuchin Monastery Salzburg sits atop the Kapuzinerberg in Salzburg, Austria.

In 1596, Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau introduced the Capuchins to Salzburg as the second mendicant order after the Franciscans in reaction to the Reformation. The Capuchins’ straightforward way, which fit the evangelical mood, was designed to draw the inhabitants back to the Catholic Church. The Capuchin monastery towers above the new town, just like the Nonnberg monastery does over the old. The Capuchin monastery and church complex, St. Bonaventura, Trompeterschlössl, and walls are all designated monuments and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Historic Center of Salzburg.

The monastery was expanded for the first time in 1620. The monastery, along with Bozen and Innsbruck, became a study monastery for the order in 1668. As a result, it had to be enlarged again in 1690, and it now reached partially all the way up to the strong bastion wall. Since then, the monastery has been separated into two tiny courtyards by a low transept. The monastery had already taken on its modern appearance. The religious have always been independent of the king and bishop; they are only subservient to the pope.

The mendicant orders had no friends in Prince Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo.He separated the former Capuchin order province of Tyrol-Salzburg and banished the Tyrolean friars after internal strife.The abbey was eventually captured by the French in 1810/11, and the monastic garden was blatantly exploited as a horse pasture.Because the Bavarians had taken over the monastery, the monks were forced to relocate to the Franciscan monastery for another 13 weeks in 1813.The epoch of National Socialism was about to get considerably worse.The monastery and chapel were taken over in 1939.It was to be dismantled to make way for the massive Gauforum.During this period, the friars were largely concentrated in Maria Plain.

The monastic garden has been temporarily opened to the public.After the monks returned in 1945, the church was inhabited for a long period by refugees. The monastery structure grew increasingly neglected, causing significant disruption in the order’s existence.The monastery’s most recent substantial refurbishment took undertaken between 1980 and 1983.At the time, the historic Engelsbrunnen cistern and the Trompeterschlössl’s arched gates were unearthed and rebuilt as monastery gems.Today, the monastery serves as a novitiate for the Capuchins across the German-speaking world (since 1998). During Pope John Paul II’s three-day visit to Salzburg in 1988, he stayed in the monastery.

In 1602 the monastery church on the Kapuzinerberg was dedicated.Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint John Bonaventure are both patrons of the church.The well-known 10 reliefs that adorn the oak entrance of the monastery church and were created around 1450 are most likely from the original Romanesque cathedral.

After 1600, the Capuchins lacked a flower and vegetable garden, which was and is always crucial for St. Francis’ disciples.Wolf Dietrich purchased it from the bourgeois accountant Jakob Mayr in 1607 and handed it to the Capuchins.Saint Francis had a very close bond with nature.The monastery garden was once largely a garden of useful and therapeutic plants, but it was transformed into a multi-layered aesthetic garden for the Capuchins.