Maria Frieden Abbey

The Maria Frieden Abbey is a Benedictine convent in Kirchschletten in the Archdiocese of Bamberg, belonging to the Federation of Bavarian Benedictine Abbeys.

The Kirchschletten manor was first mentioned in a document in 1143. In 1695, Johann Friedrich Karg von Bebenburg, a Colonel Chancellor from Bamberg, acquired the estate and initiated a renovation. The castle remained the property of the Karg von Bebenburg family until its sale to Eduard Ohlmüller in 1849. The Congregatio Jesu owned it from 1896. The Christian Farmers' Association followed in 1914, and in 1917, the Benedictines of Niederaltaich Abbey took over the complex. The abbey established an agricultural apprenticeship institution. Josef Pontiller was among the prefects. In 1953, Abbot Emmanuel Maria Heufelder of Niederalteich handed over the Kirchschletten monastery estate for the founding of the Benedictine Abbey of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Vigan, Philippines. After Archbishop Joseph Otto Kolb and the Bamberg Cathedral Chapter approved the new foundation and settlement of the sisters, they officially took possession of the monastery on June 23, 1953. The Maria Frieden Monastery, inhabited by Filipino, Japanese, and German sisters, was elevated to an abbey in 1973, thereby gaining independence from its Philippine mother abbey. Due to the international composition of the convent, the sisters see themselves as a living sign of the coexistence of different cultures and languages. They earn their living through an organic-biological farm, a guesthouse, a candle workshop, and a monastery shop. Sister Mechthild Thürmer OSB was elected abbess on October 21, 2011. Because she had granted church asylum in several cases, she temporarily faced a prison sentence in 2020.