Franziskaner Abbey

The Franciscan Monastery Würzburg is a monastery of the Franciscan Conventuals (Ordo Fratrum Minorum Conventualium) in Würzburg in the Diocese of Würzburg.

The monastery, dedicated to the Finding of the True Cross, was founded in 1221 by Caesar of Speyer with the support of Otto I of Lobdeburg, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, and was, along with Augsburg, Regensburg, and Strasbourg, one of the first monasteries of the Franciscan Order, founded in 1209, north of the Alps. It belonged initially to the only German order province, Teutonia, from 1230 to the Rhenish Province Provincia Rheni, and after further divisions of the provinces in the rapidly expanding order, from 1239 to the Upper German (Strasbourg) Franciscan Province Argentina. Since then, the Franciscans have been continuously present in Würzburg, longer than in any other place in Germany. In addition to the monastery, the construction of a church was completed in 1280. In the 14th century, they served, among other things, as chaplains for the nuns of St. Ulrich's Monastery. Prince-Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn had the monastery church rebuilt in the Renaissance style from 1611 to 1616. The Renaissance portal of the monastery with the relief of the Stigmatization of Francis of Assisi was created in 1613 by the sculptor Michael Kern. Since the division of the order into Observants and Conventuals in 1517, the Würzburg convent has belonged to the branch of the Conventuals, now commonly referred to as "Minorites." In the course of secularization, the monastery (like the monasteries of the three other male mendicant orders in Würzburg, which "could not yield sufficient income") was not immediately dissolved in 1803, but the admission of novices was forbidden.