Carmelite Monastery Straubing

The monastery was founded in 1368 by Duke Albrecht I of Lower Bavaria-Straubing, who also donated the building site. With the approval of Pope Urban V and Archbishop Johann Očko von Wlašim, the Carmelites relocated from Regensburg to Straubing on October 1, 1368. In 1386, the court chaplaincy in the Ducal Palace was transferred to the monastery. From 1428, a house study is documented, which ensured the theological training of the order's novices and made the monastery an important educational center, already possessing over 150 valuable manuscripts by 1414. Despite a crisis during the Reformation, the monastery experienced a new flourishing period as a pilgrimage site from 1661 with the transfer of the miraculous image “Our Lady of the Nettles.” The new construction of the monastery until 1700 was realized by Kaspar Zuccalli, while Wolfgang Dientzenhofer furnished the monastery church in Baroque style from 1700. In the course of secularization from 1803, the monastery was not dissolved but became a central monastery. In 1842, it was re-established as an independent Carmelite monastery under Father Petrus Heitzer. From Straubing, the renewal of the Upper German Order Province was initiated in the 19th century. Between 1985 and 1992, the monastery church underwent extensive interior restoration.