St Afra’s Benedictine Convent

The four-winged building with an inner courtyard dates back to the Benedictine convent of St. Afra, newly built from 1670 to 1673, which replaced a predecessor convent of the same name, St. Afra (reformed in 1506 with the support of nuns from the Benedictine priory of St. Scholastika zur Gnadenpforte, belonging to the Bursfelde Congregation), which had been demolished shortly before due to the construction of new city fortifications, slightly east of Stift Haug (The old St. Afra convent had possessions in Unterleinach in the 14th and 15th centuries, had been plundered by Würzburg citizens around 1435, and received tithes or rents from Oberleinach from the 16th to 18th centuries). In the course of secularization in Bavaria, the Afra convent was dissolved on April 24, 1803, after almost 700 years of existence, and the convent's property was declared state property. Leo Stecher established a brewery in the north and east wings, which he acquired in 1805. The south and west wings were bought by district commissioner von Papius in 1807. From 1820, the convent church nave in the north wing was converted into a four-story residential building. The east wing with brewing cellars and garden had been sold to the Konradi brewery in 1817 and again to Adam Gebhardt in 1820; the south and west wings were acquired by the Orphanage Foundation in 1831. In 1854, the Serger family established a girls' high school in the north wing, before this institute was acquired by the Diocese of Würzburg on May 4, 1868, to open the Chilianeum Boys' Seminary with 20 students on October 4, 1871. In 1879, the diocese bought the east wing at auction, which was used from 1902 to expand the boarding school to 127 pupils. With the rental of the south and west wings in 1922, the boarding school's capacity increased to 200 Kilianists, and in 1928, these wings were purchased from the Orphanage Foundation. During his tenure as bishop, Matthias Ehrenfried had the building of the Episcopal Boys' Seminary Kilianeum renovated. From 1935 to 1938, the building parts were reunited into the former unity of the convent through extensive renovation; in 1941, the four-winged building was expropriated and used as police headquarters and Gestapo seat until its destruction on March 16, 1945. During the reconstruction from 1946, the boarding school operated first in Münnerstadt and later until 1949 in the Vinzentinum (founded 1853) in Würzburg, located in the Grombühl district since 1891, before Bishop Julius Döpfner could solemnly consecrate the newly built house in 1952. From 1966 to 1969, the south wing was extended eastward by a new annex, which housed a swimming pool, a chapel, apartments for nuns, and music rooms. The last general renovation of the now five-winged building complex took place between 1978 and 1982. Despite modern interior furnishings, the Kilianeum had to close in 1998 due to sharply declining student numbers (from 1980 to 1993, occupancy dropped from 150 to 50).