The former Cistercian monastery in Ebrach is a famous and popular destination. Having a wonderful and unique rose window, the Gothic church is one of the region’s great highlights, along with its Baroque monastic buildings.
Ebrach was probably the most important front post for the cultural and spiritual development of the regions west for Bamberg and the Steigerwald area. The abbey, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Nicholas, was founded in 1126 or 1127 in the bishopric of Würzburg by Conrad III of Germany, his consort Gertrude, who at her death in 1146 was buried here, and various Frankish nobles, including Berno and Richwin. It was settled by twelve monks from Morimond Abbey in Burgundy, under the first abbot, Adam of Ebrach.
This monastery was the third Cistercian abbey in Germany and the oldest and most important in Franconia. Sponsors and patrons of Ebrach abbey at that time were the prince bishops of Wuerzburg and the noblemen and patricians from the country and municipalities that surrounded the monastery. The great Franconian architects Leonhard Dientzenhofer, Josef Greising and Balthasar Neumann designed the Baroque grounds of the former Cistercian abbey. Luckily they maintained the Gothic church with its wonderful rose window.
In 1803 the monastery was secularized. The abbey church became the local parish church.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.