Felsenkeller Kloster Weltenburg

Useful Information

Location:	Weltenburg, Asamstraße, 93309 Kelheim. In the courtyard of the monastery opposite the church entrance. (48.89863, 11.81988)
Open:	APR to OCT daily 10:30-16:30. [2024]
Fee:	Adults EUR 3, Children EUR 2, Pupils EUR 2, Students EUR 2. [2024]
Classification:	Cellar Underground Museum
Light:	Incandescent
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

700	according to legend, St Rupert consecrates the monastery church of St George.
1710	construction of a new rock cellar for beer storage.
2003-2005	rock cellar renovated and visitor centre established.
2005-2006	flood protection.

Description

The official name is not actually Felsenkeller Kloster Weltenburg (rock cellar Weltenburg), but the Besucherzentrum im Felsenkeller (Felsenkeller Visitor Centre). The 1000-year-old Benedictine abbey in the Weltenburger Enge with its monastery brewery has a cellar or "rock cellar" carved out of the natural rock. It can already be seen in an engraving from 1726 and was obviously used to store the home-brewed beer. Hopfensaft (hop juice), a German synonyme for beer, is therefore an important theme of the museum. It begins with the discovery of "liquid bread" by the Sumerians around 5000 BC. The focus is on the first beer brewing by monks around the turn of the millennium up to the introduction of the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot (Purity Law). The life and work of the Benedictines in Weltenburg is also presented. Geology and landscape history is another topic, and a collection of local fossils is well worth seeing. The environmental room shows today's fauna and flora, for example the Danube barge snail, feather grass or the hermit, a beetle that lives as secluded as a monk in his hermitage. The individual themes are additionally illustrated by image projections and films.

The monastery is located at the rather spectacular entrance to the Donaudurchbruch (Danube gorge) near Kehlheim. The best-known founding story is that it was founded by the travelling monks Eustasius and Agilus around the year 600, making it the oldest monastic settlement in Bavaria. The website of the town of Kehlheim speaks of "Iro-Scottish-Columbian" travelling monks, an abstruse mixture of errors. Agilus came from a noble family in Burgundy, Eustasius' origins are unclear, both were pupils of St Columban at the Luxeuil monastery. They proselytised together in Bavaria and both returned to the Luxeuil monastery. In fact, their teacher was Irish, but the Columban who missionised Scotland was someone else, a namesake. That they should have founded the monastery is more or less the wishful thinking of 18th century scholars.

In fact, this area had been inhabited since the Neolithic period (5500 BP), and the Arzberg south of the monastery was an important hilltop settlement, a Celtic oppidum, in the Early Bronze, Urnfield and Early Latène periods (3000 BP). The Romans built a small fort in the 1st century, and in the 7th century there was a settlement with a wooden church on the site of today's Staubing. There was probably a pastoral centre or even a pilgrims' hostel on the site of the monastery early on, indicated by the patronage of St. George, it was probably founded in late antiquity. The eponym Welto first appears in the 8th century, Weltenburg becomes a Regensburg bishopric and has close links to St Emmeram. The Weltenburg monks adopted the rules of the order of St Benedict. Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria from 748 to 788, was one of the monastery's patrons. After his death, the monastery became an imperial monastery. In the early 10th century, the monks left the abbey due to the Hungarian invasions, as the non-sedentary Magyars raided as far as France, northern Spain and northern Italy.

However, the monastery was only empty for a short time, and Weltenburg was resettled in 932 as a monastery of the diocese of Regensburg from the monastery of St Emmeram. After a very eventful period in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Kastl reforms were carried out under Abbot Konrad V (1441-1450). The monastery was plundered during the Schmalkaldic War, as a result of which valuable items from the monastery library had to be sold. There was plundering during the Thirty Years' War, but the monastery survived the war quite well. In 1803, Weltenburg Abbey was also dissolved in the course of secularisation, but as early as 1842 it was rebuilt by King Ludwig I as the priory of Metten Abbey and was elevated to the status of an abbey again in 1913. More serious damage than the various lootings and wars, however, was caused by the frequent flooding of the Danube. Since 2006, the monastery has been protected against flooding.

The monastery is open daily until sunset all year round, and the monastery church is open to the faithful for prayer, which is typical of Catholic churches in Bavaria. The monastery also offers pastoral care, adult education, conferences and seminars, days of reflection and retreats, as well as concerts. The Felsenkeller, on the other hand, is only open in the summer months and has much shorter opening hours. It was converted into a visitor centre under Abbot Thomas M. Freihart, who has been in office since 1998, and the convent buildings and the church were also renovated.