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| The Former Dominican Church St. Andrew which the Modernist Pastor Glettler -- insofar as memorial protection allows -- vandalized. [Photo: kreuz.net] |
The Dominicans have worked in Graz since 1466.
At this time came from Emperor Frederick III. gave the Corporis Christi Chapel built in 1439/40, to the Order of the Dominicans.
They extended to the chapel and built a church and monastery.
The Church of the Holy Blood was erected in 1586, one year after the Dominicans had moved to St. Andrew's Church, the parish church. The St. Andrew's Church was renewed under the Dominicans and was built as a baroque church and monastery, in which the Order in its heyday established Universities for Styria, Carinthia and Hungary.
Enlightened Fury
The enlightened Emperor Joseph II abolished the monastery to the detriment of the country in 1786.
The priory, located in the alley named after the venerable poet-priest Ottokar Kernstock, about ten years ago it was marred by being converted into apartments.
In 1807 the Dominicans were dispossessed.
The Convent moved to the parish of St. Anne's church, which it aquired from the Augustinian hermits Münzgraben, where Abraham a Sancta Clara preached in earlier times.
The Order remained here - with an interruption from 1832 to 1857 - until its dissolution.
The current Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Schönborn, who worked as a priest for two years at the Catholic university community, lived in the convent for two years.
Departure
With the Feast of St. Dominic, on the 4th of August celebrate in the Münzgraben Church, the Order departed.
So you chose - probably because it was a Sunday - the traditional feast day of St. Dominic (4 August), not according the reform of the Roman calendar (since the 8th of August, 1970).
The Dominican Provincial Fr. Christophe P. Holzer of Augsburg also took part in the celebration of Mass. "Due to the lack of young people in Europe, the Order can not maintain each establishment."
The accidental death of the prior, Fr. Max P. Swoboda, a year ago accelerated the decision to repeal of the convention.
The Consequences
The four Dominicans living here to move into a house of the Elizabethinan Sisters, a priest goes to Switzerland and Father Miroslav remains as a hospital chaplain in Graz.
"The Dominican Presence in our city is not to coming to and end," said Bishop Kapellari at the farewell Mass.
The property of the Dominicans will be transferred to the Benedictines of Admont, the church is penned as a gift to the Diocese of Graz-Seckau.
The complex will benefit Admont as a student residence.
In Graz, there are yet 187 men and 490 women acting as religious of various religious orders.
Kreuz.net...
