Heiligenkreuz Abbey

Heiligenkreuz Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in the village of Heiligenkreuz inside the southern a part of the Vienna woods, c. Thirteen km north-west of Baden in Lower Austria. It is the oldest constantly occupied Cistercian monastery within the international. The monastery became founded in 1133 by way of Margrave St. Leopold III of Austria, on the request of his son Otto, quickly to be abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Morimond in Burgundy and afterwards Bishop of Freising.

Its first 12 priests together with their abbot, Gottschalk, got here from Morimond at the request of Leopold III. The date of consecration turned into 11 September 1133. They called their abbey Heiligenkreuz as a signal in their devotion to redemption through the Cross. On 31 May 1188 Leopold V of Austria presented the abbey with a relic of the True Cross, which continues to be to be seen and since 1983 is exhibited in the chapel of the Holy Cross. This relic turned into a present from 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley IV of Jerusalem, King of Jerusalem to duke Leopold V in 1182.