The Monastery of Schoenbuehel
The Church that stands only a few hundred meters from the Schloss
was initially built in the 17th Century by Count Balthasar von Starhemberg.
It had been his wish to build a church on
the site where the so called “Teufels Schloessel” (Devils
Castle) had once stood, and so on Christmas Eve 1667 the first Mass
was read there.
However, he also wished to build a chapel in reminiscence
of the birth of Christ, so he asked the Empress Eleonora for the
plans of the Birth-Chapel in Bethlehem and built an exact replica
at the foot of the cliff on which the first Church stands. The so
called “Bethlehem” was finished in 1675 and visited
by many pilgrims including the Emperor Leopold I.
Even before either the church or the chapel below
it had been built, the old Schloss chapel had been run by two priests
from the order of the Servites. It was they who with the blessing
and help of Fuerst Starhemberg created the Monastery of Schoenbuehel
next to the new church.
For over 230 years the Austrian Order of Servites
ran the monastery until due to a lack of priests it had to be taken
over by the Tirolean Chapter of the Order in 1904.
If one visits the Church nowadays one will find that
one of its greatest assets is the view over the Danube from the
balcony which can be reached through the doors on either side of
the Altar. It used to be tradition for the priests to stand here
and wave to the nobility that travelled down the Danube towards
Vienna.
This practice can be seen in the Film “Sissi”
in which the Princess Elisabeth von Bayern, later Empress of Austria
travels down the Danube to Vienna where she is due to marry the
Emperor Franz Josef I. She is greeted by the people of the surrounding
area from the grounds of the Schloss and the Church.
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