Mosbach Abbey (Kloster Mosbach) was a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monastery, later a monastery of

Augustinian Canons The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religio ...

, in the town of

Mosbach Mosbach (; South Franconian: ''Mossbach'') is a town in the north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the seat of the Neckar-Odenwald district and has a population of approximately 25,000 distributed in six boroughs: Mosbach Town, Lohrbach, ...

in the

Odenwald The Odenwald () is a low mountain range in the Germany, German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Location The Odenwald is located between the Upper Rhine Plain with the Bergstraße Route, Bergstraße and the ''Hessisches Ried' ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

History

As part of the systematic

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

Christianisation of this part of Germany, a number of monasteries were set up, covering between them the whole region of the Odenwald:

Amorbach Amorbach () is a town in the Miltenberg district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany, with some 4,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the small river Mud, in the northeastern part of the Odenwald. ...

Lorsch Lorsch () is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hessen, Germany, 60 km south of Frankfurt. Lorsch is well known for the Lorsch Abbey, which has been named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Geography Location Lorsch lies about 5 km ...

and

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the city hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

, all founded in the 8th century, and Mosbach, the southernmost and least documented. It is first mentioned in a reference in the records of Reichenau Abbey in 825, but in the context of the other monastic foundations in the Odenwald, it seems likely that it was also founded in the previous century. The next record of it is in 976, when Emperor

Otto II Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy. Otto II was ...

granted it to

Worms Cathedral St Peter's Cathedral (German: ''Wormser Dom'') is a Catholic Church, Roman Catholic church and former cathedral in Worms, Germany, Worms, southern Germany. The cathedral is located on the highest point of the inner city of Worms and is the mos ...

chapter as a private episcopal monastery. In about 1000, it was changed from a Benedictine house to one of

canons regular The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into Religious order (Catholic), religious orders, differing from both Secular clergy, ...

. In 1268 however the abbey regained its independence with the re-grant of the right to elect its own abbots. In 1308 the present Saint Juliana's church was built to replace the earlier abbey church. In 1556 in the course of the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

the Elector Palatine Otto-Heinrich abolished

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

services and made the abbey church the town's

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

parish church. The former Catholic parish church of

Saint Cecilia Saint Cecilia (), also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman Christian virgin martyr, who is venerated in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox, Anglican Communion, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the ...

's was thus rendered superfluous and was demolished. Otto-Heinrich dissolved the abbey itself in 1564, of which virtually nothing remains except the church. During the course of the 17th century the need for a Catholic church re-emerged, however, and in 1707 Saint Juliana's was partitioned to allow both Protestants and Catholics to use the same building for worship as a

simultaneum A shared church (), simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th-century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in the German-speaking lands of Europe ...

: the Protestants have the former nave and the Catholics the former chancel. Their congregations form part of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Freiburg The Archdiocese of Freiburg im Breisgau (Latin ''Archidioecesis Friburgensis'') is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in Baden-Württemberg comprising the former states of Baden and Hohenzollern. The Archdiocese of Freiburg is led by a ...

and the United Protestant Church in Baden, respectively. In 2007, on the 300th anniversary of the separation, Protestant and Catholic parishes agreed to open the separation wall. The wall was pierced and gates and a few steps were built, which now connect the Protestant and Catholic sides."Shared Churches", Religiana
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Mosbach Friary

In 1688 a community of

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

settled here and established a friary on a new site further out of the town centre. The friary was dissolved in 1808 during the secularisation in

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in southern Germany. In earlier times it was considered to be on both sides of the Upper Rhine, but since the Napoleonic Wars, it has been considered only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Ba ...

, and the buildings were reused for administrative and local government purposes. The friary garden however has recently been re-developed as a herb garden, in connection with the local Herb Market.

References

External links

Mosbach Town website

Brief History of Town and Abbey
{{Authority control Christian monasteries established in the 8th century Roman Catholic churches in Baden-Württemberg United Protestant church buildings in Germany Former collegiate churches in Germany Monasteries in Baden-Württemberg Benedictine monasteries in Germany Augustinian monasteries in Germany Franciscan monasteries in Germany Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor