BEURON, ABBEY OF

Benedictine archabbey on the Danube River, 20 miles west of Sigmaringen, Diocese of Freiburg im Breisgau, southwest Germany; dedicated to St. Martin. An earlier foundation of Augustinian canons (1077), confirmed by Urban II (1097), had few canons and little property, and became an abbey only in 1687; in 1802 it was suppressed and became part of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen estate.

Beuron was restored as a Benedictine cloister in 1863 from saint paul-outside-the-walls by Maurus and Placidus Wolter, its first abbots, thanks to the widowed Princess Catherine von Hohenzollern (d. 1893). An abbey in 1868 and an archabbey in 1884, Beuron became the head of the Beuron Congregation (approved by the Holy See in 1884), with daughterhouses in Belgium, England, Austria, and Germany. The Prussian kultur kampf drove the community to Volders in the Tirol (1875–87) but could not stop the growth of the Congregation, which included monks in Emmaus (Prague), seck au, Maria Laach, St. Joseph (Gerleve), neresheim, weingarten, Grüssau, Neuburg (Heidelberg), and Las Condes (Santiago, Chile); and nuns in Bertholdstein, Eibingen, Herstelle, and Kellenried. Belgian and English abbeys left the Congregation (1920) as did Mount Sion in Jerusalem and Emmaus in Prague (1945). In 1895 Beuron undertook the restoration of Brazilian Benedictines at the request of the Holy See.

Under the Wolters, Beuron became the center of a liturgical monastic revival in Germany (Anselm schott, Suitbert Bäumer). Gregorian chant was studied and used. Hildebrand Höpfl was a noted exegete. The school of theology is devoted to scholarship and offers monks of the Congregation a four-year course. Alban dold (d. 1960) founded the series Texte und Arbeiten, 57 v. (1917–64) for texts and studies of the liturgy. Studies of the Old Latin Bible are pursued under Bonifatius Fischer at the Vetus Latina Institute, to which is attached the Palimpsest Institute. Since 1919 Beuron's press has published Benediktinische Monatschrift. Pastoral care of the many pilgrims to Beuron's miraculous image (a 15th-century Pietà), retreats, excursions, the training of lay catechists, and youth work are in the hands of the monks. Clergy and laity work closely together in Beuron's Secular Oblate Institute.

The 17th- and 18th-century buildings have had additions for the school of theology, the library (235,000 volumes), and the Vetus Latina; the church is baroque (1732–38). Beuron's school of art which began in 1894 with Desiderius lenz was opposed to naturalism; it gained followers, including Willibrord Verkade, but declined after 1913 (see beuronese art).

Bibliography: Konstitutionen der Beuroner Kongregation von 1884 (Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht 54; 1885). k. t. zingeler, Geschichte des Klosters Beuron (Sigmaringen 1890). h.s. mayer, Benediktinisches Ordensrecht in der Beuroner Kongregation, 4 v. (Beuron 1929–36). u. engelmann, Beuron (Munich-Zurich 1957); Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 2:324–325. Beuron, 1863–1963: Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Bestehen der Erzabtei St. Martin (Beuron 1963). p. volk, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912– ) 8:1279–82. r. gazeau, Catholicisme. Hier, aujourd'hui et demain, ed. g. jacquemet (Paris 1947– ) 2:5–7. l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 1:370–371. o. l. kapsner, A Benedictine Bibliography: An Author-Subject Union List, 2 v. (2d ed. Collegeville, Minn. 1962) 2:190–191. s. mayer, Beuroner Bibliographie, 1863–1963 (Beuron 1963).

[u. engelmann]