Founded around 766 by
Gamelbert of Michaelsbuch, the Benediktiner Abtei Metten (Benedictine Metten Abbey) is one of the oldest abbeys in Bavaria. For many centuries Metten was under the lordship of the
Dukes and Electors of Bavaria. When Charlemagne stayed in Regensburg for three years after 788, the hermit Utto turned his abbey over to the Frankish ruler, making the Ducal Abbey a Royal Abbey. After the Carolingians became extinct, Metten was turned into an Imperial Abbey. Besides the work of land clearance in the Bavarian border territories, the monks were very active in education. Members of the abbey were not only
schoolteachers, but also members of the
Bavarian Academy of Science in
Munich and professors of
philosophy and
theology in
Freising and
Salzburg.
Gerhard, Bishop of Passau was
abbot in the 10th century. After secularisation in 1803 the abbey's property was confiscated, and by 1815 had all been auctioned off. Over a number of years Johann von Pronath acquired the greater part of the former premises and succeeded in persuading King
Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1830 to re-establish the monastery, Monks from Latrobe in turn founded
Saint John's Abbey in Minnesota, and the adjoining
Saint John's University. Since 1858 Metten has been a member of the
Bavarian Congregation of the
Benedictine Confederation. During World War II, more than 1,000 refugees from the East found shelter at Metten, located just 30 miles from the Czechoslovak border. Abbot was a member of the German resistance. Besides the boarding school, the abbey runs various craft enterprises. Dom Edmund Beck, a monk of Metten, edited many of the
Syriac works of Saint
Ephrem the Syrian in the
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.
Paul Augustin Mayer was abbot in 1966. Having served as Prefect of the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, he was made cardinal in 1985. ==School==