Monasteries
Břevnov - Archabbey of St Adalbert and St Margaret
The Břevnov Monastery is the oldest male Benedictine monastery in Bohemia. It was founded in the year 993 by Duke Boleslav II and Saint Adalbert, the second bishop of Prague. Located in the western part of Prague, it has played a vital role for centuries in the development of education, culture, and spiritual life. In the centuries following its foundation, Břevnov gave rise to new monasteries in Rajhrad, Police nad Metují, and Broumov, which is today reunited with Břevnov.
After the monastery was suppressed during the communist regime, monastic life was renewed after 1990, giving rise to a new community that continues the more than thousand-year tradition of “ora et labora.” On the occasion of its millennium in 1993, the monastery was elevated to the rank of an archabbey.
Today, the Břevnov community consists of nine brethren who strive to ensure that the monastery remains a place of peace, faith, and inspiration for all who come.
They maintain a close bond with the Benedictine Sisters of Bílá Hora, who belong to the wider community of Venio Abbey in Munich.
Emauzy - Abby of the Virgin Mary and St Jerome
The Emmaus Abbey was founded in 1347 by King Charles IV with the aim of fostering Benedictine life in the Slav liturgical tradition alongside the Latin forms.
Throughout the late Middle Ages and early modern period, the Emmaus Monastery endured the tensions of Czech history: it survived the Hussite unrest (even becoming for a time a Utraquist house), experienced Habsburg renewal under the Spanish Benedictines, and was later reformed by the Beuron Congregation in the 19th century.
Architecturally, the monastery preserves Gothic elements — especially the cloisters and original fresco cycles — overlaid with Baroque, Neo-Historicist, and modern additions. After being damaged by bombing in 1945, it was restored, including the construction of its distinctive new towers in the 1960s.
Today, a small community of Benedictines continues to live here, striving to maintain the monastic rhythm of Opus Dei, lectio divina, and hospitality. From its very beginning, it has been a meeting place between East and West. The shared use of the church by Greek Catholics and Copts remains a vivid sign of Benedictine openness to unity and dialogue.
Rajhrad - Abby of Saints Peter and Paul
Rajhrad, the oldest Benedictine monastery in Moravia, traces its origins to a cell founded around the year 1045 by Duke Břetislav I on the site of an earlier Great Moravian church. This early community, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, was entrusted in 1048 to monks from Břevnov, who established here a filial house that remained dependent on its mother monastery for more than seven centuries.
During the Middle Ages, Rajhrad gradually gained privileges and responsibilities, received royal rights, and became a spiritual and cultural centre of southern Moravia. Its monastic life endured Tatar and Hungarian invasions, the turmoil of the Reformation, and the wars that followed, while contributing to the development of education, health care, and viticulture.
The monastery became renowned for its scriptorium, scholarly activity, and later for its remarkable library, which today holds over 60,000 volumes and is administered by the Memorial of Moravian Literature.
In the 18th century, under the leadership of Provost Pirm, the present Baroque complex was built according to the designs of Giovanni Santini-Aichel, combining architectural grandeur with the Benedictine rhythm of life.
In 1950, the Rajhrad community was suppressed by the communist regime; its members were dispersed and the buildings fell into neglect. Since 1990, thanks to gradual restoration, the church, monastery, and gardens have once again come to life, and the abbey now serves anew as a living house of prayer.
Maribor - Priory of Saints Cyrill and Methodius
The Benedictine presence in Maribor is comparatively recent, yet its history is marked by resilience and renewal. Founded on 31 October 1938 by St Paul’s Abbey in Lavanttal, Austria, the priory was established to safeguard monastic patrimony in Slovenia and to provide a stable Benedictine house independent of its mother abbey. Soon after its founding, properties from Admont Abbey were also entrusted to Maribor, strengthening its foundation. The community’s life was twice interrupted: first under the National Socialist regime, which dissolved the priory and confiscated its assets; and again after 1945, when the communist government of Yugoslavia seized its remaining property. During these years, the monks relocated—first to an unused Olivetan house in Croatia, later to the ancient monastery of Ćokovac on Pašman Island—while maintaining the legal continuity of Maribor Priory. After Slovenia’s independence and the 1992 restitution law, surviving monks petitioned for the return of the priory’s patrimony. This made possible the reopening of the priory in 2009 as a small, autonomous community.
Today, as the only Benedictine monastery in Slovenia, Maribor Priory seeks to embody the heritage of St Benedict through common life, the Opus Dei, lectio divina, work, and generous hospitality. Dedicated to Saints Cyril and Methodius, it also carries a mission of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence.
Ćokovac - Priory of Saints Cosmas and Damian
The Monastery of Ćokovac, dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian, rises on the island of Pašman across from the mainland town of Biograd na Moru. Its roots go back to the Benedictine Abbey of St John the Evangelist in Biograd, founded around 1060 under King Petar Krešimir IV. When the city and its abbey were destroyed during the Venetian attacks, the monks sought refuge on the nearby island. In 1129, they founded a new monastery on the remains of a former Byzantine fortress with an early Christian church, marking the beginning of the Benedictine presence on the hill of Ćokovac.
Through the centuries, Ćokovac became known as a centre of the Glagolitic Benedictine tradition, preserving liturgical books and manuscripts that reflect the meeting of Latin and Slav monastic culture. Though suppressed in 1808 under Napoleonic rule, monastic life was renewed in 1961 when a small community of Benedictines returned and restored the ancient rhythm of prayer and work.
Today, Ćokovac remains the only active male Benedictine monastery on the Croatian Adriatic. The community of six monks lives a simple monastic life and maintains close spiritual and fraternal ties with the eight Benedictine convents of nuns across Croatia.
General Chapter at Brevnov
At 4. november all monks of the congregation are coming together to general chapter that will be held at Brevnov archabey.
A solemn Holy Mass, presided over by Abbot Primate Jeremias Schröder and beginning at 6:00 p.m., will mark the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Congregation.
History of the Congregation
The Slav Benedictine Congregation — Eight Decades of Shared Monastic Life
The Slav Benedictine Congregation was officially established by decree of the Holy See on 12 November 1945, bringing together monasteries of Slavic lands that had long shared historical and spiritual ties: Břevnov, Broumov, Rajhrad, Emauzy (Emmaus), and the Priory of Maribor. Its founding figures — Anastáz Opasek, Maurus Verzeih, and Martin Kirigin — sought to renew cooperation among monasteries emerging from the turmoil of the Second World War.
The First General Chapter took place in Rajhrad in 1947, electing Abbot Maurus Verzeih of Emauzy as the first Abbot President. Yet the post-war Communist takeover soon brought new trials: monasteries in Czechoslovakia were dissolved, monks imprisoned or exiled, and the Congregation’s activities forced into silence. The community of Emauzy fled abroad and re-established itself in Norcia (Italy), from where Abbot Maurus continued to serve until 1969. Meanwhile, the monks from Maribor preserved monastic life by moving first to Opatija and then to Ćokovac in Croatia, where a Benedictine priory was reborn.
In 1969, the Holy See declared the Congregation suspended but not suppressed, placing its houses under the direct jurisdiction of the Abbot Primate. Despite this canonical suspension, fraternal contact among the monasteries was never completely lost.
The fall of communism in 1989 opened a new chapter. A General Chapter convened in Rohr in 1990 marked the Congregation’s gradual revival. Over the following years, monastic life was renewed in Břevnov, Rajhrad, and Emauzy; cooperation extended again to Maribor and Ćokovac. Successive General Chapters in the 1990s and 2000s produced updated constitutions and re-established a functioning council.
In 2012, Abbot Edmund Wagenhofer OSB was confirmed by the Holy See as Abbot President, tasked with restoring normal canonical structures after decades of suspension. Since then, the Congregation has continued to rebuild its internal unity, strengthening links among its Czech, Slovenian, and Croatian houses.
Although numerically small, the Slav Benedictine Congregation remains a living witness to Benedictine perseverance across frontiers — a communion shaped by shared history, prayer, and fidelity to the motto ora et labora.