Saint Paul's Abbey, Lavanttal

Saint Paul's Abbey
Stift Paul im Lavanttal
Monastery complex
Basic information
Location	Sankt Paul im Lavanttal, Wolfsberg, Carinthia, Austria
Rite	Roman Catholic
Municipality	Sankt Paul im Lavanttal
District	Wolfsberg
State	Carinthia
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Monastery
Status	Active
Patron	Saint Paul
Architectural description
Architectural type	Castle (before 991), Monastery
Architectural style	Baroque, Gothic, Romanesque
Founder	Engelbert I von Sponheim
Groundbreaking	991

Saint Paul's Abbey in Lavanttal (German: Stift St. Paul im Lavanttal) is a Benedictine monastery established in 1091 near the present-day market town of Sankt Paul im Lavanttal in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The premises centered on the Romanesque monastery church were largely rebuilt in a Baroque style in the 17th century.

The abbey was dissolved in 1782 by decree of Emperor Joseph II, but resettled in 1809 with monks descending from St. Blaise Abbey in the Black Forest.

The abbey was founded by the Sponheim count Engelbert I, Margrave of Istria since 1090, on the site of a former castle and a church consecrated by Archbishop Hartwig of Salzburg in 991. A follower of Pope Gregory VII and Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg in the Investiture Controversy with Emperor Henry IV, Engelbert had forfeited his county in the Tyrolean Puster Valley but could retire to the Carinthian estates his father Siegfried I of Spanheim had acquired through his marriage with the local aristocrat Richgard.

A second church dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle had already been erected at the site by Count Siegfried I. In 1085 Engelbert sent his eldest son Engelbert II to Abbot William of Hirsau in Swabia. He returned to Carinthia with twelve Benedictine monks from Hirsau Abbey, who received the church and monastery of St. Paul's on 1 May 1091, together with large estates in the Lavant Valley, in the March of Styria and in Friuli. Count Engelbert thereby continued the tradition of several Benedictine monastery foundations in the Carinthian duchy, such as Saint George's Abbey, Längsee about 1000, Ossiach Abbey around 1024, the nunnery of Gurk about 1043, and Millstatt Abbey around 1070. In April 1095 he joined the monastic community himself and died at St. Paul's Abbey the next year.