Cistercian Monastery Heiligenkreuz

The Babenberg Leopold III, today the patron saint of Lower Austria, founded the Cistercian monastery of Heiligenkreuz in 1133 at the request of his son Otto, later Bishop of Freising (Bavaria).

As early as the 11th century, the Cistercian Order emerged from a small group of monks under Robert of Molesme, who did not want to accept the increasing departure from the rules of the founder of the Benedictine Order, St. Benedict. Secluded in a remote area near present-day Dijon in France, the small group of monks founded a monastery called Cîteaux, Latin Cistercium. This gave rise to the name Cistercian.