Mariastern Abbey

Mariastern Abbey is a Trappist abbey in Bosnia and Herzegovina, situated near the country's second largest city Banja Luka. It consists of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the monastery of Trappist monks. It is the only Trappist monastery in Southeastern Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, with 219 monks, the Abbey was the largest Trappist abbey in the world; today it is the smallest, with only two monks.

The building of the complex of the Mariastern Abbey in Banja Luka is associated with the arrival of the trappist Franz Pfanner in Bosnia. After 23 months of unsuccessful attempts to set up a Trappist monastery in Hungary, Croatia and Lower Styria, and on learning that a law had been passed in the Ottoman Empire allowing the Christians to buy land, Pfanner came to Banja Luka, where on 10 June 1869 he bought 100 acres of land in Delibašino Selo near Banja Luka for the sum of 1.400 ducats. On 21 June 1869, the Trappists came to the plot of land they had purchased in Delibašino Selo. This is thus regarded as the date on which the Mariastern Abbey was founded.

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