SA-Born Priest Fr Patrick Schöder Elected New Head of Historic Abbey
Benedictine Gottweig Abbey in Krems, Austria. (Photos: Wikipedia) Bottom right: Newly elected abbot Fr Patrick Schöder
A South African-born priest has been elected new abbot of the historic Benedictine Göttweig Abbey in Krems, Austria.
Fr Patrick Schöder was elected on January 8 to succeed Fr Columban Luser as the 66th abbot of the northeast Austrian monastery.
Abbot Schöder was born in 1983 in Durban, where he also spent his childhood, to a South African mother and an Austrian father. The family eventually moved to his father’s homeland.
He first entered the seminary of St Pölten, where he studied theology. But in 2006 he decided to enter the Benedictine monastery in Göttweig, to which he was drawn by the abbot at the time, Fr Clemens Lashofer. In 2010, he made his perpetual profession. He studied theology, religious education and English in St Pölten and Salzburg, and was ordained to the priesthood on June 24, 2011.
Fr Schröder served several parishes before moving to Krems in 2013, where he taught and provided pastoral care to students. Lately, he served as vicar-general of the diocese of St Pölten.
In 2020, he was invested as a knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In September last year, he attained the rank of Commander in the Order.
Göttweig Abbey was founded in 1083 by Bl Altmann of Passau. Since 1625 the abbey has been under the Benedictines.
It is part of the Wachau, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape. Göttweig is famous for its extensive library of historic works, numbering around 130,000 volumes. With around 32,000 sheets, the Göttweig Graphic Collection is the largest private collection of historical prints in Austria, with the majority of the inventory coming from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The music archive of Göttweig Abbey includes around 10,000 objects from the 17th to the early 20th century.
Also well-known are the apricot jams and wines made in the monastery. As of 2023, the monastery’s monks numbered about 30.
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