Monastery

The Sopron Benedictine church was originally built in the mid-thirteenth century for the Franciscan Order. The friars lived and worked here until 1787 when they had to leave because of the abolition decree of Emperor Joseph II.  Fifteen years later the Benedictine Order received the church and the friary’s buildings. From then till 1948 the Order administered the church and ran a secondary school in the town. After the establishment of the communist regime the monks had to leave Sopron and they returned only in 1996. Actually their task is the pastoral care in the church and in the retirement home which received the former building of the secondary school.

The thirteenth-century church with one spire is one of the most outstanding gothic monuments in present-day Hungary. Two coat-of-arms over the entrance recall the history of the church: one representing a goat refers to the medieval donators, the Geisel family, the other representing Saint Martin refers to the modern owners, the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma. Two details of the building complex merit special attention: the medieval pulpit in the northern wall of the church and the gothic chapter house in the cloister. The fragments of the former rood screen can be seen in the museum.