OSSIACH. - A Benedictine abbey in Carinthia, situated on the lake of the same name, in the diocese of Gurk (formerly Salzburg), suppressed under Joseph II in 1783.
It was the oldest Benedictine abbey in Carinthia, founded around 1024 by the parents of the patriarch Poppo of Aquileia; it served as a bulwark of faith and sacred learning, even during the period of the "Reformation." The Romanesque church was richly adorned with Baroque decoration by G. F. Fromiller (mid-18th century). Until 1848, a convent of Benedictine nuns was nearby. Notable is the episode of Bolesław II, King of Poland, the murderer of St. Stanislaus of Cracow (1079), who, after public penance, withdrew to O., living there for nine more years in absolute silence and solitude; only at his death (1089) did he reveal his identity, leaving his royal ring to the monastery. Until its suppression, the monks maintained twelve deaf-mutes in memory of this event; the tombstone of the penitent king is a Romanesque funerary monument.