OSSIACH. - Benedictine abbey in Carinthia, 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 Patriarch Poppo of Aquileia; it was a bastion of faith and sacred learning, even during the times of the “Reformation.” The Romanesque church received rich Baroque decoration by G. F. Fromiller (mid-eighteenth century). Until 1484 there was nearby a convent of Benedictine nuns. Famous is the episode of Boleslaus II, king of Poland, slayer of St Stanislaus of Cracow (1079), who, after public penance, withdrew to O., living for another nine years in absolute silence and solitude; only at his death (1089) did he reveal his identity, leaving his royal ring to the monastery. Until the suppression, in remembrance of this event, the monks maintained 12 deaf-mutes; the penitential king’s tombstone is a Roman funerary monument.