SANKT LAMBRECHT. - Benedictine abbey in Upper Styria, in the diocese of Seckau.
On the little church of S. Lamberto, Count Marquardo of Eppenstein planned the establishment of an abbey for the civilization of the country. Only his son, Enrico III, Duke of Carinthia, was able to carry out the idea in 1102-1103. The monks apparently came from Sankt Blasien (Black Forest). In 1109 Pasquale II took the abbey under the special protection of the Holy See, from which its abbots derived quasi-episcopal rights over the extensive territories that soon constituted the abbey’s endowment. Among these should be noted the immense expanses of Aflenz (Upper Styria); hence the Mariazell (v.) and of Piber and Köflach (Central Styria); territories to which the abbey devoted all its pastoral and cultural care for centuries. The period of S. L.’s greatest flourishing was the 14th-16th centuries.
S. L. forms an extraordinarily picturesque monumental and scenic complex. The
church is Gothic, the convent pre-Baroque. The original Romanesque basilica was rebuilt in the form of a Hallenkirche (the largest church in Styria) from 1311 to 1386; its furnishings, however, are Baroque (choir stalls, choir screens, altars). In the vicinity arose (12th century) the rotunda of the Korner (ossuary), with a large crypt, and, after 1424, the “parish” church of S. Pietro, with its harmonious Gothic exterior and interior and its intact furnishings. The monastery was subsequently rebuilt, with magnificence, from 1693 onward.
A unique feature of S. L. is its Ornithological Museum, founded by Fr. Biagio Hanf.