WETTINGEN-MEHRERAU. - An "nullius" abbey under the title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the Sea, in Switzerland, in the Canton of Aargau.
The abbey was founded in 1227 by Count Rapperswil and his wife Anna of Homberg on the river Dimuzat, at Limagi ripam in the Canton of Aargau, not far from Baden. The abbey was suppressed in 1841. However, some monks, with the abbot, obtained permission in 1854 from Emperor Franz Joseph to occupy the ancient Benedictine abbey of SS. Peter and Paul at Mehrerau near Bregenz in Vorarlberg, known as Augia maior, Augia alba, or Insula maior, founded in 908 by Count Ulrich of Bregenz and suppressed in 1806. Thus Mehrerau became a priory dependent on Wettingen.
The Sacred Congregation of Religious, with a decree of 4 June 1923, approved the Augstine Congregation, commonly known as the Mehrerau (or Wettingen-Mehrerau) Helvetico-German Congregation of the Cistercian Order (AAS, 15 [1923], p. 359).
The abbot of Wettingen-Mehrerau is the president of the Augstine Congregation, commonly known as Mehrerau, which includes 8 abbeys of monks, 3 conventual priories, one simple priory, and 10 abbeys of nuns. The monks are engaged in the 1st St. Bernard College (a public secondary school), and in the agricultural school; 7 monasteries of nuns depend on the abbot of Wettingen-Mehrerau; some monks are at the Marian shrine of Birnau on Lake Constance in Germany.