Stična Abbey

Stična Abbey
External image of Cistercian abbey of Stična
Basic information
Location	Stična, Ivančna Gorica Municipality, Slovenia
Country	Slovenia
Architectural description
Architect(s)	Francesco Ferrata (1694), Candido Zulliani (middle 18th century)
Founder	Pellegrinus I., Patriarch of Aquileia
Official name: Stična - Abbey of Stična

Stična Abbey (Slovene: Cistercijanska opatija Stična, also shortly: Samostan Stična; German: Kloster Sittich) is the oldest monastery in the territory of today's Slovenia. It is the only Cistercian one in the country that still operates (the other was Kostanjevica Abbey in Kostanjevica na Krki).

The abbey foundation charter was issued in 1136 by Pellegrinus I., Patriarch of Aquileia, although monastic conventual life had begun a year earlier, in 1135. The monastery at Stična quickly became important religious, cultural and economic centre.

As well as an ordinary school, the monastery had a music school as well, at which the Renaissance composer Jacobus Gallus is believed to have received his earliest musical education. The successful life of the monastery was hampered by the raids of the Ottoman Turks, and it twice fell victim to burning and looting. In 1784 Emperor Joseph II abolished the monastery, dissolved under the Josephine Reforms, but resettled again in 1898 by monks from Mehrerau Abbey on the shore of lake Constance. Stična abbey works undisturbed since.

Its scriptorium was already producing beautiful illuminated Latin manuscripts in the 12th century, and it was here that the famous Stična manuscript, written in Slovene, was produced in the 15th century.

In terms of architecture, abbey changed its image, so we can observe traces and shapes of romanic, gothic in baroque buildings, the eldest core of the abbey stayed preserved. Abbey has a Basilica, named after the Sad Mother of God, which serves as a parish church. Abbey and Romanesque basilica are now declared as cultural monuments of national significance.

februar 1226

They abbey at one point had a high school inside, at the present there is a Museum of Christianity and a parish of Stična. Every year there is a cultural youth festivity called Stična mladih.