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Cistercian Abbey Stift Heiligenkreuz
“Stift Heiligenkreuz”, which means the “Abbey of Heiligenkreuz”, is a beautiful and living Cistercian monastery, close to Vienna, the capital of Austria. Stift Heiligenkreuz is the second-oldest Cistercian monastery in the world and the oldest continuously active and inhabited one, now full of young vocations. In September 2007 it was blessed by an official visit by Pope Benedict XVI.
Stift Heiligenkreuz, peacefully situated in the middle of the “Wienerwald”, the Vienna woods, is one of the most beautiful medieval monasteries in the world. It was founded in 1133 by St. Leopold III of the House of Babenberg. Leopold’s son, Otto, had been sent to Paris for an international education. Otto came in contact with Cistercian monks and soon decided to enter a Cistercian monastery. When Otto visited his father in Austria he asked him to build a similar monastery for Lower Austria. This was the reason St. Leopold built Heiligenkreuz as well as Klosterneuburg to the northwest of Vienna.
Currently the monastery has 77 members, 18 affiliated parishes and a Pontifical Theological Academy (founded 1802) with around 180 students.
Gregorian Chant at the Cistercian Abbey Stift Heiligenkreuz
We Cistercians in Heiligenkreuz see the Liturgy, the solemn worship of God in his Holy Church, as our chief mission. The Rule of St. Benedict, by which we live, gives us a vision of the monastic life formed by two main elements “ora et labora (pray and work); the monastic life is a life of common prayer and common work. But of these two the first, prayer, is the most important, “nothing is to be preferred to the Divine Office” (Rule of St. Benedict, 53). In Heiligenkreuz the ancient liturgical prayers of the Church are still sung in the ancient liturgical music of the western Church: Gregorian Chant.
Thus we do not sing merely for artistic reasons, but our song is our form of prayer, meditation praise. That is why we all have to study Latin; so that we can attend to the meaning of the words that we sing. As the Liturgy is always a prayer of the Church, the faithful are always invited to join us - and many do.
The main part of our common prayer, which we monks begin at 5:15 every morning, consists in the solemn and meditative singing of the Psalms. Gregorian Chant is thus a kind of Bible meditation - almost all of the chanted texts are taken from the Bible.
Unlike the hymns common in modern churches, Gregorian Chants are not typically composed in stanzas, with the same melody repeated in each stanza, but rather each text has its own melody composed to bring out its meaning. Unlike much modern music, Gregorian Chant is always sung without accompaniment, and in unison; that is, there is only one melodic line, without harmony. This gives the Chant its austere sound, and the name “plainchant.” This also however, allows the chant to be free of the rhythmical restraints necessary to keep several melodic lines together. Instead of being composed in strict rhythmic measures, the chant is composed in a free musical rhythm that rises and falls in accord with the inner meaning of the melody and words. Moreover, instead of being composed in major of minor key, like modern music, Gregorian chant is composed in eight “modes”, key like tonal structures, that allow for a wide range of musical moods.
The melodies go back to the earliest days of the church, and have there ultimate roots in the Jewish Temple Liturgy. The name “Gregorian Chant” come form Pope Gregory the Great (died 604), who founded a chant schola in Rome that collected all the best chants. The Cistercians, as a reform order of the 12th century, simplified the chants somewhat to develop their one form of chant, which is slightly different from Roman Chant.
Gregorian Chant is always sung in Latin, and therefore it was threatened with extinction in the 1970s and 80s, when most Catholic Churches adopted modern language Liturgy. But today we are experiencing a remarkable renaissance of this ancient form of prayer—even young people nowadays are discovering the excitement of these melodies which have been sung through so many centuries. Of course, it must be said that it takes some time to listen oneself into this world of music, and develop an ear for its greatest treasures.
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