Zirci Ciszterci Apátság

Address: 8420 Zirc, Rákóczi tér 1. -  map
Email: zirc@ocist.hu
Web: www.ocist.hu
Phone: +36 (88) 593-643  Fax: +36 (88) 593-830  

Other information:

The abbey was founded by King Béla III in 1182. It flourished until the middle of the 14th century and until the beginning of the 15th century and it played an especially significant role among the Cistercian abbeys in Hungary. During the Turkish rule, the monks had already escaped by 1514 and Zirc itself soon became uninhabited. At the beginning of the 1700s the Cistercian abbey of Heinrichau in Silezia revived the abbey of Zirc and repopulated the village. The one-storey monastery was built by 1733, the wings right next to the present-day church. The church was built by 1748. Its rich furnishings had been made by 1770. The church - like all the churches of the Cistercian abbeys - was dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, it was consecrated in 1752. The church gained its present form gradually, some of the buildings had been built by 1750, then the western wing, the library and the red tower were built between 1844 and 1847, while the second floor of the southern and the eastern wings was built in 1866. Until 1950 the extremely developed farming activity of the abbey provided a stable financial background to carry out all this building work and to maintain the 5 grammar schools (Baja, Buda, Eger, Pécs, Székesfehérvár) belonging to the abbey; the exemplary farming of the manor of Előszállás was nationally famous. After 1950, when the monastic orders were dissolved, the building complex was used for different purposes. From 1990 it became the centre of the Cistercian order in Hungary again.
For foreigners 2 EUR with guidance.