Kloster Posa

The former Benedictine monastery of Posa stands on the edge of Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt beside the Fockendorfer Grundbach. It was built on the site of the Slavic hillfort Puonzowa, which dates from the 9th and 10th centuries and once had a main stronghold and an eastern outer bailey. The monks followed a legend in which a converted Slav saw the Virgin Mary in a dream and told Naumburg’s Bishop Dietrich I of the command to found a monastery on the hill. The bishop doubted the message until the Slav repeated the silent morning prayer the bishop always said. A wooden chapel was consecrated on 8 September 1114, and Hirsau monks under Abbot Eckbert began the stone church the next year. The monastery church’s high altar was dedicated to the Virgin Mary on 8 September 1121 after seven years of building. Seven altars stood inside when the whole monastery was finished in 1122. On 24 September 1123 Bishop Dietrich was stabbed at the altar by a Slav lay brother and died three days later, forcing a second consecration in September 1124 by Bishops Richwin of Zeitz-Naumburg and Arnold of Merseburg. A dispute with Margrave Dietrich of Meissen was settled in 1212 when the abbot gave up claims against Zwickau for 250 marks. The monastery closed in 1573 during the Reformation. In 2014 a nine-hundred-year celebration marked the site’s long history. Visitors walk past the remains of the former hillfort earthworks before reaching the monastery grounds. The vineyard planted beside the monastery until the 18th century was replanted in 1998, making the site the northern end of the Weiße Elster wine route. The monastery church’s foundations and the outlines of the cloister can still be traced. A small exhibition inside the former guest hall shows finds from the Slavic stronghold and medieval monastery life. The quiet valley and the rebuilt vineyard terraces frame the ruins, offering a view across the gently rolling landscape towards Zeitz.