"Ettal" a Ettal Travel Page by Josibezz

Ettal a tremendous tourist spot in the most beautiful part of Germany.

Located on a landing high above Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a massive monastery complex surrounded by a little village. This monastery has a long and storied history as one of the bastions of the Roman Catholic faith among the Bavarian Alps. The monastery and its village are known as Ettal.

Ettal, almost 900 meters above sea level, is located in a narrow mountain valley of the Western Alpine foothills. Before the invention of the railroad, Ettal, although near one of the most important Alpine passes and on a connecting road between Augsburg and Italy, was off the beaten path and a three-and-a-half day trip to the capital city of the Duchy and Electorate of Bavaria. Nowadays one of the most travelled and most popular roads goes through Ettal. The large, castle-like grounds of the monastery are the result of a long historical development and demonstrates one of the main concerns of a Benedictine Abbey: An independent religious community which produces everything needed for life and thus has all the important workshops and undertakings, if possible within the confines of the monastery (and how could it have been otherwise with the ancient methods of transportation?). On the other hand a monastery in old Bavaria - and not only there - was incorporated into the system of the state and society and then since the late Middle Ages had jurisdiction over the legal system, administration and taxation probably comparable to a county administration nowadays. The baroque need for self-portrayal and representation materialized in the exterior form of the abbey grounds. These factors, of course, are now only a part of history, and today's monastic community in Ettal represents a special form of a Christian community within the Roman Catholic Church. Its style of life and its conception of itself, its inner structure and to a certain extent its exterior organization rests on the Rule of Saint Benedict of Nursia (died 547), which was written in the middle of the sixth century. St. Benedict is considered the Father of Western monasticsm and doistered life. This rule - a basically European document for spiritual and intellectual organization of life according to the Gospel and also for the fruitful organization of community life is still valid in its spirit and in its basic concepts for a Benedictine Abbey of today, even when it has to be adapted to the contemporary understanding of humanity and to the changed relationship between church and state. The Ettal religious community has consisted of approximately fifty to sixty members in recent years. In addition to its spiritual and ecclesiastical mission of Eucharistic Services and the Divine Office in common it maintains as its main activity a private high school with boarding school (approximately 420 pupils). It also conducts pastoral missions and activities. The economic basis of the abbey consists of that which the monks themselves produce and earn as well as of a number of undertakings such as a brewery, the making of liqueur, hotel, and publishing house. Through these activities the large complex of buildings - all of which are used - has to be kept up - for the most part by the monks themselves.
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The church is perhaps surprisingly small, perhaps it wasn't intended to handle the thousands of tourist and faithful who now visit it. .