Altötting

Altötting is a town in Bavaria, capital of the district Altötting. For 500 years it has been the scene of religious pilgrimages by Catholics in honor of Mary including a visit by Pope John Paul II in 1980 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006.HistoryDuring the Carolingian period, there was a royal palace here. Nearby, King Carloman erected a Benedictine monastery in 876, with Werinolf as first abbot, and also built the abbey church in honour of the Apostle St. Philip. In 907 King Louis the Child gave the abbey in commendam to Burchard, the Bishop of Passau (903-915), (probably identical with Burchard, second and last abbot). In 910 the Hungarians ransacked and burnt the church and abbey.In 1228 Duke Louis I of Bavaria rebuilt these buildings and, after they were sanctified, placed them in charge of twelve Canons Regular, headed by a provost. The canons remained until the secularization of the Bavarian monasteries in 1803.Saint Conrad of Parzham, O.F.M. Cap., (1818–1894) served as porter at the Friary of St. Ann in the city of Altötting for 40 years.