Tradition and Values

The Stiftsschule Engelberg is under the governance of the Benedictine community of the Monastery of Engelberg. Educating young people is one of the core duties. For generations, monks have taught in all subjects at the Gymnasium and the Secondary School, and have helped supervise the boarding students. Today, this guidance continues together with many committed teachers, mainly laypeople from outside the Benedictine community.

The monastic community also bears the financial responsibility for the school. Providing pastoral care in the parish, active in handicrafts and services and on the cultural scene, in agriculture and forest management are further areas in which the monks are active, as are the other staff members of the monastery.

All of this is based on the monastic rules defined by St. Benedict of Nursia (480 – 547), which instruct monks not to neglect other work beside prayer and religious worship.

Abbot Christian Meyer OSB

Engelberg Monastery was founded in 1120 resulting from a reformist movement within Benedictine monasticism. Concentrating on the essential questions of life, while providing stability in a community and a solid education were its cores values. The important manuscripts from the Engelberg scriptorium remain witness to these values, up to present-day. The monastery sees itself as a school for life.

The large-scale expansion of the Stiftsschule in the mid-19th century was the monastery community’s answer to the needs of the times. The original Latin school developed into a full-scale high school. Since 1909, the Stiftsschule has offered the federally recognized Swiss Matura. Expanding into the natural sciences became increasingly important in the course of the 20th century. In order to educate young people for vocational training, the monastery established the Secondary School which is presently run by the community in collaboration with the monastery as the so-called “Integrative Orientation School” (IOS).

In our modern times, society, the working world, and our institutions of higher education are shifting their expectations of our young people and of the schools they attend. We rise to these changes by adapting our school program accordingly – nevertheless staying true to the founding Benedictine principles while keeping a focus on the future.