Kreuzlingen Abbey, Augustinian monastery in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland

Kreuzlingen Abbey is a former Augustinian canons' monastery in Egelshofen, now part of Kreuzlingen. Its church of St. Ulrich and St. Afra, built between 1650 and 1653 by Stephan Gunertsreiner and Melchior Gruber to plans by Michael Beer, has a white facade, a square tower with a copper-green onion dome, and a Rococo interior redesigned from 1764.

Bishop Ulrich I of Kyburg-Dillingen founded the Augustinian canons' house around 1125, merging a hospital dedicated to St Ulrich and St Afra with a new church east of Stadelhofen. Papal and imperial protection from 1144–45 made it an imperial abbey. On 27–28 October 1414 Abbot Erhard Dominik Lind lodged Pope John XXIII, who gave him a jewelled mitre. The Thurgau government dissolved the abbey in 1848.

The name Kreuzlingen comes from the Latin Crucis Lignum, after a fragment of the True Cross that Bishop Conrad I brought from Jerusalem in the 10th century for a hospital in Stadelhofen. The monastery kept a golden mitre given by Pope John XXIII, now displayed at Frauenfeld Castle. The former abbey church, made a minor basilica in 1967, has ceiling paintings by Franz Ludwig Herrmann showing scenes from the life of Saint Augustine.

The former abbey church of St. Ulrich and St. Afra, rebuilt 1650–1653 a cannon shot from Konstanz, is now a parish church and since 1967 a minor basilica. A 1960s restoration fire destroyed most of the interior, but the choir with its 1737 wrought-iron grille by Johann Jakob Hoffner and the 1760 Mount of Olives chapel survived. Look for these when you enter.

The name derives from a fragment of the True Cross supposedly brought from Jerusalem by Saint Conrad in the 10th century. This relic attracted pilgrims for centuries and transformed the location into an important destination for religious journeys.