Hl. Kreuz Bergen, Benedictine monastery in Neuburg an der Donau, Germany

Hl. Kreuz Bergen is a Benedictine monastery in Neuburg an der Donau featuring a Rococo church with elaborate ceiling frescoes. The complex also contains a tower, chaplain's house from the 15th century, and a medieval stone wall encircling the property.

Wiltrud von Bergen, widow of Duke Berthold of Bavaria, founded a Benedictine nuns' monastery here in 976; nothing survives of its first church. A church consecrated by the Bishop of Eichstätt in 1095 housed a cross relic that drew pilgrims from around 1000. After a fire around 1152, the church was rebuilt as a three-aisled hall and consecrated around 1190 under Bishop Otto of Eichstätt; the south portal, tower and stretches of wall remain. The Heilig Kreuz dedication is first documented in 1291.

The name Heilig Kreuz refers to a cross relic kept here, which drew pilgrims from around the year 1000. In the crypt's north side room a wooden block is said to have hidden that relic after the monastery was dissolved in the 16th century; legend holds the nuns concealed it in the well shaft. A 12th-century limestone grave slab in the south side room shows one of the first abbesses in an ankle-length robe with a staff.

The free-standing tower stands south of the church; its lower storeys are unplastered ashlar from the late 12th century, and the former main entrance was the Romanesque stepped portal on the south side, walled up from 1760 to 1904. The tower's only original access was a first-floor opening reached by ladder. The crypt beneath the choir, shortened by one bay in 1756, keeps a draw well in its north side room.

The wooden block on the west wall of the crypt is said to have served the nuns as a hiding place for the cross relic after the monastery was dissolved in the 16th century; according to legend they concealed it, with the enclosed cross fragment, in the well shaft. In the south side room a 12th-century Jurassic limestone grave slab shows one of the first abbesses in an ankle-length robe holding a staff.