Kirchweih Speinshart

Monastery Speinshart as Festival Backdrop

Speinshart is one of the most important monastery villages in the Upper Palatinate. The Premonstratensian Monastery Speinshart was founded in the 12th century, rebuilt in baroque style in the 17th/18th century, and is today an impressive complex with the baroque monastery church of St. Mariä Himmelfahrt at its center. The monastery is alive — Premonstratensian canons live there, hold services, organize concerts, and educational programs. The Kirchweih is the most important annual festival week of the monastery village — and it traditionally falls into a secular and a spiritual part.

Secular Kirwa of the KLJB on September 11-12

The secular part — the actual folk Kirchweih — is organized by the Catholic Rural Youth (KLJB) Speinshart and the local Kirwa Association. Program: Friday, September 11th Raising of the Kirwabaum on the festival meadow between the monastery church and the Wieskapelle, followed by marquee operation with the festival band. Saturday, September 12th Kirwa of the KLJB and the Kirwa Association — morning pint, dancing in the festival tent, Upper Palatinate festival catering. Classic Upper Palatinate Kirwa choreography, carried by the young people of Speinshart.

Ecclesiological Festival Week September 14-19

This is followed by the ecclesiastical festival week of the monastery community from Monday, September 14th to Saturday, September 19th, 2026. It includes the Patron Saint's Day celebration (the patronal feast of the monastery church), festive services, pilgrimages, religious lectures, and possible concerts in the baroque monastery church. Program and times will be published on the monastery's website before the event.

Festival Meadow Between Monastery Church and Wieskapelle

The secular festival location — the festival meadow between the monastery church and the Wieskapelle — is visually apparent from the baroque monastery church. This visual proximity makes the dual structure of secular and spiritual celebration also spatially tangible: Those dancing in the festival tent on Saturday see the baroque monastery church in the background; those attending Mass on Sunday see the festival tent being slowly dismantled. This interweaving is typically Upper Palatinate — and in Speinshart, it is staged particularly intensely due to the monastery.

Speinshart in the Neustadt an der Waldnaab District

Speinshart is located in the Upper Palatinate district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab, approx. 25 minutes south of Weiden in der Oberpfalz. With around 1,300 inhabitants, the municipality is small, yet the monastery makes it a spiritual and tourist destination in the northern Upper Palatinate Forest.