Explore Slovene Museum of Christianity

Our permanent exhibition Life Behind Monastery Walls shows some activities that were carried out within the Stična monastery, some of which remained also in the post-war period. Usually one of the monastery monks was trained as a tailor, thus the exhibition includes some tailoring accessories. Monk brother Celestin Irgolič was the last of the monastery’s cobblers. In the exhibition one can see his tools and the last shoes he made. Sextons in parishes and monasteries used to make their own communion wafers. The Maribor school sisters started baking them for Stična in 1981, between 2002 and 2017  they were baked by the employees of Sitik, a company run by the monastery. The numerous agricultural tools indicate that the monastic brothers also worked in agriculture, fruit growing and cattle breeding. The beekeeper father Avguštin is still active, and together with his several thousand bees he supplies his fellow brothers with different types of honey. The popular dairy that also used to make cheese no longer operates. The museum keeps the tools used to make cheese and the labels for the once renown Stična trapist, the last of which was produced in 2006. The exhibition also shows some old tools and vessels that were used in the old monastery kitchen.

The museum also presents the personal objects that used to belong to the famous »Stična doctor« father Simon Ašič (1906–1992). With his work and books on natural healing with medicinal plants he established himself as one of the most visible Slovene herbalists in the second half of the 20^th century.

Similar to the other monks living in the monastery the Stična Cistercian and academic painter father Gabrijel Humek (1907–1993) lived by the motto »Ora et labora« (pray and work). His painting opus shows various directions, from realistic and metaphysical painting to magical realism and his later explicitly expressive visionary images. The museum has on display merely a selection of his 400 artworks.

The Stična monastery is globally known for its Stična manuscripts which were written at the end of the 12^th century and its Stična manuscript dated to 1428, which is the third manuscript written in Slovene language. The monastery no longer holds the original manuscripts. The medieval Stična manuscripts are presented in the museum though the interactive application and the reconstruction of the medieval scriptorium. Also on display are a few printed originals created between the 16^th and 19^th century, which were held in the Stična monastery library and a few technical objects from the beginning of the 20^th century, which were used for book binding.