Franciscan Church

The 18th century brought a flourishing period: a monastery garden was laid out in 1730, and the convent buildings were extended in 1735. Philosophy and theology were taught there, and Franciscans also taught at the Miltenberg grammar school. The monastery was dissolved during secularization in 1803, though the friars retained residency rights for life. The empty monastery was later returned to the Franciscans, first belonging to the Franconian and, from 1836, to the Bavarian Franciscan Province, with new friars moving in from that year. In 1843 the convent adopted the patronage of the Immaculate Conception of Mary — a doctrine long championed by Franciscan theologians and declared dogma in 1854. By 1960 the convent numbered four priests and four lay brothers before its dissolution in 1983.

Early furnishings included an organ built in 1681 by the Franciscan organ builder Fr. Adam Öhninger. Between 1888 and 1893 the Baroque interior gave way to a refurbishment in the taste of the era, and in 1938 figurative paintings were painted over. Restoration between 1960 and 1964 partly returned to Baroque style: a new Immaculata high altar was created in Baroque forms, and two side altars came from the church in Laudenbach; further interior renovation followed in 1977. The richly figured pulpit survives, as does the case of the Öhninger organ, though the Vleugels company later rebuilt it so extensively as to amount to a new instrument.