On 19th November 2006 the former Chairman of the society, Landrat Albert Berg-Winters, began his speech with on the 25. Anniversary of the founding with the following words: "'I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, from God come down from heaven, she was like a bride who had been made beautiful for her husband, as is stated in the revelation of Johannes: See the house of God on earth!' A copy of heaven the House of God should be for people, an idea of what awaits people in heaven. This was the goal of the Premonstratensian here in Sayn with their abbey church consecrated in 1202, as they painted the outside wall decoratively of which today only the colourful painting of the blind arcade gallery remains."

A year after Father Madauß became Parish Priest in Sayn, the renovation of the unique painting on the North and a complete renovation of the church and the remaining buildings of the abbey began at his behest. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate as patron of the last patronage parish in the bishopric Trier saw to it that the walls, roofs, the floors and the building necessary for services were put in to an excellent state.  As a result of secularization of the abbey at the beginning of the 19th century the state had obliged itself to undertake the building.

The Sayn Abbey would have stayed in its state, but the patron is not obliged to finance that which makes the abbey special and what is for is decoration. As the restorer Gisela Schreyögg ascertained that the tombstone of the married couple Stein, the ancestors of the great state reformer, Friedrich Baron vom und zum Stein, needed to be freed of the five unpleasant coats of paint and be fixed, it was difficult to know what to do. The parish was the one to decide but could not afford to have it done. The restoration of the monument was the first of the measures carried out by the society in 1982, by the society founded on 19.11.1981.

 

The first board members...

1. Chairman: Heinz Korbach, Regierungspräsident
2. Chairman: Gabriela Fürstin zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn
Managing Director: Elli Sprindt
Treasurer: Gerd Saxer, 1. Deputy Mayor for the City of Bendorf  

Further members:
Irene Goss, MdL
Lambert Mohr, MdL
Dr. Hans-Bruno Marx
Hajo Stuhlträger
Werner Weiland 

... didn’t have much money but the successful measure gave the society a good start. In 1982 there was 5 226 DM from membership fees ; in 1990 this had risen to 21 808 DM. From donations and penalties it 76 000 DM had come on top by 1990.