Gregor Mendel entered the Augustinian monastery in 1843. He joined St. Thomas’s Abbey in Brno, then part of the Austrian Empire and now in the Czech Republic, as a novice and took the religious name Gregor.
Mendel came from a relatively poor farming family in Silesia, and entering the Augustinian order provided financial security as well as access to education. The monastery supported his studies and became the setting for his later teaching and scientific work. He was ordained a priest in 1847 and subsequently studied physics, mathematics, chemistry, and natural science at the University of Vienna.
A common mix-up is confusing 1843, when Mendel entered the monastery, with 1847, when he was ordained. His famous pea-plant experiments took place much later, mainly from 1856 to 1863, in the monastery garden.