Having entered the Cistercian order, Otto convinced his father to found Heiligenkreuz Abbey in 1133, thus bringing literacy and sophisticated agriculture (including wine making) to the region that would become Vienna. He became abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Morimond in Burgundy about 1136, and soon afterwards was elected bishop of Freising. This diocese, and indeed the whole of Bavaria, was then disturbed by the feud between the Welfs and the Hohenstaufen, and the church was in a deplorable condition; but a great improvement was brought about by the new bishop in both ecclesiastical and secular matters.