Pfanner founded the Mariannhill Monastery in South Africa and the Trappist Mariastern Abbey in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After serving as confessor to the Sisters of Mercy at Agram for several years and operating a ministry in the Lepoglava prison, he went to Rome (in 1862 for the canonization of the Japanese martyrs), where he came into contact with the Trappists for the first time.

[2] There he led efforts to teach children, manage orphanages, provide medical care and improve methods of building and farming.

In 1879, Bishop James David Ricards of the Eastern Vicariate of the Capeof Good Hope was in Europe, seeking Trappists to evangelize the local Africans.

At the General Chapter of Sept-Fons (France), Ricards of Grahamstown (South Africa), made an appeal for a Trappist foundation in the area of the Sunday River.

With the permission of Bishop Charles Jolivet, O.M.I., of the Natal Vicariate, in December 1882, he purchased the Land Colonization Company a part of the Zoekoegat farm, near Pinetown.

[9] In 1909, a few months before Pfanner's death, the Holy See, at the petition of the Trappists of Mariannhill, made a considerable change in their status.

The Cistercian Rule in its rigour, for which Abbot Pfanner was most zealous, was found to be an obstacle to missionary development in some particulars.