English Benedictine Congregation

Last updated

English Benedictine Congregation
AbbreviationPost-nominal letters O.S.B.
NicknameEBC
Formation1216
Type Benedictines
Headquarters England
Region served
Australia, Ireland, Peru, Sweden, UK, United States, Zimbabwe
Members
19 monastic communities; 268 monks and nuns (2022 figures)
Abbot President
 Christopher Jamison
Parent organization
 Roman Catholic Church; Order of St Benedict; Benedictine Confederation
Website www.benedictines.org.uk OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) is a congregation of autonomous abbatial and prioral monastic communities of Catholic Benedictine monks, nuns, and lay oblates. It is technically the oldest of the nineteen congregations affiliated to the Benedictine Confederation.

Contents

History

The English Benedictine Congregation was erected by the Holy See in 1216 as a means of uniting the great ancient English Benedictine abbeys under a common framework and held its first General Chapter in Oxford in 1218. [1] The roots of English Benedictine monasticism however go back much further and can be dated to the arrival of Augustine of Canterbury and the communities established by Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop in the 6th and 7th centuries. As such the Benedictines are the oldest surviving religious order in the British Isles, were crucial in the conversion of their people to Christianity, and have impacted the character English Christianity, even its Protestant forms.

From 1534-1540 all of the congregations houses were violently suppressed during Henry VIII’s Dissolution. The congregation as it exists to day is the result of Pope Paul V’s 1619 unification of two groups of English Benedictines, a group of continental houses for exiles founded in the early 17th century and a group of about 8 monks who had been aggregated to the ancient English Congregation by Dom Sigebert Buckley, the last surviving monk of Westminster Abbey, in 1607.

Pre-dissolution Congregation

The pre-dissolution communities of England were the product of the 10th-century English Benedictine Reform of Dunstan and the monastic principles laid down in the Regularis Concordia. [2] They could claim a material continuity with the first English Benedictine communities founded by Augustine and his companions in the Gregorian mission of the 6th century; and the many great Anglo Saxon Benedictine saints and foundations such as Ethelreda and Sexburga of Ely Abbey, Erkenwald of Chertsey Abbey, Ethelburga of Barking Abbey, and Mildred of Minster in Thanet Priory. The congregation also claimed a moral continuity with Benedict Biscop, Wilfrid, Bede, and their communities in spite of the material link being broken by the Viking invasions.

The 13th-century congregation and the ancient traditions of English Benedictine life completely ceased to exist at the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII 1535–1540. Like all the professed monastic, canonical, and mendicant religious at the time of the Henrician dissolution, English Benedictine priests or scholars were assumed into the reformed secular clergy of the Church of England if they assented to the Supremacy. Other priests, lay brethren, and nuns of the congregation were pensioned off if aged, sought lay employment or marriage accepting effective laicisation, were left to vagrancy, or went into exile in the Abbeys of continental Europe if they wished to maintain conventual observances, or lived as covert eremites in England. A relative few were martyred, with some monks tortured to death by being Hanged, drawn and quartered, some in provocative locations like their own Abbeys and associated holy sites or in the place where common criminals were executed on their abbatial estates. These included three beatified abbots and the brethren of their communities who died with them; the last Abbot of Glastonbury Richard Whiting, executed on The Tor with fellow Glastonbury monks John Thorne, and Roger James; the last Abbot of Reading Hugh Faringdon, executed in the inner courtyard of his Abbey with fellow Reading monks John Eynon, and John Rugg; and the last Abbot of Colchester John Beche, executed in a common hanging place on his monastic lands. [3]

Post-dissolution Congregation

Mary I briefly restored Westminster Abbey to 14 English Benedictine monks, professed either in pre-dissolution or continental houses, under Abbot John Feckenham of Evesham Abbey on the feast of the Presentation of Mary (21 November) in 1556 and they admitted a small number of new brethren to profession. This very modest revival was again suppressed on 12 July 1560 under the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. [4]

During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I English exiles with monastic vocations joined houses of the Cassinese Congregation in France, Spain, and Italy. The present congregation was established by English Catholic expatriates in France and the Low Countries at the start of the 17th century encouraged by the Holy See. [5]

Formal reestablishment

As more rampant persecution emerged in reprisal to the 1605 Gunpowder Plot and fearing the congregation would die with him the last of the Westminster monks professed under Abbot Feckenham, the aged Dom Sigebert Buckley O.S.B, "aggregated" Doms Robert Sadler and Edward Mayhew O.S.B, two English monks, priests, and missionaries of the Abbey of Santa Giustina, Padua, and four other lay brothers and oblates to the near-extinct Chapter of Westminster (and thereby the English Benedictine Congregation) on the 21st of November 1607. The Deed of Aggregation was an unofficial, clandestine affair, treasonable under English law and without prior papal consent, with only Buckley, Sadler, and Mayhew personally present. The Deed was later ratified by Pope Paul V’s in the papal brief Cum Sicut Accepimus (24 December 1612). [6]

In 1619 the 4 extant male Priories of exiled English speaking monks (Douai English priory, forerunner to the Downside, Ealing, and Worth communities; Dieulouard English Priory, forerunner to the Ampleforth community; St Edmunds Priory Paris, forerunner to the Douai community; and the extinct Priory of Saint-Malo) were united by another brief of Paul V, Ex Incumbenti. The documents issued in Paul’s papacy were further ratified by a bull issued 12 July 1633 by Pope Urban VIII titled Plantata. [7] The EBC's claim of continuity thus depends entirely on the 1607 Deed of Aggregation and the briefs of 1612 and 1619, not on any direct line of continuity with regular conventual English Benedictine life prior to the Dissolution. The present congregation owes its original spiritual identity primarily to the Spanish Cassinese communities its monks were formed in, the dangerous situation of persecution, the need for priestly and catechetical workers in the English mission, and the general climate of Tridentine monastic reform. [8]

English Benedictine houses in exile

In 1598 Lady Mary Percy O.S.B established the first religious community for English exiles under the Rule of St Benedict for nuns at Brussels from which sprang a number of daughter houses, which together with the mother house returned to England during the French Revolution. These communities were the Brussels mother house, later East Bergholt Abbey; the Ghent community, later Oulton Abbey, founded 1624; the Dunkirk community, later Teignmouth Abbey, founded 1662; and the Ypres community, Kylemore Abbey, founded 1665. [9] The Abbeys of the Percy tradition remained unaffiliated from any Benedictine congregation including the EBC until Kylemore aggregated in 2020 however Dames from from the Brussels and Ghent were involved of the 1623 EBC convent at Cambrai.

In 1607 a Priory dedicated to St Gregory the Great, the first monastic community for exiled English Benedictine monks (ancestor of Downside Abbey and its daughter houses Ealing Abbey and Worth Abbey) was established at Douai in Flanders by John Roberts and other English monks from Spanish monasteries, particularly the Royal Abbey of San Benito, Valladolid. [10] In 1608 another community (ancestor of Ampleforth Abbey) was established in the disused collegiate church of Dieulouard, dedicated to St Laurence of Rome, in the Duchy of Lorraine (modern France). Two further houses in the Kingdom of France followed, the first in 1611 at Saint-Malo in Brittany, and the second in 1615 in Paris founded by Dom Gabriel Gifford O.S.B (ancestor of todays Douai Abbey) as a daughter house of St Laurence Priory, Dieulouard dedicated to St Edmund the Martyr King. In in 1632 the Paris community settled on the Rue Saint-Jacques where King James II was later buried in the Chapel of St Edmund. The final community for monks was established in a disused collegiate church dedicated St Adrian and St Denis, Lamspringe Abbey (ancestor of Fort Augustus Abbey), in Upper Saxony in what is now Germany.

The missionary work of the EBC monks among the recusant Catholics in England began to attract women to the monastic life and 8 postulants travelled to Flanders with Dom Benet Jones lead by Gertrude More, great-great granddaughter to St Thomas More, settling near Douai. The community was established in 1623 at Cambrai and dedicated to Our Lady of Consolation (ancestor of Stanbrook Abbey). By 1645 the Cambrai community under Abbess Catherine Gascoigne had increased to 50 nuns, and was living in conditions of extreme poverty. On 6 February 1652, a new priory was established in Paris dedicated to Our Lady of Good Hope with Dame Bridget More as Prioress (ancestor of Colwich Abbey). [11]

Sexual abuse scandal

The sexual abuse scandal in the EBC around the turn of the 21st century was a significant episode in a series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United Kingdom. The events concerned ranged from the 1960s to the 2010s, and led to a number of EBC monks being laicized, convicted and imprisoned for the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults.

Structure and membership

Every four years the General Chapter of the EBC elects an Abbot or Abbess President from among the ruling and former ruling abbots and abbesses of the houses of the congregation. He or she is assisted by a number of officials, and periodically undertakes a Visitation of the individual houses. The purpose of the Visitation is the preservation, strengthening and renewal of the religious life, including the laws of the Church and the Constitutions of the congregation. The President may require by Acts of Visitation, that particular points in the Rule, the Constitutions and the law of the Church be observed. [12]

The current Abbot President is Abbot Christopher Jamison, former Abbot of Worth Abbey. [13] [14]

In 2020 the EBC had houses in the United Kingdom, the United States, Peru, and Zimbabwe. In 2022, three communities of nuns – Kylemore Abbey (Ireland), Mariavall Abbey (Sweden) and Jamberoo Abbey (Australia) – were accepted into the EBC, [15] bringing the number of houses and communities to 17.

Membership Numbers

In 2022, membership of the constituent houses was as follows. [16]

HouseBishopsMonksNunsNovices
Downside Abbey 01400
Ampleforth Abbey 04500
Douai Abbey 02100
Stanbrook Abbey 00230
Belmont Abbey 12704
Curzon Park Abbey 0050
Ealing Abbey 0900
Buckfast Abbey 0800
Saint Anselm's Abbey 01201
Worth Abbey 01900
Portsmouth Abbey 01200
Saint Louis Abbey 02100
Kylemore Abbey 00120
Jamberoo Abbey 00220
Mariavall Abbey 00120
Total1188745

Houses

Houses of the Congregation in exile

Religious house in EuropeLocationDatesSuccessor house in England
St Gregory's Priory, Douai Douai, France1607–1798 Downside Abbey
Dieulouard PrioryFrance1608–1798 Ampleforth Abbey
St Malo Priory St Malo, Brittany c.1610 – late 17th centuryn/a
St Edmund's Priory, Paris; later St Edmund's Abbey, Douai Paris 1615–1798 (Paris); 1818–1903 (Douai) Douai Abbey, Woolhampton
Cambrai Priory Cambrai, Flanders 1625–1794 Stanbrook Abbey
Our Lady of Good Hope Priory, ParisParis1651–1794 Colwich Abbey
Lamspringe Abbey Lamspringe, Lower Saxony1630–1803Broadway Priory, 1826–34; Fort Augustus Abbey, 1886–1998

Houses of the present Congregation

England

Australia

Ireland

Peru

Sweden

United States

Zimbabwe

Defunct houses of the present Congregation

Notable English Benedictines

Reformation martyrs

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benedictines</span> Catholic monastic order

The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict, are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529 they are the oldest of all the religious orders in the Latin Church. The male religious are also sometimes called the Black Monks, especially in English speaking countries, after the colour of their habits. Not all Benedictines wear black however, with some like the Olivetans wearing white. They were founded by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century Italian monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, possibly his twin, also became a religious from an early age, but chose to live as a hermit. They retained a close relationship until her death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Benet's Hall, Oxford</span> Permanent private hall of the University of Oxford

St Benet's Hall was a permanent private hall (PPH) of the University of Oxford, originally a Roman Catholic religious house of studies. It closed in 2022. The principal building was located at the northern end of St Giles' on its western side, close to the junction with Woodstock Road, Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downside Abbey</span> Benedictine monastery in Somerset, England

Downside Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in England and the senior community of the English Benedictine Congregation. Until 2019, the community had close links with Downside School, for the education of children aged eleven to eighteen. Both the abbey and the school are at Stratton-on-the-Fosse, between Westfield and Shepton Mallet in Somerset, South West England. In 2020, the monastic community announced that it would move away from the present monastery and seek a new place to live. In October 2021, the monastic community further announced that as part of their transition they would move in Spring of 2022 to the temporary accommodation of "Southgate House, in the grounds of Buckfast Abbey, Devon, where we will live as the Community of St Gregory the Great". As of 2020, the monastic community of Downside Abbey was home to fifteen monks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augustine Baker</span> Welsh writer and mystic (1575–1641)

Augustine Baker OSB, also sometimes known as "Austin Baker", was a well-known Benedictine mystic and an ascetic writer. He was one of the earliest members of the English Benedictine Congregation which was newly restored to England after the Reformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Roberts (martyr)</span> Welsh saint

John Roberts, OSB was a Welsh Benedictine monk and priest, and was the first prior of St. Gregory's, Douai, France. Returning to England as a missionary priest during the period of recusancy, he was martyred at Tyburn. He is venerated as a saint by the Catholic church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worth Abbey</span>

The Abbey of Our Lady, Help of Christians, commonly known as Worth Abbey, is a community of Roman Catholic monks who follow the Rule of St Benedict near Turners Hill village, in West Sussex, England. Founded in 1933, the abbey is part of the English Benedictine Congregation. As of 2020, the monastic community had 21 monks.

Dom Columba Cary-Elwes, OSB was an English Benedictine monk who professed vows at Ampleforth Abbey in York, England. As a missionary he travelled to Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya and has written books on Christianity. He was the founding prior of the Priory of Saints Louis and Mary in Saint Louis, Missouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alban Roe</span> English Roman Catholic saint

Alban Roe was an English Benedictine priest, remembered as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Louis Abbey</span> Benedictine monastery in Creve Coeur, Missouri

The Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Louis is an abbey of the Catholic English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) located in Creve Coeur, in St. Louis County, Missouri in the United States. The Abbey is an important presence in the spiritual life of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The monks of the Abbey live their faith according to the Benedictine discipline of 'prayer and work', praying the Divine Office five times daily, celebrating daily Masses in English and Latin, and working in the two parishes under their pastoral care and in the Saint Louis Priory School, which the Abbey runs as an apostolate. The Abbey and its school sit on a 150-acre (0.61 km2) campus in west St. Louis County, in the city of Creve Coeur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lamspringe Abbey</span>

Lamspringe Abbey is a former religious house of the English Benedictines in exile, at Lamspringe near Hildesheim in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ampleforth Abbey</span> Church in North Yorkshire, England

Ampleforth Abbey is a monastery of Benedictine monks a mile to the east of Ampleforth, North Yorkshire, England, part of the English Benedictine Congregation. It descends from the pre-Reformation community at Westminster Abbey through the last surviving monk from Westminster, Sigebert Buckley. As of 2024 the monastery has 41 monks, and sometimes will have 50 nuns of the monastery organization.

Sigebert Buckley O.S.B. was a Benedictine monk in England, regarded by the English Benedictine Congregation as representing the continuity of the communities tradition through the English Reformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bede Camm</span> English Benedictine monk and scholar (1864–1942)

Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B., was an English Benedictine monk and martyrologist. He is best known for his many works on the English Catholic martyrs, which helped to keep their memories alive in the newly reemerging Catholic Church of Victorian England.

The sexual abuse scandal in the English Benedictine Congregation was a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United Kingdom. The dates of the events covered here range from the 1960s to the 2010s.

The Monastery of Christ the Word is a priory of the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) located in Macheke, Zimbabwe, within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Harare. Founded in 1996, its community comprises some five monks.

The Subiaco Cassinese Congregation is an international union of Benedictine houses within the Benedictine Confederation. It developed from the Subiaco Congregation, which was formed in 1867 through the initiative of Dom Pietro Casaretto, O.S.B., as a reform of the way of life of monasteries of the Cassinese Congregation, formed in 1408, toward a stricter contemplative observance, and received final approval in 1872 by Pope Pius IX. After discussions between the two congregations at the start of the 21st century, approval was given by Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 for the incorporation of the Cassinese Congregation into its offshoot, the Subiaco Congregation. The expanded congregation was given this new name.

Christ the King Priory, Tororo, Eastern Region, Uganda, is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien. Established in the 1980s by Fr John Neudegger, OSB, the monastery is currently home to 24 monks. Fr Prior Fidelis is the community's superior.

St. Benedict's Conventual Priory, Digos, Davao del Sur, Philippines, is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien. Established in 1983 at the request of Bishop Generoso Camiña of the Diocese of Digos, the monastery is currently home to 21 monks. Conventual Priory Fr Edgar Friedmann is the community's superior.

The Abbey of St. Maurus is a Tanzanian Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien in Hanga, Ruvuma Region. Established in 1956 by Abbot-Bishop Eberhard Spiess as a formation house for African monastic candidates, the monastery is currently home to 122 monks. The abbey operates schools and a dispensary for the people of the local village and a seminary for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Songea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waegwan Abbey</span> Benedictine monastery in South Korea

Saint Maurus and Saint Placidus Abbey, Waegwan, Chilgok, North Gyeongsang, South Korea is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien. Established in 1952 by Korean monks who had survived the dissolution of the Territorial Abbey of Tokwon and Holy Cross Abbey in Yanji, the monastery is currently home to 131 monks. Fr Blasio Park is the current abbot.

References

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20171105194639/http://www.osb.org/gen/hicks/index.html
  2. ↑ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  3. ↑ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  4. ↑ http://www.plantata.org.uk
  5. ↑ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  6. ↑ H.Connolly, 'The Buckley Affair', in Downside Review 30 (1931) 49-74
  7. ↑ http://www.plantata.org.uk/documents.php
  8. ↑ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  9. ↑ Nolan, Patrick. "English Convents in the Low Countries", The Irish Dames of Ypres, Benziger, 1908, p. 16 PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  10. ↑ Zeller, Dom.Hubert Van (1954). Downside By and Large. London: Sheed and Ward. p. 3.
  11. ↑ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  12. ↑ "English Benedictine History". plantata.org.uk. Ampleforth Abbey Trustees. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  13. ↑ Lamb, Christopher (1 August 2017). "Christopher Jamison appointed Abbot President of English Benedictines". The Tablet. London, UK. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  14. ↑ "Abbot Christopher Jamison elected new President". benedictines.org.uk. 1 August 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  15. ↑ "English Benedictine Congregation welcomes three new communities". benedictines.org.uk. July 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  16. ↑ The Benedictine Yearbook. London: English Benedictine Congregation Trust. 2023. p. 26. ISBN   978-0-901089-58-8.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.