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Sept-Fons

Notre-Dame de Saint-Lieu was founded at Sept-Fons in 1132, in the Bourbonnais, by two monks from Fontenay Abbey, Richard and Guillaume de Montbard. In 1656, Louis XIV appointed Eustache de Beaufort as commendatory abbot; a young man aged 20 who abandoned court life for Sept-Fons. He took his vows at Clairvaux. He reformed the community in the same way as Abbot Rancé at La Trappe Abbey. When he died, there were 130 monks and novices at Sept-Fons Abbey. In 1845, monastery life was revived by monks who had been in exile in Germany and Switzerland. In 1892, the abbey initiated the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance, uniting all the monasteries which followed the rules of La Trappe Abbey. From 1899 to 1935, the abbot Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard transformed the abbey and had a huge influence on the Catholic church in France. The monks from Sept-Fons are the heirs of those who lived, struggled, worked and prayed here for more than one hundred and fifty years throughout a sometimes glorious, but often ordinary past. They want to experience the same calling, with renewed loyalty, as instructed by Saint Benoit: “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ”. The abbey, with 80 monks, most of them very young, is today one of the biggest in France. The monks obtain their income from a farm with Normande cows and the production of health food products and jams. Amongst the numerous daughter-houses, the monks recently founded in 2002 Klaster Novy Dvur in the Czech Republic. This community includes today around 20 monks who are the only masculine contemplative presence in this country.