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. 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 the people to Christianity, and have strongly affected the character of English Christianity, even its Protestant forms.
From 1534 to 1540, all of the congregation's houses were violently suppressed during Henry VIII's Dissolution. The congregation as it exists today 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 in 1607 to the ancient English Congregation by Dom Sigebert Buckley, the last surviving monk of Westminster Abbey.
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. 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 such provocative locations as 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.
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.
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 and encouraged by the Holy See.
As more rampant persecution emerged in reprisal to the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, the last of the Westminster monks professed under Abbot Feckenham, the aged Dom Sigebert Buckley O.S.B, feared the congregation would die with him. He "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 21 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 in the papal brief Cum Sicut Accepimus (24 December 1612).
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.
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.
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.
The current Abbot President is Abbot Christopher Jamison, former Abbot of Worth Abbey.
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, bringing the number of houses and communities to 17.
Membership Numbers
In 2022, membership of the constituent houses was as follows.
Houses
Houses of the present Congregation
England
Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire (monks), fdd 1608 in Dieulouard, France
Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire (monks), fdd 1859
Buckfast Abbey in Devon (monks), fdd 1882, aggregated to the EBC 1960
Curzon Park Abbey in Cheshire (nuns), fdd 1868 as an Anglican community, aggregated to the EBC 1921
Douai Abbey in Berkshire (monks), fdd 1615 in Paris
Downside Abbey in Somerset (monks), fdd 1607 in Douai
Ealing Abbey in London (monks), fdd 1897 by Downside monks
Stanbrook Abbey in Wass, North Yorkshire (nuns), fdd 1625 in Cambrai
Worth Abbey in West Sussex (monks), fdd 1933 by Downside monks
Australia
Jamberoo Abbey (nuns), fdd 1849 in Rydalmere, aggregated to the EBC 2020
Ireland
Kylemore Abbey (nuns), fdd 1665 in Ypres, aggregated to the EBC 2020
Peru
Priory of the Incarnation (monks), fdd 1981 in Tambogrande, from 2006 in Pachacamac and from May 2018 transferred to Lurín, in the buildings of the former Cistercian nunnery, daughter house of Belmont
Sweden
Defunct houses of the present Congregation
Colwich Abbey in Staffordshire (nuns), fdd 1651 in Paris; merged with Stanbrook Abbey and closed in 2020
Atherstone Priory in Warwickshire, fdd 1859 by the nuns of Colwich and closed in 1966
Fort Augustus Abbey in the Scottish Highlands (monks), fdd 1630 at Lamspringe: merged with Ampleforth Abbey and closed in 1998
Notable English Benedictines
Reformation martyrs
Saint John Roberts O.S.B. Monk, priest, missionary, and martyr. First prior of Priory of St Gregory the Great, Douai. Born at Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd Wales c 1577. Professed as a monk at the Monastery of San Martiño Pinario in Santiago de Compostela, late 1600. Martyred at Tyburn 10 December 1610 (aged 32 – 33). Feast(s) 10 December, 25 October.
Saint Ambrose Barlow O.S.B. Monk, priest, missionary, and martyr. Born at Barlow Hall, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire c 1585. Professed a monk at Priory of St Gregory the Great, Douai in 1615–17. Martyred at Lancaster 10 September 1641 (aged 55–56). Feast(s) 10 September, 25 October.
Saint Alban Roe O.S.B. Monk, priest, missionary, and martyr. Founder member of Priory of St Edmund, Paris. Born at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk on 20 July 1583. Professed a monk at Priory of St Laurence, Dieulouard in 1613. Martyred at Tyburn 21 Jan 1642 (aged 58). Feast(s) 21 January, 25 October.
Blessed Mark Barkworth O.S.B. Oblate, priest, missionary, and martyr. Born 1572 at Searby, Lincolnshire. Professed as an Oblate in the Royal Abbey of St Mary of Irache in Navarre. Martyred at Tyburn with Saint Anne Line and Blessed Roger Filcock S.J, on 27 February 1601 (aged 28 – 29). Feast 27 February.
Blessed George Gervase O.S.B. Monk, priest, missionary, and martyr. Born 1569 at Bosham in Sussex. Was kidnapped by pirates and enslaved in the Caribbean in youth. Monastic profession at Priory of St Gregory the Great, Douai in the early 1600s. Martyred for the offence of being a priest at Tyburn 11 April 1608 (aged 37 – 39). Feast 11 April.
Blessed Maurus Scott O.S.B. Monk, priest, missionary, and martyr. Born c. 1579 at Chigwell, in Essex. Professed a monk probably at Abbey of San Facundo in Castile and León between 1604 and 1610. An eyewitness of the martyrdom of John Roberts (martyr) in 1610. Martyred alongside Blessed Richard Newport at Tyburn 30 May 1612 (aged 32–34). Feast 30 May.
Blessed Philip Powell O.S.B. Born on the 2 February 1594 at Trallong in Brecknockshire, Wales. Professed a monk at Priory of St Gregory the Great, Douai. Martyred 30 June 1646 (aged 52) at Tyburn. Feast day 30 June