Saint-Joseph de Clairval Abbey

The Abbey of Saint-Joseph de Clairval (French: Abbaye Saint-Joseph de Clairval) is a Benedictine abbey located in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, in the Côte d'Or department. Founded in 1972, the abbey has no direct relationship with the Flavigny Abbey, which has not been occupied by Benedictine monks since the French Revolution. Belonging to the Olivetan branch, the monks wear the black bure and the white collar.

History

Saint-Joseph de Clairval was founded in 1972 by Dom Augustin-Marie Joly in Clairval, Switzerland. The abbey moved to Flavigny in 1976, since the owner wanting to recover the buildings in Clairval. In memory of this period, the community kept the name of Clairval. The premises used by the abbey in Flavigny were originally built in 1700 as the private mansion of the Marquis de Souhey, governor of Flavigny. They had been occupied by the Diocesan Petit Séminaire.

At first the monks of Flavigny celebrated the Tridentine Mass that Pope Pius V and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had ordained for their priests. However, the community never had canonical links with the Society of Saint Pius X. From the mid-1980s, rumors announcing the ordination of four bishops without the agreement of Rome gradually led the community to move away from the Lefebvriste movement.

Contacts were established with the Diocese of Dijon and the community was recognized as a monastery under diocesan law on 2 February 1988. At the request of the Holy See, in 1992 the monastery was erected into an abbey and the founder, Dom Augustin Marie Joly, became abbot. As of 2010 there were about fifty monks. In June 2021 it was announced that the abbey had founded a priory which would take over the premises of Solignac Abbey. Starting in the fall of that year about ten monks would settle in Solignac. It would take about twelve years for the foundation to be recognized as final.

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