After trying for many years to save their monastery of Our Lady of Bellefontaine (Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire region of France), the monks of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), a reduced community of aged religious men, decided to pass on their installations to the Abbey of Saint Mary Magdalen of Le Barroux. The move was announced by the local diocese, the diocese of Angers.
The famous community of Le Barroux, founded in 1978 by Dom Gerard Calvet, is dedicated to promotion the Traditional Latin Rite, with its Benedictine characteristics, and was accorded canonical status by the Holy See in 1989. The women of the Annunciation Abbey, also at Le Barroux, and the monks of the Abbey of Our Lady of La Garde have also sprung up from the living waters of Le Barroux, who will now take care of the fair springs of Bellefontaine.
