Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine Abbey Finds a New Community: The Benedictines of Le Barroux Breathe New Life into a Thousand-Year-Old Monastery
This Saturday, July 11th, Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine Abbey officially receives a new monastic community. For Dom Louis-Marie, Abbot of Le Barroux, the decision is above all the fruit of spiritual discernment: "From the beginning, it has been a matter of following the signs of heaven and the signs of the Lord."
On November 13, 2025, the last Trappist monks departed Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine Abbey, bringing to a close more than two centuries of uninterrupted presence at this monastery in the Mauges region. The future of the site remained uncertain. This Saturday, July 11th, a new chapter opens with the official installation of twelve monks from the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux, who now ensure the continuity of a monastic life nearly a thousand years old.
This arrival is far more than a simple replacement of one community by another. It marks the return of Benedictines to a monastery whose origins reach back to the early twelfth century. Long before the Trappists established themselves there in 1816, Bellefontaine already lived by the rhythm of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Though various monastic families have succeeded one another over the centuries — Benedictines, Cistercians, Feuillants, and then Trappists — it has always been this same spiritual tradition that has shaped the identity of the place. Hermits were already occupying this valley in the Mauges region around the year 1010. In the Middle Ages, Bellefontaine became a significant abbey. In 1305, Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, learned of his election to the pontificate there — under the name Clement V — and offered the monastery a statue of the Virgin, still preserved in the abbey church today.
After the destructions of the French Revolution, monastic life was reborn in 1816 through the efforts of Father Urbain Guillet, who established a Trappist community there. Over the course of the nineteenth century, this community experienced remarkable growth, founded several monasteries — including one in the United States as early as 1880 — and made Bellefontaine a place of spiritual retreat cherished by generations of the faithful. The gradual aging of the community, however, led the Trappists to depart definitively in November 2025. Their leaving was felt with great emotion throughout the region and left a void that many feared would long remain unfilled.
The community now called to take up the torch is that of the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux. Founded in 1978 by Dom Gérard Calvet, it numbers approximately sixty-five monks today and stands among those French Benedictine communities that continue to enjoy genuine vitality. This stability has made it possible to send twelve religious to Anjou to establish a new foundation.
For Dom Louis-Marie, Abbot of Le Barroux, the decision is above all the fruit of spiritual discernment. "From the beginning, it has been a matter of following the signs of heaven and the signs of the Lord," he confides. He also recalls the continuity between the two communities: "The Trappists are Benedictines. We too are Benedictines."
Attached to the traditional liturgy celebrated according to the liturgical books of 1962, the monks of Le Barroux nonetheless emphasize that their vocation remains above all one of prayer. "We are men of prayer, and that is our principal office. We are not warriors, we are not politicians, we are not influencers. We live in enclosure, with the natural radiance of an abbey that prays," Dom Louis-Marie explains.
The installation of this new community reaches well beyond the borders of Anjou. More than three centuries after the Benedictines departed in 1642, and two centuries after the arrival of the Trappists, the Benedictine tradition reclaims its place in this valley where monastic prayer has risen to heaven for nearly a millennium. At a time when many religious communities struggle to ensure their continuity, Bellefontaine offers a sign of hope for French monasticism.
[Source, in French]
