Scourmont Abbey

Scourmont Abbey (Abbaye Notre-Dame de Scourmont) is a Trappist monastery on the Scourmont plateau, in the village of Forges which is part of Chimay in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. The abbey is famous for its spiritual life, and the Chimay Brewery which it runs, one of the few Trappist breweries.

Life in the abbey is characterised by prayer, reading and manual work, the three basic elements of Trappist life.

In 1844, Jean-Baptiste Jourdain, the priest of Virelles, suggested that the wild plateau of Scourmont was a suitable place for a monastery. However, all previous attempts to cultivate the barren plateau had failed. Fr. Jourdain obtained support for the proposed foundation from Prince Joseph II de Chimay, the abbot of Westmalle Abbey and Westvleteren Abbey. Six years later, on 25 July 1850, a small group of monks from Westvleteren settled on Scourmont and founded a priory.

A lot of hard work was required to transform the barren soil of Scourmont into fertile farmland. A farm was created around the monastery, as well as a cheese-making factory and a brewery. On 24 February 1871, Pope Pius IX granted the priory the status of abbey and it was inaugurated on 7 July 1871. Since then other monasteries have been founded by Scourmont, such as Caldey Abbey on Caldey Island in Pembrokeshire, Wales, which was taken over from the Benedictines who moved to Prinknash Abbey (December 1928) and Notre Dame de Mokotoin near Goma (Kivu, former Belgian Congo) (February 1954).

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