23/05/2024
Abbey of Montserrat 🏰
Spain 🇪🇸
• Santa Maria de Montserrat is an abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict located on the mountain of Montserrat in Monistrol de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain. It is notable for enshrining the image of the Virgin of Montserrat. The monastery was founded in the 11th century and rebuilt between the 19th and 20th centuries, and still functions to this day, with over 70 monks. There have always been roughly 80 monks in residence.
It is known that around 1011 a monk from the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll came to the mountain to take charge of the monastery of Santa Cecília de Montserrat, thus leaving the monastery under the orders of Abbot Oliba of Ripoll. Santa Cecília did not accept this new situation, so Oliba decided to found the monastery of Santa Maria in the place where there was an old hermitage of the same name (1025). As of 1082, Santa Maria became an abbot of her own and ceased to depend on the abbot of Ripoll. This hermitage had become the most important of all those that existed in the mountain thanks to the statue of the Virgin that was venerated in it since 880.
In 1811 and in 1812, the abbey was twice burned down and sacked by Napoleon's troops, and many of its treasures were lost. In 1835, the abbey was closed until restoration in 1844.
In December 1970, 300 Spanish artists and academics held a sit-in at the Abbey to protest against the death sentences meted out to 16 Basque ETA terrorists in Burgos. In response, the police sealed off the monastery. The protesters were eventually removed from the monastery grounds, but their actions helped convince the Francoist government to commute the death sentences.
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