Elisabeth de Wavrechin

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Élisabeth de Wavrechin (born November 9, 1885 in Saint-Sébastien-de-Morsent , † August 10, 1975 in Le Bec-Hellouin ) was a French Benedictine nun , founder and superior of the monastery.

life and work

The Carmelite

Jeanne Feray came from a Catholic family with a Protestant branch. She married Roland de Wavrechin in 1907 at the age of 22. The couple lived childless in Versailles under the spiritual direction of the Jesuit Jules Auriault (1855-1934). When her husband on 10 April 1916 in the Battle of Verdun fell, stepped into the Jeanne in since 1894. Le Havre existing Carmelite one, but left it after nine months.

The Benedictine

In 1919, on a trip to Rome, she discovered the Tor dei Specchi monastery of the Oblates of St. Francis of Rome and saw a parallel between the life of the founder and her own. Her efforts led to the establishment of the monastery of La Vierge Marie in Cormeilles-en-Parisis in 1924 , where she was supported by the Benedictine monastery Mesnil-Saint-Loup under René Maréchaux . From 1934 to 1938 the exiled Benedictine Lambert Beauduin stayed in the Cormeilles-en-Parisis monastery.

The Olivetan

Jeanne, who had meanwhile assumed the religious name Elisabeth , succeeded in 1938 with a small group of Benedictines from Mesnil-Saint-Loup under Paul Grammont (whom she had known since 1932) set up a study house in their monastery. From 1944 both convents sang the liturgy alternately. The nuns joined the Olivetan Congregation .

The prioress at Le Bec-Hellouin

When the convent of Mesnil-Saint-Loup moved to the Abbey of Le Bec in 1948 , the convent of Cormeilles-en-Parisis went with it (the birthplace of Elisabeth was just 40 km away) and opened the still existing Monastère Sainte-Françoise-Romaine du Bec Hellouin (the nuns call themselves Moniales Oblates de l'Abbaye Notre Dame du Bec , currently 22 nuns). The monastery buildings were erected in 1952. In 1970 the monastery management passed to Prioress Hugues Marie Dufourcq. The founder died at the age of almost 90.

The champion of ecumenism

Together with Lambert Beauduin and Paul Grammont, Elisabeth de Wavrechin represented the idea of ​​an ecumenical unity of the Roman Catholic Church with the Anglicans , the Eastern Church, the Protestants and the Jews in comprehensive equality (and not in appropriation). Geneviève Micheli (1883–1961), the founder of the Community de Grandchamp that preceded Taizé , was inspired by her in the late thirties.

literature

  • Danièle Hervieu-Léger: Le temps des moines. Clôture et hospitalité . PUF, Paris 2017.
  • Alain Maillard de La Morandais (* 1935): Dom Grammont. Abbé du Bec-Hellouin . Fayard, Paris 1986.
  • Jacques Mortiau and Raymond Loonbeek: Dom Lambert Beauduin, visionnaire et precurseur (1873–1960). Un moine au coeur libre. CERF, Paris 2005.
  • Minke de Vries (1929–2013): My life in Grandchamp. Dare the ecumenical adventure . Paulus, Freiburg 2019 (author was Superior of the Communauté de Grandchamp from 1970–1999).
    • (English) The Fruits of Grace. The Ecumenical Experience of the Community of Grandchamp . Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene (Oregon) 2017, 8.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wavrechin, Elisabeth de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wavrechin, Jeanne de; Feray, Jeanne (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Benedictine and monastery founder
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Sébastien-de-Morsent
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1975
Place of death Le Bec-Hellouin