Étienne Malmy

Étienne Malmy (born September 4, 1744 in Reims , † April 12, 1840 in Montjoyer, Département Drôme ) was a French Trappist , prior, abbot and founder of a monastery.

life and work

Pierre François de Paule Malmy grew up in poverty as the son of a schoolmaster, but was allowed to study theology due to outstanding achievements (he could, like Julien Sorel in red and black , recite the Bible by heart) and was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Reims in 1769 . In 1778 the attempt to enter the Mont Dieu Charterhouse in the canton of Vouziers ended after six months due to illness. With reference to this, he was then turned away by the La Trappe monastery . From 1781 he was pastor in Prouilly .

Since he refused to take the oath on the civil constitution of the clergy in 1791 , he had to go into hiding and entered the Westmalle monastery in what is now Belgium on June 6, 1794 at the age of 50 . He was dressed on June 15 and took the religious name Étienne . Before the advancing French Revolution he fled to Westphalia with the monastery and made his solemn profession on June 15, 1795 in the Marienfeld (Harsewinkel) monastery . On December 7, 1797 he was a founding member of the Darfeld-Rosenthal monastery and subprior under Prior Eugène de Laprade and under Abbot Augustin de Lestrange of the monastery La Valsainte monastery in Switzerland.

Abbot Lestrange, who held him in high esteem, appointed him as prior to La Valsainte in February 1798. As such, he played a leading role in the long migration of this monastery to Orsha in what is now Belarus and back (1798–1802). When Napoleon dissolved the Cistercian order in 1811 and again forced many Trappists to flee, Malmy was able to stay as chaplain near La Valsainte. In January 1816 he became the founder priority of the repopulated Aiguebelle monastery . From 1834 to 1837 he was the first abbot of the monastery elevated to the status of an abbey. He died on Palm Sunday 1840 at the age of 95.

literature

• Casimir Gaillardin, Vie du RP Dom Étienne (Pierre-François de Paule Malmy), fondateur et abbé de La Trappe d'Aiguebelle , Paris, Vaton / Avignon, Aubanel, 1841.
• Immo Eberl, The Cistercians. History of a European Order , Ostfildern, Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2007.
• Josiane Ferrari-Clément, Fous de Dieu. Récit d'une odyssée trappiste 1793–1815 , Paris, Cerf, 1998.
• Marie de la Trinité Kervingant, Des moniales face à la Révolution française. Aux origines des Cisterciennes-Trappistines , Paris, Beauchesne, 1989.
• Wilhelm Knoll, 30 years of Trappist settlement in Darfeld 1795–1825. A contribution to the church history in the Coesfeld district , Bernardus-Verlag, Mainz 2012.
• Augustin-Hervé Laffay (* 1965), Dom Augustin de Lestrange et l'avenir du monachisme: 1754–1827 , Paris, Cerf, 1998; Diss. Lyon 3, 1994 (passim).

Web links

• http://www.cistopedia.org/index.php?id=8456 (entry in the Encyclopaedia Cisterciensis, with picture)