Alexis press

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Alexis Presse OCSO / OCist (born December 26, 1883 in Plouguenast as Mathurin Étienne Marie Presse ; † November 1, 1965 in the Boquen Abbey near Plénée-Jugon , Département Côtes-d'Armor , Brittany), was a Cistercian monk as well as the new founder and abbot of Boquen Abbey in Brittany .

Life

The Breton Mathurin Presse was dressed in the Trappist Abbey Timadeuc (Brittany) on February 3, 1903 and was given the religious name Alexis. He made temporary profession on February 11, 1905 and solemn profession on February 16, 1908. His ordination on June 29, 1908 was followed by years of studying canon law in Rome, which he completed in 1913 with a doctorate . In 1918 he became a professor in Bonnecombe Abbey near Rodez and in 1923 professor in Tamié Abbey near Seythenex . Due to his historical and canonical knowledge, he played a decisive role in the development of the constitutions for the Cistercian Sisters of the Strict Observance . On November 25, 1925 he was elected Abbot of Tamié. Bishop Dominique Castellan gave the Benediction on December 15, 1925 . Under him , the monastery founded by St. Archbishop Pierre II. De Tarentaise (1102–1174) flourished again. In a variety of ways he tried to restore Tamié Abbey to its original Cistercian spirituality. But his enthusiasm for the mission brought him into conflict with the Trappist Abbot General; Press was deposed in 1936 and was not allowed to return to Tamié.

He went with a small group of temporary professed monks (monks who had not yet taken their solemn vows ) from Tamié ( Savoy ) to Boquen near Plénée-Jugon (Brittany) on the old Roman road from Vannes to Corseul . There he built with great difficulty out of the ruins of the old Ste. Marie-de-Boquen (1137 by Olivier II, Count of Dinan, built as a Cistercian monastery, perished in 1790) a monastery that came close to the "original state", a "cella", in order to pursue its spiritual ideal. In addition, he wanted to lead a life according to the literal interpretation of the Rule of Benedict of Nursia , free of later mitigations or additions. He wrote articles in specialist journals about his conception of Benedictine-Cistercian life.

In 1936 Boquen was established as a monastery of diocesan law despite the protest of the Trappist Abbot General; the bishop of Saint-Brieuc was well disposed towards the new foundation. The following year, the small community solemnly celebrated the 800th anniversary of the original abbey, which was added to the list of "Historic Monuments" in the same year. Only in 1939 did the monastery have a dining room, library and a (still provisional) chapel.

In the Cistercian order, the new branch in Boquen was sponsored by Presses friend Matthäus Quatember . The general chapter of 1950 voted to accept the community into the Cistercian order. Dom Alexis was appointed abbot. In Boquen, an original form of the Cistercian rite was reconstructed for the celebration of mass . On his 75th birthday, a commemorative publication ( Le message des moines à notre temps ) was dedicated to him, to which two cardinals and the Abbot General wrote greetings: an external recognition of his building work.

In 1964 the press renounced his abbot status for reasons of age. Boquen was made an abbey in 1965 and the restored church was consecrated . Presse attended the ceremony, seriously ill, lying on a stretcher, and died two months later. His grave is in the church he built.

Boquen experienced troubled times again when Presse's successor, Prior Bernard Besret , became one of the most controversial figures in the Catholic environment in France in the 1968s. Besret then started a new community. From 1973 Boquen no longer belonged to the order of the Cistercians; In 1976, the monastic life died out under Guy Luzsénszky's (1973–1976) priory.

Today Boquen Monastery bears the title Monastère Notre-Dame de la Croix-Vivifiante and was founded from 1976 to 2010 by members of the "Fraternité des Petites Soeurs de Bethléem" (also: "Moniales de Bethléem et de l'Assomption de la Vierge et de St Bruno ") inhabited. In January 2011, the Chemin Neuf community took over the monastery.

Alexis press and the monastery in Boquen are the main motifs in two novels: L'Âme obscure (1929, first novel by the famous author Henri Daniel-Rops ) and Les Illuminés (1948, by Béla Just ). Daniel-Rops converted to Catholicism in 1931 under the supervision of the press; he was elected to the Académie française in 1955 . His 9-volume church history is well known.

The spiritual legacy of Dom Alexis Presse is maintained today in the Abbey of Sainte Marie de Boulaur and the Priory of Sainte Marie de Rieunette .

Works

  • Le métier de contemplation. In: Le message des moines à notre temps. Libraire Arthéme Fayard, Paris 1958. pp. 121-138.
  • A l'école de Saint Benoît. La Rameau, Paris 1954.
  • Les plus beaux écrits de Saint Bernard. (with Henri Daniel-Rops) La Colombe, Paris 1947.
  • La reforme de Cîteaux. Ed. Bernigaud, 1932.

literature

  • Le message des moines à notre temps : mélanges offerts à Dom Alexis, abbé de Boquen. Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 1958. (Festschrift for the 75th birthday of Abbot Alexis)
  • Art. Alexis, Dom . In: Dictionnaire du monde religieux dans la France contemporaine. Vol. 3: La Bretagne. Beauchesne, Paris 1990.
  • Karl Suso Frank: Boquen . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church , 3rd ed., Vol. 2, Herder, Freiburg 1994, Sp. 591.
  • Xavier Henry de Villeneuve: Boquen. Dom Alexis press . Presses Bretonnes, Saint-Brieuc 1996. ISBN 2-9510434-0-6
  • The Dom Alexis Presse Affair , in: The Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance in the Twentieth Century . Volume One: From 1892 to the Close of the Second Vatican Council. Rome 2008, pp. 199-212.
  • James Hogg: Notre Dame de Risque, Boquen: the rise and fall of a French monastic revival. In: ders .: The uneasy relationship of the Carthusians of Trisulti with their neighbors: 1208–1947. (Analecta Cartusiana 265), Salzburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-902649-03-4
  • Yvon Tranvouez: Un moine dans deux romans: Dom Alexis Presse, de l'Âme obscure (1929) aux Illuminés (1948) : In: B. Joly and J. Weber (eds.): Églises de l'Ouest, Églises d ' ailleurs. Mélanges offerts à Marcel Launay . Paris 2009, pp. 141-149. ISBN 978-2-84654-210-4
  • Hermann M. Herzog: Cistercians between law and spirit. Sebastien Wyart, Bonaventura Stürzer, Alexis Presse and Vitus Recke . In: Cistercienser Chronik , 119 (2012), pp. 361–376.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregor Müller: The St. Petrus II .: Archbishop of Tarentaise, Ord. Cist. Teutsch, Bregenz 1891.
  2. ↑ History of the Tamié Monastery ( Memento from February 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Homepage of the monastery Tamié ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Abbaye Cistercienne de Boquen à Plénée Jugon ( Memento of March 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Brief biography of Dom Alexis Presse on the homepage of the diocese of Saint-Brieuc et Treguier ( Memento of May 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ so the biography of the diocese; Cistercian biography: "sitting in a wheelchair"
  7. ↑ homepage Bernard Besret ( Memento of 25 March 2010 at the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Monasteries: With ladies . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1969, p. 157 ( Online - Nov. 10, 1969 ).
  9. ↑ Catalog of BibNatFranc
  10. ↑ On the history of the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Boquen
personal data
SURNAME Press, Alexis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Press, Mathurin Étienne Marie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Abbot of Boquen Abbey
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Plouguenast
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1965
Place of death Boquen Abbey , Côtes-d'Armor department