Charterhouse of the Transfiguration

Montpelier Charterhouse of the Transfiguration

Location of the Charterhouse in Vermont

The Charterhouse of the Transfiguration of the Lord , engl. Charterhouse of the Transfiguration , is the only Charterhouse in the United States . It is located in a valley of Mount Equinox, near the city of Arlington , in southern Vermont and is dedicated to the Patronage of the Transfiguration of the Lord .

history

The Carthusians settled in the United States in the years after 1950 on the initiative of Dom Thomas Verner Moore (1877–1969). Moore had founded the Saint Anselm College there in 1942 as the prior of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Anselm in Washington, DC and in 1947 joined the Carthusian monastery in the Cartuja de Santa María de Miraflores near Burgos, Spain . In 1950 Moore, supported by a group of wealthy donors and through the mediation of Archbishop Giovanni Montini, the later Pope Paul VI. , in a private audience with Pope Pius XII. receive.

First branch

After a visit to the Great Charterhouse , the mother monastery of the Carthusian Order, Dom Moore founded the first branch of the order in December 1950 on a farm near Whitingham in the state of Vermont, near the border with Massachusetts . In the spring of 1951, more friars who came from the Charterhouse of St. Hugo near Horsham in south-east England settled in the new Charterhouse. In the 1950s, the Charterhouse was gradually expanded with additional hermitages and farm buildings. Dom Moore returned to Miraflores in 1960 and died there in 1969.

Second branch

When the place where the first monastery was founded turned out to be unsuitable for the life of the Carthusians, Joseph George Davidson (1892–1969), former Vice President of the Union Carbide Corporation , gave the brothers an area of ​​28 km². There the monks lived initially in temporary accommodation until the construction of the Charterhouse began in 1967. Construction work was completed in 1971. The monastery complex, consisting of a wing for the monks' cells and one for the lay brothers , a chapel, chapter house and refectory , was built from 2,400 granite blocks weighing about three tons . The monastery cannot be visited. Only close relatives of the monks and religious candidates can be allowed access to the guest house.

From 1972, Friedrich Alfred von Sachsen-Meiningen (1921–1997), Otto von Habsburg's brother-in-law , lived as a monk in the convent until his death .

Web links

• Charterhouse website
• Charterhouse of the Transfiguration on the website of the Carthusian Order

Individual evidence

1. ^ Benedict Neenan: Thomas Verner Moore - Psychiatrist, Educator and Monk . Paulist Press, Mahwah (New Jersey) 2000, p. 219.
2. ^ Benedict Neenan: Thomas Verner Moore - Psychiatrist, Educator and Monk . Paulist Press, Mahwah (New Jersey) 2000, p. 229
3. ↑ ^{a b c} John J. Duffy, Samuel B. Hand, Ralph H. Orth (eds.): The Vermont encyclopedia . University Press of New England, Lebanon (New Hampshire) 2003, p. 83.
4. ^ Benedict Neenan: Thomas Verner Moore - Psychiatrist, Educator and Monk . Paulist Press, Mahwah (New Jersey) 2000, p. 233

Coordinates: 43 ° 9 ′ 32 "  N , 73 ° 8 ′ 55"  W.