Thérèse de Bavoz

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Thérèse de Bavoz (born June 2, 1768 in Billième , † August 27, 1838 in Pradines ) was a French Benedictine , abbess and founder of the order .

life and work

Benedictine in Lyon

Thérèse de Bavoz came from a noble Savoy family. From 1778 to 1783 she attended the Ursuline boarding school in Grenoble . In 1786 she entered the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre-des-Terreaux in Lyon (today an art museum ), took on the religious name of Saint-Placide and made her solemn profession in 1787 .

Underground and prison. Sainte-Agathe-en-Donzy

In 1792 the nuns were expelled by the French Revolution . Thérèse initially lived her religious life in secret, but was arrested in 1794 and was intended for the guillotine , but was released at the end of July by Robespierre's death . She went into hiding again, this time in the hinterland of Tarare (Rhône) . In 1795 she joined a group of former women religious that the priest Jean-François Magdinier (1750-1805) had gathered to set up a girls' school in his rectory in Sainte-Agathe-en-Donzy . As a result of the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor V , the sisters were in prisons in Roanne and Montbrison from February to May 1798 , but were then able to return to Sainte-Agathe.

Charles sister

In the sisterhood, which had grown to 20 members and whose “Constitutions of Sainte-Agathe” were approved by the Archdiocese of Lyon in 1801 , Thérèse was the novice master . Joseph Fesch , who was appointed bishop in 1802 and who had re-admitted the "Sisters of St. Charles" (meaning Charles Borromeo ) founded by Charles Démia , joined the community of sisters from Sainte-Agathe to the Sisters of Charles .

Abbess of Pradines and Death

In 1804, Magdinier moved the community to the castle in Pradines (southeast of Roanne) and made Thérèse superior. When he died shortly afterwards and left considerable debts, the community was saved by Vicar General Claude Cholleton (1751-1807). From 1812 to the end of 1813 Thérèse worked in the mother house of the Sisters of Charles in Lyon as a novice master. Thanks to Cardinal Fesch, who from 1812 took an increasingly part in the fate of the community of Pradines (and who hid there in the turmoil of 1814), the convent became independent in 1813 and was able to become a stricter without having to take the Lyon house into account Follow the rule.

Thérèse pursued the goal of following the Benedictine rule again as soon as possible. She wrote constitutions, had the hours prayed from 1816 , took her first vows from 1818 (considered to be the founding year of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Pradines ), built a church (consecrated in 1820, solemnly consecrated in 1835), introduced the cloister in 1822 and became Consecrated abbess in 1825 by Jean-Gaston de Pins (1766–1850), administrator of the Archdiocese of Lyon. The rule was approved by the Holy See in 1830.

For the first time since the revolution there was a convent and a monastery of St. Benedict in France. After her, Prosper-Louis-Pascal Guéranger and Cécile Bruyère , Jean-Baptiste Muard , Romain Banquet and Marie Cronier , as well as Emmanuel André in France were to take care of a further restoration of the Benedictines. Abbess Thérèse founded daughter monasteries and gathered their foundations in the Congrégation du Saint Cœur de Marie . She died in 1838 at the age of 70.

Founding of monasteries during his lifetime and posthumously

  • The community of sisters, which had existed in La Rochette since 1824 (today a residential complex in the Rue de La Rochette in Caluire-et-Cuire ) near Lyon, was taken over by Pradines in 1831 and became an abbey in 1837. In 1972 the convent moved to Belmont-Tramonet . The daughter Sacré-Coeur de Marie , founded by La Rochette in Riols (Saint-Benoît d'Ardouane) in 1864 , was closed in 1901.
  • The community of sisters, which had been in existence again in the former Notre-Dame de Jouarre Abbey since 1821 , was taken over by Pradines in 1837 and became an abbey again. The second abbess from 1840 to 1881 was Mélanie Gilquin (sister Athanase) from the area around Jouarre, who wrote a first biography about Thérèse de Bavoz.
  • Also initiated by Thérèse, albeit no longer completed, was the takeover of the nunnery Notre-Dame des Anges (under Marie-Magdeleine Coullaud, sister ), which had existed in Saint-Jean-d'Angély ( diocese of La Rochelle ) since 1823 (officially 1827) in 1839 Gertrude, formerly Saint-Maixent Abbey in Saint-Maixent-l'École ). In 1959 the sisters moved to the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-de-Maumont in Juignac .
  • In 1853, Pradines founded the Saint-Vincent monastery in Chantelle ( diocese of Moulins ), which was elevated to an abbey in 1891.
  • In 1862 three Corsican sisters from Pradines founded the Erbalunga monastery in Brando (Corsica) (abandoned in 1963).

Works

  • Lettres de Madame Thérèse de Bavoz, première abbesse de Pradines, Fondatrice de la Congrégation Bénédictine du Saint Coeur de Marie 1768-1838 . Pradines 1942.

literature

  • Denys Buenner (1887–1970): Madame de Bavoz. Abbesse de Pradines de l'Ordre de Saint-Benoît (1768-1838) . Vitte, Lyon and Paris 1961. (Foreword by Pierre-Marie Gerlier )
  • Anne Cova and Bruno Dumons (eds.): Destins de femmes. Religion, culture et société (France, XIXe – XXe siècles) . Paris, Letouzey et Ané, Paris 2010 sv
  • Mélanie Gilquin Athanase (1840–1881 Abbess of Jouarre): Vie de la très révérende mère Thérèse de Bavoz, abbesse de Pradines, fondatrice des Bénédictines du très saint Cœur de Marie comprenant les origines de la congrégation . Palmé, Paris and Angers, 1870.
  • Catherine Roche: "Le rôle de l'abbesse dans la restauration monastique au XIXe siècle. L'exemple de Madame de Bavoz à travers l'abbaye de Pradines". In: Les Religieuses dans le cloître et dans le monde des origines à nos jours. Poitiers, September 29 - October 2, 1988 , ed. by Nicole Bouter. Université, Saint-Étienne 1994, pp. 287-302.

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Bavoz, Thérèse de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soeur Saint-Placide
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Benedictine nun, abbess, founder of a monastery and founder of an order
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH Billième
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 1838
Place of death Pradines (Loire)