St. Willibrord's Abbey () at

Doetinchem Doetinchem (; Dutch Low Saxon, Low Saxon: ) is a city and Municipalities in the Netherlands, municipality in the east of the Netherlands. It is situated along the IJssel, Oude IJssel (Old IJssel) river in a part of the Provinces of the Netherland ...

Gelderland Gelderland ( , ), also known as Guelders ( ) in English, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands, located in the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Nethe ...

is the most recently established

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monastery in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

History

The monastery, dedicated to

Saint Willibrord Willibrord (; 658 – 7 November AD 739) was an Anglo-Saxon monk, bishop, and missionary. He became the first Bishop of Utrecht in what is now the Netherlands, dying at Echternach in Luxembourg, and is known as the "Apostle to the Frisians". Ea ...

, was founded immediately after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

by the over-populated Oosterhout Abbey. Initially the monks lived in

Slangenburg Castle Slangenburg Castle () is a castle in the municipality of Doetinchem in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. The castle is located in the forest of the same name between the towns of Varsseveld and Doetinchem, about 5 kilometers from the ...

, which they partially restored. In the 1950s they succeeded in building a new monastery on part of the castle estate. As building materials were scarce immediately after the war, the monastery was largely built out of old paving stones, and the roofs were constructed without wood: the tiles sit directly on concrete beams. A large new abbey church was planned, but never materialised: the present church building was originally intended as the monastery library. The community has a long history of commitment to interreligious dialogue. The retreat house includes a zendo with a rock garden, patterned on the famous Zen gardens of Kyoto. Fr. Cornelius Tholens, abbot from 1954 to 1972, was a founder of the Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique, the European arm of the DIMMID which held its annual meeting here in 2019.

References

Sint-Willibrordsabdij website
Christian monasteries established in the 20th century Benedictine monasteries in the Netherlands Buildings and structures in Gelderland Doetinchem Christian organizations established in the 1940s 20th-century religious buildings and structures in the Netherlands {{Christian-monastery-stub