Westmalle Abbey

Westmalle Abbey otherwise the Trappist Abbey of Westmalle is a monastery of the Cistercians of Strict Observance in Westmalle in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The community was founded in 1794 and after some vicissitudes was elevated to an abbey on 22 April 1836. The abbey is famous for its spiritual life and for the Westmalle Brewery, a Trappist beer brewery. The three pillars of life for the Trappists are a life of prayer, life in a community and a life of work. wice in the 18th and 19th century the Cistercians just like most other monastic orders had been prohibited. In 1791 in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Augustinus de Lestrange Dubosc 1754–1827, the novice master of La Trappe Abbey Soligny-la-Trappe left France and went to Switzerland. He settled in the empty Carthusian monastery Val-Sainte E: Sacred Valley near Fribourg.

As the senate of Fribourg put a numerus clausus of 21 monks and the refugees from France kept flowing in, Lestrange decided to send monks abroad to create new settlements, they left for Spain, Italy, and a third group to Canada. The group which was sent to Canada, would end up in Westmalle and laid the foundations of the present-day abbey. When the monks, on their way to Canada, passed through Flanders, the bishop of Antwerp, Cornelius Franciscus de Nelis, invited them to Antwerp. He wanted to ask Lestrange if they would be allowed to found a Trappist monastery in his bishopric instead of going to Canada. Lestrange allowed 8 of them to stay and to settle in Westmalle in the Campine region of Flanders.