Ottilien Congregation
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The Ottilien Congregation, often also known as the St. Ottilien Congregation and as the Missionary Benedictines, is a congregation of religious houses within the Benedictine Confederation, the aim of which is to combine the Benedictine way of life with activity in the mission field.
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[edit] History
The congregation was founded in 1914, incorporating the houses founded on the vision of Andreas Amrhein, a monk of Beuron Archabbey, who, finding it impossible to realise the vision of the Benedictine mission within Beuron, left to begin an independent community. He set up a house in 1884 at Reichenbach am Regen in the Oberpfalz, but the site was too remote, and in 1887 the community moved to what is now St. Ottilien Archabbey in Oberbayern.
In the same year the first missionary monks left for the Apostolic Prefecture of South Zanzibar in East Africa, a territory which now comprises several dioceses in Tanzania, which the monks serve from the abbeys of Peramiho, Ndanda and Hanga and several smaller houses. Similarly the Congregation's Zululand mission (begun in 1921) is now an independent monastery serving the diocese it once helped to create.
In 1908 an Asian mission field was added, comprising two abbeys in North-Korea and China, which after the end of World War II were re-formed as Waegwan Abbey. There is also a priory at Digos on Mindanao Island in the Philippines.
Further monasteries were established in North and South America after World War I, and more recently years several new foundations have been made in the Third World, mostly in Africa.
The Archabbot of St. Ottilien is ex officio presient of the congregation.
Women religious have formed part of the Missionary Benedictine enterprise from the beginning, based at first at St. Ottilien but shortly after at their own house nearby. They have developed independently and today form the Congregation of Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing.
[edit] List of member houses
[edit] Europe
- Germany:
- St. Ottilien Archabbey (1887)
- Münsterschwarzach Abbey with Damme Priory
- Schweiklberg Abbey with Bergfried (student house)
- Königsmünster Abbey
- Jakobsberg Priory
- Cell St Benedikt at Hanover
- Switzerland:
- Uznach Abbey
[edit] Africa
- Kenya:
- Tigoni
- South Africa:
- Inkamana Abbey with Howick student house
- Tanzania:
- Peramiho
- Ndanda
- Hanga Abbey, with a dependent house in Dar-es-Salaam
- Mvinwa
- Uwemba
- Kivasini
- Kipalapala
- Togo:
- Agbang Priory]]
- Zambia:
- Katibunga
[edit] Asia
- India:
- Kumily
- South Korea:
- Waegwan Priory
[edit] America
- USA:
- Newton Abbey
- Schuyler Priory
- Venezuela:
- Güigüe
