Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne Abbey

Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne Abbey (also known since 1975 as Saint-Michel-en-Brenne Abbey) was an abbey situated in the town of Saint-Michel-en-Brenne in France, previously in the province of Berry and now in the department of Indre.

History

Sigiran(d) or Sigiramnus, later known as saint Cyran, founded a monastery at Longoret around 632 on land offered to him by Dagobert I for that purpose. Dagobert frequently visited the monastery to hunt, one of his favourite past-times. That monastery later became an abbey and a royal foundation named after Saint Cyran. It owned relics of him and of saints Génitour, Sylvain and Fructueux, which were later re-housed in 1860 in a bronze reliquary given by empress Eugénie.

In 1620 Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, who introduced Jansenism into France, became the abbey's commendatory abbot. Opposed to the Jesuits, he fell into disgrace under Richelieu and was imprisoned. The abbey suffered from its association with his fall and was officially suppressed in 1712 and destroyed on the orders of the archbishop of Bourges, with its monks scattered and its goods sold in 1739. The buildings were sold as state property in 1790 and all that remains of the main abbey buildings is the 15th century range known as the Chambre des hôtes, though some of its granges, stables and mills also survive. A few decades after 1790 Moulins de Paris bought it and later turned it into holiday homes for its employees.

The abbey was converted to have a more varied frontage. In June 1975 it was bought by Marcel Lefebvre's sister, who renamed it Saint-Michel Abbey and used it to house the mother house of the sisters of the Society of St. Pius X.^[1] It protected Paul Touvier, fleeing from charges of crimes against humanity, until the police seized his baggage there on 21 May 1989.^[2]

References

1. ↑ http://www.laportelatine.org/ordres/ordfsspx/soeursfsspx.php
2. ↑ Renaud Thomazo : Les grands scandales de l'histoire de France, éditions Larousse, 2013, p. 104.

Coordinates: 46°48′22″N 1°09′19″E / 46.8061°N 1.1553°E / 46.8061; 1.1553