La Trappe Abbey in Normandy is considering closure in 2028. The monks announced in a press release issued on March 6 that they “envision leaving around 2028”, citing “the scarcity of vocations and the increasingly heavy burden of land ownership”.
La Trappe Abbey is the mother house of the Trappist Order, from which the community takes its name. Initially founded in the early twelfth century as a monastery of the Order of Savigny, a Benedictine reform movement, it was raised to the status of an abbey in 1140. In 1147 the Congregation of Savigny came under the jurisdiction of the Cistercian Order and thus under the authority of the abbot of Clairvaux.
