Wonderful news from the Cistercian monks on Schiermonnikoog:
“We have found a home. Looking for a location to establish a monastery on Schiermonnikoog we came across the Rijsbergen inn, a centuries-old building on the edge of the village. We were shown around and were impressed. Of all the locations on the island the inn gradually presented itself as the place for us.
And so our years-long search for a monastery culminated in Rijsbergen inn, a wonderful opportunity with which we are very happy.
The inn will remain as such until 15 January 2019, after which we hope to move in quickly. Its name will simply by ‘Schiermonnikoog monastery’. After the building has been furnished, also with its own chapel, we hope to open our doors for candidate monks, guests seeking solitude in the guest house and visitors of our services.
We are very grateful for the success of our search, and we wish to thank everyone who has supported us in any way.
Brothers Alberic, Jelke, Paulus, Vincentius and Jos.”
^Four of the monks in front of their future monastery
The Cistercian monks have been on the island for more than two years. Five of them have been living in a house not far from the site of their future monastery. Their original plan to build a new monastery in the dunes outside the village was abandoned after they found that it led to a debate among the villagers. They decided to completely rethink their future, with the caveat that they did not wish to leave Schiermonnikoog.
This morning they signed the contract for the sale of Rijsbergen, now a hotel with 17 rooms. It advertises itself as a homely and honest hotel, humbly admitting that their double rooms are not very big and that no room comes with a television – a conscious decision.
Rijsbergen was built in 1757 as the home of the Stachouwer family, who owned the island of Schiermonnikoog. In 1858 the family sold it to lawyer John Erick Banck from The Hague, who owned the island until 1892 (he initiated land reclamation works with room for seven new farms and establised the sailors’ school). The island and house then fell into the possession of the German noble family Von Bernstorff (one of the major hotels on the island still bears their name). Following the Second World War, Rijsbergen came into the possession of the Dutch state. The building was then used as a school and inn, and its upkeep was rather neglected. Remaining of the original building are the front and the main house’s rooftop. The building has been owned by its current owners since 1992.
Photo credit: Anne Christine Girardot
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The Cistercesian monks of Sion Abbey, who have been scouting possibilities of relocating their monastic home to the island of Schiermonnikoog, have found a first place to call home, if a temporary one. Through the offices of a Belgian sponsor, the monks were able to purchase a house in the sole village on the island, a house which was until recently used a hairdresser’s shop and home. The house is situated on the east-west axis of the village, on the edge of the historic village heart and a newer postwar area, and will be used by two monks from May onwards.
The Trappist monks of Sion Abbey in Diepenveen, north of Deventer in the Archdiocese of Utrecht, are abandoning their abbey. Built in 1883 for a community of more than 100 monks, has become too big, housing only 12 Cistercian monks of the Strict Observance, Trappists for short. Maintenance costs for the buildings have become too high for the small community and, as Abbot Alberic Bruschke says, sharing it with other users is not possible, since it wouldn’t be a monastery any longer.
The exact location and shape of the new foundation on the island is not yet known, but the choice of Schiermonnikoog is not random. In the local old dialect, the name of the island means ‘Island of the grey monks’, referring to the Cistercian monks who had come from the Claercamp monastery in Frisia. In the Middle Ages they established a grange on the island and were responsible for much of the early reclamation of land from the ever-shifting sand flats and sea to the south, between island and mainland. In 1580 that ended, as the Reformation took all possessions from the monastery, including Schiermonnikoog. But the monastic history of the island has always been recognised, and in 1961 a statue of a monk (pictured at right) was placed in the island’s only village.
^Schiermonnikoog from the air, seen from the south west. Apart from the village, the entire island is a national park. It is some 18 kilometers in length and forever moves slowly eastward.
In Caelo et in Terra 