Monks (from the Latin, monachus, from the Greek, monakhos which means solitary) are the heirs of the first recluses who fled the agitation and dispersion of the world tolive apart from society, solely in the service of God whom they wished to praise and celebrate, in their desire to lead a perfect life. These recluses little by little began to resemble a family which organised itself so as to devote itself to prayer and the search for God, without neglecting the elementary needs of human life. First hermits, they became coenobites (from the Greek, koinos, communal, and bios, life), that is to say, they led a life in common which took shape around a rule which gradually codified the various aspects of it. The origins of this monastic life go back to the desert of Egypt in the IVth century with Saint Anthony the Great and Saint Pachomius.
In the VIth century, Saint Benedict distils his prior experience into the Rule he draws up for his foundation in Monte Cassino (Italy). Little by little, this Rule and the tradition engendered by it, will come to dominate the monastic landscape of our regions, although also shaped by the practices of the Irish missionary monks of Saint Columban (VIth and VIIth C). In Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse, the first monastic houses developed in the second half of the VIIth century at which time more than ten of them could be counted.
see Canons
[updated on the 27.11.05]
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Beer
In co-operation with the Father Abbot Nys, Albert Lootvoet decides in 1952 to revive the brewing tradition of the Abbey of Leffe by adopting the traditional brewing processes. (read more)
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