Home > The History > Rebirth of the religious life

On 28 April 1929, a fire destroyed a part of the Abbey of Tongerlo. On 2 May, abbot Perrier offered by telegram to receive a part of the homeless community. Thus, 35 novices, accompanied by some priests, arrived at Leffe. Their spiritual leadership was provided by Father Borelly. The Bishop of Namur, Mgr Heylen, who had been the prelate of Tongerlo and had always since shown great solicitude for Leffe (having already intervened in 1902), rejoiced to see the religious of his “campinoise” Abbey, sent by their abbot Hugues Lamy, settled there.

 

 

In December 1930, Leffe was officially transferred to the Abbey of Tongerlo. The novices returned to Tongerlo in the middle of the following year, but Leffe did not fall into disuse. Flemish religious remained there, steps were taken and on 3 November 1931, by means of the apostolic letter Refert ad nos, Pope Pius XI restored to the Abbey of Leffe the status of an independent house, which became a daughter house of the Abbey of Tongerlo and was incorporated into the circary of Brabant, Father Joseph Bauwens becoming its 53rd abbot. Legally independent, the Abbey remained very vulnerable in the matter of finance. Mgr Heylen who had intended to help the reborn community, gave up the project. Some time before, his trust had been betrayed by the unfortunate affair of the Namur Boerenbond, forcing him to pay off heavy debts from his personal resources. The community lived by expedients; the young brethren manufactured incense and ink, sold throughout Belgium by brother priests, travelling often on foot. These meagre revenues just sufficed to ensure the physical survival of the community. This situation lasted until the war and beyond.

 

A man of taste, Mgr Bauwens had no difficulty in doing a great deal with very little. We owe to him the fitting out of the refectory, the building of the neo-Baroque tower in the extension of the porch and the well-known bell tower built on an ancient square tower and from which, every quarter hour, a Jack-o’-the-clock, originally intended for the collegiate church, plays the notes of an antiphon to the Virgin Mary. A permanent fiftieth anniversary deposit of works of art belonging to royal museums and established at that time, contributes to the embellishment of the Abbey to this day.

 

But the trials of war returned to disturb monastic life. The majority of the Fathers left for the front as army chaplains and two of the religious were wounded in an air raid. At the time of the 1940 fiasco, young brethren left, together with their instructors, for Toulouse. Then, for a few months, they found asylum at Espaly, in the diocese of Annecy, where there was a Premonstratensian community, a branch of Frigolet. They returned on 28 August, to find their Abbey almost intact, bravely guarded by old Brother Remy, helped by Brother Bronislas. Relatively minor damage caused by a bomb and four shells, provided incentive for an in-depth restoration of he buildings. Another alarm brought the novices to Tongerlo, at the time of the so-called “von Rundstedt’s” offensive at he end of 1944. Throughout this troubled period, Father De Bruyn, a Premonstratensian of Tongerlo living at Leffe, worked in concert with the Jesuit, Father Capar, to operate an “institution for sheltering city youth”, installed in a neighbouring large house owned by the Abbey, which later became St. Norbert’s rest house. This institution was only a front to allow some 40 Jewish children to be received and hidden from the Germans...

 

His health increasingly deteriorating, Mgr Bauwens retired during the war and in 1944 returned to Tongerlo. Father Hugues Lamy, the abbot emeritus of Tongerlo, succeeded him, first as administrator and then as abbot. The latter, French-speaking, born at Fosses-la-Ville, was a well-known historian who had published numerous works on the Abbey of Tongerlo and on the Premonstratensian Order.

[updated on the 28.10.05]

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