Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Abbey of Sept-Fons was founded in 1132 in Diou (Allier), under the name of Notre-Dame de Saint-Lieu, by monks of the Abbey of Fontenay, herself daughter of Clairvaux. This Cistercian monastery settles in a marshy moorland, thanks to donations from local lords like Rodolphe de Thoury. Pope Alexander III confirmed these gifts in 1164. In the Middle Ages, the abbey suffered the ravages of the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion, but rose each time after looting or fire.

In the 17th century, the abbey, in decline, was reformed by Eustache de Beaufort, appointed abbot commendataire in 1656. His monastic reform attracted new vocations, bringing the strength to 130 monks or more at his death. In 1791 the monks were expelled during the Revolution, and the abbey was sold as a national property. They then joined the Trappists, whose reform led by Armand de Rancé corresponds to their ideals. After several decades of exodus, seven Trappist monks bought the ruins of Sept-Fons in 1845 and restored the monastery, dedicating the new abbey church in 1856.

The abbey grew rapidly in the 19th century, founding several abbey-daughters in France (Chambrand, Masbaraud-Mérignat) and abroad (New Caledonia, Palestine, China, Australia, Brazil). Despite failures such as in New Caledonia (1877-1890) or in the United States, she participated in the refoundation of Cîteaux in 1898 and of Orval in Belgium in 1926. In the 20th century, Abbé Jean-Baptiste Chautard saved the abbey from ruin thanks to the Germalyne, a food supplement based on wheat germ, and resisted the anticlerical laws of 1903 by finding refuges as in Brazil.

During the Second World War, the abbey, located in the occupied area, was requisitioned by the Germans. After the war, it continued its foundations, as in New Caledonia (1968-2001) or the Czech Republic (Nový Dvjer 2002). In 2022, the controversial election of Dom Thomas Getti, then his re-election in 2024, revealed internal tensions. An investigation by La Croix in 2025 denounces a system of spiritual grip around Father Nicolas, master of novices in the 1980s, accused of sectarian drifts, verbal violence and the hijacking of confessional secrecy, despite his excommunication in 2018.

The Abbey of Sept-Fons is also known for its economic activities. Around 1890 Dom Sébastien set up an award-winning brasserie (medal d'or in Paris in 1891), but the latter, too expensive, was sold in 1904. The abbey then turned to food products such as Germalyne (1930), jams, and the Tomette de Sept-Fons, a local cheese. In 2008, she was legally recognized as a congregation, with 80 monks in 2013.

Its architecture, marked by successive reconstructions, includes a modern window built in 1954 by Swiss artist Émile Aebischer (Yoki), representing a Virgin with Child. Today, Sept-Fons remains a place of Trappist spirituality, although marked by crises of governance and accusations of persistent dysfunction, despite the attempts to reform initiated by the Vatican in 2022.

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