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Origin and history

The monastery Sainte-Françoise-Romane is a monastery of Benedictine oblates founded by Jeanne de Wavrechin, known as Mother Marie-Élisabeth. Born in 1885, she discovered in 1919, during a pilgrimage to Rome, the figure of Saint Francis Romaine, a Roman noble from the 14th–15th century, known for her commitment to the poor and the unity of the Church. Inspired by her model, Mother Marie-Élisabeth founded in 1925 a community in France, first settled in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, in the diocese of Versailles.

In 1938, a study house for young monks also opened in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, thanks to the collaboration with Brother Paul Grammont, an Oliven monk from Mesnil-Saint-Loup. Ten years later, in 1948, the latter revived the Abbey of Bec, encouraging the community of Mother Marie-Élisabeth to settle nearby. The current monastery was built in 1950 in the hamlet of Saint-Martin-du-Parc, on the hillsides of the Bec valley, a few hundred meters from the village of Bec-Hellouin.

The site, located at the crossing of departmental roads 39 and 438, overlooks the creek of Bec in the countryside of Neubourg. Its architecture and its implantation reflect its link with the Benedictine order of Olivetan, heir to the medieval monastic tradition. Today, the monastery perpetuates the rule of life inspired by Saint Francis Romaine, combining prayer, work and welcome, in a spirit of simplicity and service.

Saint Francis Romaine, born in 1384, had founded in 1433 in Rome the Tor Monastery of Specchi for a Benedictine community. His example directly inspired the French foundation, via Dom Marshaux, former abbot of Sainte-Marie-la-Neuve (1905–1914), which guided the first monastic professions in 1925. This transnational link between Normandy and Rome illustrates the diffusion of monastic models throughout the centuries.

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