The monastery of Tazert is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

monastery in Tazert, Morocco. Originally founded by André Poissonnier, it is a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...

of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi since 2019.

History

The monastery was founded in 1931 by André Poissonnier who, inspired by the life of

Charles de Foucauld Charles Eugène, vicomte de Foucauld de Pontbriand, (15 September 1858 – 1 December 1916), commonly known as Charles de Foucauld, was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuare ...

and the Franciscan missionaries in Morocco, decided to live as a hermit in Tazert. For this, he set up a dispensary and a chapel where he lived as a hermit until his death due to typhus in 1938. Poissonnier left the monastery to the Franciscans who continued to live in the monastery until the 1970s when a community of

Poor Clares The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare (Latin language, Latin: ''Ordo Sanctae Clarae''), originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and also known as the Clarisses or Clarissines, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Or ...

moved in. In order to be closer to the local population, they adopted the Melkite rite which is celebrated in Arabic. In 2013, these nuns under their

hegumen Hegumen, hegumenos, or igumen (, trans. ), is the title for the head of a monastery in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, or an archpriest in the Coptic Orthodox Church, similar to the title of abbot. The head of a convent of ...

ia Mère Assunta retired to the ''Monastery of the Burning Bush'' in Carcassone as there were no longer enough sisters to ensure a presence. The monastery then went over into the possession of the diocese of Rabat which started to search for a new monastic community to settle in Tazert. Finally, in late 2019, the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, a congregation whose

motherhouse A motherhouse or mother house is the principal house or community for a Catholic religious community.YourDictionaryMotherhouse/ref> One example is the Missionaries of Charity's motherhouse in Kolkata, which functions as the congregation's headquart ...

is located in Montpellier and who have also a presence in

Mohammedia Mohammedia (), known until 1960 as Fedala (), is a port city on the west coast of Morocco between Casablanca and Rabat in the region of Casablanca-Settat. It hosts the most important oil refinery of Morocco, Samir Refinery, which makes it the cen ...

, sent a group of African nuns to Tazert. The inauguration took place on 8 December 2019 under participation of the archbishop of Rabat,

Cristóbal López Romero Cristóbal López Romero (born 19 May 1952) is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as the Archbishop of Rabat since March 2018. He is a member of the Salesians and before becoming a bishop devoted himself to pastoral work i ...

. Today the monastery serves as a place of prayer, offering spiritual retreat facilities with a guest house and educational opportunities for the surrounding Berber village of 3,500. As such, the nuns offer training in embroidery techniques as well as teaching literacy and computer science courses. The monastery hosts interreligious dialogue sessions.

References

Sources

* * * * {{cite web , last1=Zengarini , first1=Lisa , title=Marocco: torna a nuova vita il Monastero della Visitazione di Tazert - Vatican News , url=https://www.vaticannews.va/it/chiesa/news/2019-12/marocco-torna-nuova-vita-monastero-visitazione-tazert.html , website=www.vaticannews.va , access-date=21 April 2024 , language=it , date=18 December 2019 El Kelâa des Sraghna Province Roman Catholic monasteries in Morocco Franciscan monasteries Christian monasteries established in the 20th century

History

See also

References

Sources