Downside to shut five churches

Downside Abbey, the senior house of the English Benedictine order, is to close five of its churches as it undergoes a process of reflection about its future.

The monastery in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, in Somerset, is withdrawing monks from the local Mass centres and will serve these communities from St Benedict’s Church, which is on the abbey’s site and pictured right.

The churches, two of which have been served by monks for over a century, were founded by Downside in villages near to the monastery and are owned by the community.

Like other English Benedictine houses, Downside has a tradition of monks running churches and the community will continue to run parishes at Little Malvern, Worcestershire and Beccles and Bungay – both in Suffolk.

A statement from the abbey said the move had been put in place in order to make sure that the monks were spread “less thinly”. There are currently 18 members of the community, with nine resident at Downside and one discerning a vocation.

The statement added that the changes will mean a larger congregation at St Benedict’s, which will be open seven days a week and allow more monks to be involved in sacramental and pastoral care.

Downside is currently in a process of reflection about its future following the decision to hold off from electing an abbot last year. The community is being led by a prior administrator, Dom Leo Maidlow Davis, who is a former headmaster of the prominent independent school that is attached to the monastery.

Last year, Downside celebrated 200 years in Somerset and is an important institution in the Church in England and Wales. It helped found three other monasteries: Ealing, in west London, Worth, in West Sussex, and Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in the United States.  The closure of the Mass centres at Chilcompton, Holcombe, Midsomer Norton, Radstock and Norton St Philip is due to be in place by the First Sunday of Advent this year. The community has not decided what it will do with the buildings.