Monastery Notre-Dame de Clémence at Collobrières

Posted in Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, Ecclesiastical province of Marseille, Nuns of Bethlehem

Monastery Notre-Dame de Clémence

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The History of our Monastery

A former Carthusian monastery founded in 1170 on the site of a priory, the Verne monastery was a place of silence and prayer until 1792, when the monks, forced to flee the Revolution, left for Italy.

Abandoned and in ruins, the monastery was looted and gradually buried under vegetation; it remained, however, a popular place for family walks for the local inhabitants.

The first emergency work to halt the destruction was undertaken in 1961, and in 1968 private individuals and volunteers set about the gradual reconstruction, which culminated in the total restoration of the two churches, the two cloisters with all their cells, the ramparts and the communal buildings in the 2000s. In 2013, a series of ‘troglodyte’ hermitages replaced the algecos at the bottom of the ramparts.

The monastery today

As early as 1981, the first pioneers of this work invited our monastic family to revive the site in its original vocation: contemplative prayer. First the monks of Bethlehem settled at La Verne, then when they left in 1985, the nuns arrived.

The monastery church, dedicated to Our Lady of Clemence, was dedicated in 2006 by Bishop Rey.
The community brings together nuns of 14 nationalities from 3 different continents.

The monastery is both a novitiate and a mother house for studies.