Trappists

Trappists, popular name for the Cistercian monks and nuns of the Strict Observance, a Roman Catholic monastic order that originated in France in the 17th century as a reform movement within the Cistercians, resulting in the establishment of two separate observances, the “common” and the “strict” observances.

In 1662 Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Rancé, a nobleman and commendatory abbot of the Cistercian abbey of Notre Dame de la Trappe, introduced reforms and austerities. De Rancé's rule became so well known that adherents of the Strict Observance came to be called Trappists. Ejected from their abbey in 1792 in the course of the French Revolution, the Trappists moved on to Switzerland, Russia, and Germany before finally returning to France in 1814. In 1892, during the papacy of Leo XIII, all the Cistercian monasteries that had adopted Trappist reforms were united as an independent order; in 1902 the order was named the Reformed Cistercians, or Cistercians of the Strict Observance, as it is known today. After the Second Vatican Council, some Trappist monasteries were allowed to relax their discipline.

Those Trappist monasteries that still observe the traditional rule are among the most austere in the Roman Catholic Church. Daily life is devoted to prayer, reading, and manual work. The Trappists eat, sleep, and work in absolute silence; they abstain from eating meat, fish, and eggs. De Rancé forbade intellectual work, but the Trappists now encourage scholarship. At the beginning of the 21st century there were more than 170 Trappist monasteries worldwide, with about 4,300 monks and nuns.