Abbot Matthew Stark and Prior Aelred Graham

We recently have been led here at Portsmouth to reflect on abbots and abbeys. How does one become an abbot, and how an abbey? The recent blessing of Michel Brunner as the fourth abbot of Portsmouth required some subtle sacramental interpretation. It was neither an ordination, as one would have for a bishop, nor an installation, as he had become abbot upon his election by the community. Still, it remains an important moment in the community’s life of faith, emblematic of its status as an abbey. Similarly, the elevation of this monastery from priory to abbey, which occurred over fifty years ago, is somewhat shrouded in obscurity, both theological and historical. Abbot Matthew Stark, who was in the middle of that elevation as the then recently installed prior of the monastery, indicates of the history that, “there is not much there to tell.” Nevertheless, it may be instructive to survey some of that history, and to illuminate to some extent the distinction between Portsmouth as priory and as abbey, and thus how it is we now come to have an abbot.  

Portsmouth’s elevation from priory to abbey was completed over a half-century ago, in October 1969. Matthew Stark had been elected the community’s superior, as Prior, two years earlier in 1967. What remained for him to become an abbot was the community’s acceptance, both by the English Benedictine Congregation and by Rome, as a duly established and independent community of a certain dignity and authority. The community had already been independent for some twenty years, first electing its own superior in Aelred Graham. For its initial thirty years as a community, it had been subordinate to its founding communities of the Congregation, primarily Fort Augustus Abbey, which had taken over stewardship of the new community several years after it had been established by Leonard Sargent, a monk of Downside Abbey. Portsmouth gained its independence as a monastic house in 1949, with its initial autonomous leadership put in place, as is still the practice, by its founding house. While those transitional years in the monastery’s leadership resulted in Aelred Graham’s appointment as the community’s superior, he was not elected by the Portsmouth community itself until his second eight-year tenure. His terms in office had helped to solidify and stabilize the community, which by the mid-1960's had well over twenty monks in residence, many of them very active and teaching in the School. 

 

 

Portsmouth community celebrates independence (1949)

Abbot Matthew Stark points to Abbot President Victor Farwell, O.S.B., as the principal agent in promoting the elevation. Farwell, it can be noted, had become the first abbot of Worth Abbey only two years earlier in 1965, when that monastery was itself elevated. Worth, though in England, is in fact younger than the Portsmouth house, as it was founded in 1933 and independent in 1957. Farwell, shortly after his election at Worth, became the Abbot President on the English Benedictine Congregation, and in Matthew Stark’s recollection, was keen on the elevation of Portsmouth.* Keener, it seems, then the priory community here, which he notes was generally “not particularly interested” and would have been “quite content to remain Portsmouth Priory.” This may be reflected in the language of the School’s report on the elevation, which stated that it “changes few of the concrete realities of day-to-day existence.” Nevertheless, the community assented to it, and a brief update in the “Monastery Notes” of the Portsmouth Bulletin of the Fall of 1968 reports that, “The English Abbots’ Meeting at Oxford last Fall expressed the wish that Portsmouth become an Abbey. Accordingly, at the Conventual Chapter held last December (1967), the Community voted to petition Rome for abbatial status.”  

 

 

News clipping from the archives: Rev. Stanley Jarvis, Abbot President Victor Farwell,
and the newly-blessed Abbot Matthew Stark (October, 1969)

The second critical piece in the elevation process is permission from the local ordinary. At that time, for Portsmouth this was the Most Rev. Russell J. McVinney of Providence. The Bulletin continues: “The Bishop of Providence has since given his approval and it is anticipated that Portsmouth will be raised to the status of an Abbey in 1969 or 1970.” Abbot Matthew recalls Bishop McVinney as “gracious and kind to me” throughout the process, and that the monastery’s relationship with the diocese began to improve significantly at this time. It was McVinney who presided over the solemn blessing of Abbot Matthew as the first abbot of Portsmouth, completing the process of the community’s elevation to the rank of abbey. The Providence Journal reported that the abbey had 23 monks in residence, 19 of whom were teaching in the School. It further reported “an additional 18 lay faculty,” indicative of the deeply monastic character of the School at that time. The Journal printed an extensive spread on the elevation, announcing the change in status was to be effective “in title” from October 12, 1969, the date of the abbatial blessing of Abbot Stark. It noted that the priory had in fact already been made an abbey as of August 27, 1969, when the EBC unanimously agreed to raise it to that rank at its General Chapter held at Downside Abbey.   

 

 

Full-page insert in Providence Journal (October 1969)

For the newly-elevated Matthew Stark, the series of events of 1967-1969 was a continuation of the uncharted territory of serving as the community’s superior. While the theological import of abbatial status may remain unspecified, the rank of “abbot” and “abbey” do carry limited additional “rights and privileges,” most notably additional representation at the General Chapter of the congregation. An abbot may also be joined there by an additional delegate, providing another voice from the community, and on some matters an additional vote. And the authority of the abbatial office, while largely unspecified canonically, is also not to be underestimated. Despite the visual impact of the mitre, ring, and abbatial cross, the “pontificalia” do not in themselves add canonical authority. Still, they are part of a kind of abbatial currency of authority. Abbot Matthew speaks of it “opening doors” that might otherwise remain inaccessible, indicative of its spiritual “maturity” in the community.  

 

 

Coat of Arms of Abbot Matthew Stark, designed by Dom Wilfrid Bayne, O.S.B.

The recent election and blessing of Michael Brunner as abbot reaffirms this “mature” status for Portsmouth Abbey, within the EBC and the greater church, and similarly marks a strong relationship with the Diocese. And the community, thus once more fulfilling its character as an abbey, can acclaim, “Habemus abbatem.” 

* Of the other EBC houses in the United States, St. Anselm’s in Washington D.C. had been elevated in 1961; St. Louis, founded only in 1955, became independent in 1973 and would be elevated in 1989.