Some ten years ago, Dom Damian Kearney wrote an article for the School’s Bulletin entitled, “Portsmouth’s Debt to the EBC Houses.” In perusing his concise historical record, one sees that the relationships have indeed existed between houses, rather than being planned at the level of the congregation. Indeed, while Fr. Damian refers to a debt to “houses,” his account reveals an even narrower “debt” - to some of the individual monks of those houses. He traces a history of personages who have been influential in shaping our monastic community. These associations have produced a “debt” with transatlantic vectors pointing in several directions: to and from monks of Downside, Fort Augustus, and Ampleforth, in particular. They also encompass the American communities of Portsmouth, Saint Anselm in Washington, D.C. and Saint Louis in connections that have recently continued anew, indeed that have come full circle. We will return to Fr. Damian’s account, and see how the “debt” has grown, been “repaid,” and still persists in vital ways. 
 

THE ENGLISH BENEDICTINE CONGREGATION 

For starters, just what is the “EBC”? The Portsmouth “house” exists as a member of the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC). The EBC is comprised of 14 “houses”: nine in the UK, one in Zimbabwe, one in Peru, and three in the United States. These all share in a life guided by the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as by constitutions of the congregation, which shape the governance of each house in various ways. That governance, importantly, is not structured with top-down authority, such as one finds in the Dominicans, Jesuits, or other orders who have a formal line of obedience to a Superior General. While the EBC does elect an “Abbot President,” each monastery maintains a fair amount of autonomy in its monastic leadership, and stability within one house and obedience to its superior are principal elements in the promise made at solemn vows, distinct from obedience to a general superior of an order. While the EBC lacks a “central authority,” the congregation’s houses share a tradition leading back to St. Augustine of Canterbury, missionary sent by Pope St. Gregory the Great to England at the end of the sixth century. His efforts to establish an orthodox Christian faith led to the development of an extensive monastic influence throughout early medieval England. Surviving the later destructive forces of the English Reformation, as well as the challenges of the French Revolution, a reconstituted congregation became reestablished in England, primarily in the late 19^th century. Pope Leo XIII attempted in that century to develop a more structured formal line of obedience within the Benedictines, yet he met with limited success, proclaiming in exasperation that the Benedictines are ordo sine ordinis ("an order without order").  
 

THE DOWNSIDE ORIGINS: LEONARD SARGENT’S DREAM 

The effort to trace the Portsmouth heritage back to a single founding EBC monastery, or a directive from a single abbot, thus also yields little success. This may seem curiously paradoxical, as obedience remains a crucial element in Benedictine life, both in light of its place among the three promises of solemn vows, as well as its prominent role in the Rule of Saint Benedict. But the foundation of a monastic community at Portsmouth seems not to have happened because of an order of obedience. It rather initially revolved around the allowance to one inspired monk, in fact one who had only recently made solemn vows, to return to his native United States and move forward with his dream of founding a monastery. Dom Leonard Sargent was, ostensibly, a monk of Downside, thus we might expect a strong link to that “house.” And, indeed, we perhaps must credit Cuthbert Butler, then abbot of Downside, for his support and openness to Sargent’s plan. Born in Ireland, Butler was a historian reputed for his account of the First Vatican Council, as well as for his promotion of the EBC as a congregation of autonomous houses, a model of governance taking shape in the late 19^th century. He seems the type of superior who could be innovative and understanding of an individual of such eccentric background and interests as Leonard Sargent, willing to agree to the program mapped out by Sargent. Fr Damian writes: “Although a school was not envisioned, he wanted his foundation to reflect the same spirit and sense of tradition that he had experienced at Downside, emphasizing learning, liturgy, monastic observance, and hospitality, providing a place for reflection in an atmosphere of peace, remote in its rural seclusion, but still accessible to the world” (“Debt”). Awareness of Sargent’s vision seems to have been woven into much of his monastic journey, from his reception into the church at Downside in 1909, through his seminary training and ordination in Boston, to his solemn vows at Downside, to his establishment of the Portsmouth community by 1918.  

Fr. Leonard Sargent

“CRUCIAL YEARS”: FORT AUGUSTUS SENDS KNOWLES AND DIMAN 

Sargent’s dream did not become an immediate success. And while he had received the encouragement of Abbot Butler, he received only limited support: “the enterprise was to be entirely American in its staffing and financing; applicants would be received and undergo their formation at Downside, and then return to the United States” (“Debt”). By the mid-1920’s, his community was struggling, and Downside now had a different abbot. But the English congregation did have another new house, Saint Anselm’s in Washington, whose foundation in 1924 had been undertaken by the monastery of Fort Augustus in Scotland. And the abbot of Fort Augustus, Joseph Macdonald, was willing to also take on as an additional dependent house the tenuous community in Portsmouth. Fort Augustus fortified Portsmouth with two individuals: John Hugh Diman, then with the nascent Saint Anselm’s community, and Wulstan Knowles. Diman would bring his years of experience with St. George’s School to serve as headmaster of the school to be created, a model more in line with other EBC houses. And Knowles, already tapped to assist in establishing the Washington group, would now serve as the superior of the Portsmouth community. 

Abbot Wulstan Knowles


Hugh Diman with students outside the Manor House

Thus, for a brief three years (1926-1929), coinciding with the establishment of the School, Knowles served as Prior of the Portsmouth community. Fr. Damian describes these as “crucial years,” in which Prior Knowles was “dealing tirelessly with the problems of transforming a gentleman’s country estate into a workable monastery and school, converting a caretaker cottage into a chapel, erecting prefabricated buildings into what were envisioned to be temporary quarters, laying out playing fields and changing a large carriage house into a gymnasium.” His most visible legacy is Saint Benet’s dormitory, designed by the architectural firm of Maginnis and Walsh of Boston, the only building achieved in the vision of a complete Neo-Gothic church and monastery. The dorm’s patron, St. Benedict, was also that of the mother house at Fort Augustus. Knowles’ stay was abbreviated by the ascension of Abbot Macdonald to the archbishopric of Edinburgh a mere two years after having been elected abbot, resulting in Knowles’ being recalled to Fort Augustus. Nevertheless, Fr. Damian notes that, “Over the next twenty years Abbot Wulstan observed the growth of Portsmouth with keen interest, making frequent visits and taking satisfaction in witnessing the independence of Portsmouth in 1949.” Indeed, as abbot of Fort Augustus, Knowles remained the superior of Portsmouth, which remained a dependent house. A second crucial consequence of these changes at Fort Augustus was the appointment of Fr. Hugh Diman as prior at Portsmouth. Thus, after being tapped to establish the school, Diman in 1929 found himself to be both Prior and Headmaster. Trained at Fort Augustus and solemnly professed at Saint Anselm’s, he now would play a central role in the solid establishment of the monastery and school at Portsmouth. 

Abbot Joseph Macdonald (1871-1950) (Blairs Museum; William Drummond Young, 1855–1924)

AMPLEFORTH, GRAHAM, AND SAINT LOUIS 

In the 1930’s, the Portsmouth community did stabilize and “Americanize,” with a growing core of American members. It produced its own superior in Gregory Borgstedt, who in fact was named prior of the community in 1940 by Wulstan Knowles, who as abbot of Fort Augustus still presided over Portsmouth. But when Prior Gregory decided that his call lay elsewhere, leaving the newly independent Portsmouth in 1950 to help establish the monastery of Mount Savior in New York State, a monk from yet another EBC monastery, Ampleforth Abbey, was sent to serve as prior of Portsmouth. Aelred Graham arrived from in 1951 from Ampleforth, which had grown to become the largest community in the EBC and was thriving under the extensive abbacy of Herbert Byrne (1939-1963). Graham would remain superior for sixteen years. 

Prior Aelred Graham with Dalai Lama

Fr. Damian points to Graham’s well-known interest in Buddhism, his recruiting of an able friend of Downside, Cecil Acheson, as lay Associate Headmaster, and his leadership of an independent Portsmouth community growing into its beautiful new church, monastery, and school campus. Yet we must post an important addendum to Dom Damian’s account, reflecting how substantially the EBC fellowship has more recently come to shape this abbey. Recently, as many of our readers are aware, Saint Louis Abbey enriched our present monastic community with three of its monks. Prior Michael Brunner, Fr. Edward Mazuski, and Brother Sixtus Roslevich formalized this move in transferring their stability to Portsmouth, and thus effectively are now Portsmouth monks. But some readers may not be aware that in the foundation of the St. Louis community itself, Portsmouth played a crucial role, particularly in the involvement of Aelred Graham.  

Fr. Damian Kearney  (1928-2016)
 

Portsmouth’s Graham was tapped to mediate the involvement of his home monastery, Ampleforth, in the creation of a new community in Saint Louis. In the 1950’s, a Catholic lay group seeking to establish a new school in the city had turned to him for assistance. The St. Louis Abbey website tells the story: “No Catholic school in St. Louis had the spare manpower, but Portsmouth Priory (now Abbey), in Rhode Island, had an Ampleforth monk as acting superior, Father Aelred Graham... The Saint Louis group had some connections with Portsmouth and knew Father Aelred. He said Portsmouth had no spare monks but perhaps one of the English Abbeys might have. Ampleforth, with well over 100 monks was, in fact, looking to make a foundation. A series of meetings which ensued between the Saint Louis Group, incorporated as Catholic Preparatory school for Boys and Father Aelred, resulted in Father Aelred’s being sent to England to invite the English abbeys, especially Ampleforth.” Apparently, Dom Aelred was effective in his effort, as “he painted a glowing, but mainly accurate, picture of Saint Louis,” leading to a developed relationship between the St. Louis group and Ampleforth, “a reconnaissance from Ampleforth,” and an “invitation from the Archbishop of Saint Louis to the Abbot of Ampleforth.” Abbot Herbert Byrne agreed to allow three monks - Timothy Horner, Columba Cary-Elwes, and Luke Rigby – to venture across the Atlantic for the new venture, and the trio arrived on November 19, 1955. Their new community, having grown to become a well-established abbey, was in a position in recent years to allow our own new trio to venture north from St. Louis, opening a new moment of consolidation for the Portsmouth house. 
 

EXPANDING NORTH AND SOUTH 

The EBC network now extends beyond the transatlantic relations such as we have seen, and even links the northern and southern hemispheres of our globe. With houses in Zimbabwe and Peru, the English Benedictine identity has expanded yet further. An important additional development in the Portsmouth debt, to supplement Fr. Damian’s account, is the growth of the Manquehue Apostolic Movement based in Santiago, Chile. Its Chilean founder, Jose Manuel Eguiguren, found himself drawn to Benedictine spirituality, and in the 1980’s began making frequent visits to Ampleforth, becoming ever more connected to the English Congregation. Steeped in lectio divina and shaped by Benedictine practice, Eguiguren established a movement that now includes four schools, as well as a beautiful, remote retreat center in Patagonia. Several of the EBC monasteries and schools, including Portsmouth, have extensively cultivated their friendship with the Manquehue movement, hosting Chilean groups in their monasteries and schools, and sending monks, faculty, and students to Chile to learn about the Movement. The friendship has been a vibrant renewal of spirituality and a vigorous return to the monastic practice of lectio divina.  

We could elaborate further on the varied inter-house connections – Fr. Julian Stead’s connections to Worth and Downside, Brother Benedict’s novitiate in St. Louis, or our long participation in Ampleforth’s Lourdes Pilgrimage. And as Fr. Damian notes, there have also been visits of vital importance from the Abbot Presidents of the congregation, participation in the General Chapter, and much shared ongoing communication between houses. In all much debt is incurred, most importantly the debt of gratitude for fraternal support in the life of communities sharing the monastic journey outlined in the Rule of Saint Benedict.