Subiaco Abbey is an American Benedictine monastery located in the Arkansas River valley of Logan County, Arkansas, part of the Swiss-American Congregation of Benedictine monasteries. It is home to thirty-nine Benedictine monks. The abbey and the preparatory school it operates, Subiaco Academy, are major features of the town of Subiaco, Arkansas. It is named after the original Subiaco, Italy, where the first monastery founded by Saint Benedict was located.
The Abbey has developed commercial enterprises including breeding of black Angus cattle, a brewery and taproom, and its own hot sauce. While located within the territory of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, the Abbey has independent authority as an institution of the Benedictine order.
History
In 1877, the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad (LR&FS) owned thousands of open acres in Arkansas that it wished to develop with settlers. Deciding to offer land only to German Catholics, the company approached Martin Marty (bishop), O.S.B., the Abbot of St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana, with a proposal. The railroad offered land in western Arkansas, south of the Arkansas River, if the Abbey would establish a monastery and school there to serve the German immigrant population the railroad was bringing into the region. The abbot negotiated with the railroad for a grant of to establish a Benedictine monastery for monks, and an additional for the foundation of a monastery for Benedictine nuns. This agreement was supported by Edward Fitzgerald, Bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock, who needed German-speaking priests to serve new immigrants and their families in his diocese.
Abbot Marty assigned three monk-missionaries from St. Meinrad to start the foundation in Logan County, Arkansas. They arrived there on March 15, 1878: Father Wolfgang Schlumpf, O.S.B., assigned as prior; Brother Kaspar Hildesheim, O.S.B.; and Brother Hilarin Benetz, O.S.B.. The foundation was developed as St. Benedict's Priory. Due to financial and personnel difficulties, St. Meinrad requested assistance from its mother house in Switzerland to aid the growth. In the fall of 1887, its founding monastery, Einsiedeln Abbey, responded to appeals from the foundation in Arkansas, and sent Fr. Gaul D'Aujourd'hui with eight candidates for the monastery. They became known in the tradition as the Eight Beatitudes.
In 1886 the monastery was raised to a conventual priory, independent of St. Meinrad Abbey. In 1891 it was named as an abbey by Pope Leo XIII, receiving the name Subiaco Abbey in honor of St. Benedict's original monastery in Subiaco, Italy. The first abbot, Ignatius Conrad, O.S.B., was elected in March 1892. He was a monk from Einsiedeln Abbey who had been serving at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City–Saint Joseph in western Missouri. Under his leadership, construction of a new abbey was begun in 1898; it was made from local sandstone. In December 1901, just as the construction was nearing completion, the original wooden abbey, located about a mile away, burned to the ground.
The monks transferred to the Subiaco Abbey site. This building was gutted by fire in 1927 and was rebuilt. The third Abbot of Subiaco, Paul Nahlen, O.S.B., obtained Pope Pius XII's blessing for the construction of the present church on the Abbey campus. The church was completed in 1959. This act is depicted in one of the 182 stained-glass windows in St. Benedict Abbey Church.
Over the years, the Benedictine monks at Subiaco have pursued various spiritual, agricultural, and commercial endeavors. First were missionary works, then they established Subiaco Academy, a university-preparatory school.
In 1927, Subiaco Abbey took its first step in establishing what would become Corpus Christi Abbey in Corpus Christi, Texas. This institution closed in 2002.
They made an overseas foundation in 1964 in Nigeria, but it had to be closed in 1968, due to the Biafran War there. The Benedictines made a subsequent foundation, Santa Familia Priory, in Belize in 1971. It closed in 2002.
In January 2023, Jerrid Farnam was arrested for public intoxication, theft of property, criminal mischief, breaking or entering, and residential burglary for breaking into the Abbey, vandalizing the marble altar, and stealing two boxes of relics containing 1,500 year old relics related to Catholic saints. Both boxes were recovered by police.