Our Lady of Koningshoeven Abbey

Our Lady of Koningshoeven Abbey at Berkel-Enschot is a living Trappist monastery of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance and an important part of North Brabant’s religious heritage. The abbey’s official history traces its beginning to 1880, when monks from the Northern French Trappist monastery of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont sought a refuge from anti-clerical pressure in France.

They settled on former royal farmland near Tilburg known locally as the Koningshoeven because it had once belonged to King Willem II. The monks converted existing farm buildings and a sheepfold for monastic use, creating what the abbey identifies as the first Trappist monastery in the Netherlands. Their first Eucharist at the site was celebrated on 5 March 1881.

In 1891 the monastery was raised to the status of an abbey, with Willibrord Verbruggen as abbot, and substantial new abbey buildings followed. Koningshoeven remains an active community ordered around prayer, silence, work, hospitality and retreat. Visitors can encounter the abbey through liturgy, the guesthouse and designated public areas, but the monastery is not simply a heritage attraction.

Its sacred significance comes from continuous Cistercian communal worship; no specific miracle or supernatural claim is associated with this record.