FLAVIGNY-SUR-MOSELLE, ABBEY OF

Benedictine priory for men, later a Benedictine abbey for women, in the present Diocese of Nancy, France. The priory was founded on the banks of the upper Moselle c. 1020 in the former Diocese of Toul, on land originally given to the Abbey of Saint-Vanne of verdunsur-meuse (c. 950) by Bp. Berengar of Verdun, who transferred there the relics of one of his 5th-century predecessors, St. Firmin. A large tower from the 12th-century and the late 15th-century church show by their size the importance of Flavigny in the Middle Ages. After the abbey was joined to the Congregation of Saint-Vanne and Saint-Hydulphe in 1640, Flavigny experienced a revitalization. Its most famous superior was Dom ceillier, prior from 1733 to 1761, who was author of the important Histoire des auteurs sacrés et ecclésiastiques. The priory was suppressed in 1791. In 1824 the buildings received a new community, a Benedictine abbey for women made up of Benedictine nuns, formerly of Vergaville (Diocese of Metz). They remained at Flavigny until 1904, when they were forced to leave France. Since 1924 the old priory buildings have been used as a school for mentally retarded children, conducted by the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation of Mary from Tours.

Bibliography: a. dedenon, Histoire du prieuré bénédictin de Flavigny-sur-Moselle (Nancy 1936). h. dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, abbé de Saint-Vanne (Louvain 1946) 167–169. j. villerot-reboul, "Dom Remi Ceillier et le prieuré de Flavigny-sur-Moselle," Annales de l'est, 5th ser., 10 (1959) 161–172.

[j. choux]