Winchester Cathedral’s link with the Abbey of Fleury on the banks of the Loire is one with ancient origins. Winchester was a Benedictine foundation, as was Fleury, which houses the relics of St Benedict, who founded Western monasticism in the seventh century. In the tenth century, Fleury was part of the movement to return to the simpler monastic life that St Benedict preached, and Winchester was the centre of reform in England. Scholars were brought from Fleury to help draw up a new Benedictine Rule, which enabled monastic life at Winchester to flourish until St Swithun’s Priory (as it was then called) was dissolved under Henry VIII.
It was a previous Dean of Winchester, Michael Stancliffe, who renewed the ancient relationship in 1978 when he and the then Abbot of Fleury agreed that the two foundations should be united in prayer. They have been praying for each other every day since then.
In 2011, the Cathedral added a new structure called the ‘Fleury Building’ built round the north-east corner providing storage, a new boiler and heating system, and lavatories, mostly funded by the Friends of the Cathedral. Its name ‘Fleury’ was chosen to commemorate the link and was opened by the Abbot of Fleury at the time, Dom Étienne Ricaud. Dom Ricaud was also installed as the first Honorary Ecumenical Canon of the Cathedral.
Read more “WINCHESTER: The French connection” 28th March 2011 by Margaret Duggan
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2011/1-april/gazette/winchester-the-french-connection
