The Benedictine monastery of Estella will close its doors in the coming weeks, putting an end to eight centuries of uninterrupted presence of the Benedictine nuns in Navarra. The community, currently formed by eight nuns, will move to the San José convent in Burgos.
According to Diario de Navarra, the farewell took place this Sunday, March 1, in a Eucharist presided over by the Archbishop of Pamplona and Tudela, Florencio Roselló, in the church of the convent located next to the Basilica of the Puy, a building to which the nuns moved in 1971 from their previous location on Paseo de Los Llanos.
A Farewell with Gratitude and Hope
The celebration was marked by emotion and gratitude. The church was filled with faithful, priests, family members, and neighbors from Estella, who wanted to accompany this small community led by the abbess, Mother María Teresa Pérez Montero.
In his homily, the archbishop asked to view this moment not as a failure, but as a new stage. “Humanly speaking, we might think it is a sad moment, an end, a loss. It is nothing of the sort,” he stated. He recalled that when Christ says “my hour has come,” he is not speaking of defeat, but of fulfilling the Father’s will. “It is also that something new begins.”
Roselló emphasized that monastic life is an “interior pilgrimage” and total availability to God’s will. The move, he assured, does not imply a loss of identity or charism, which remains the same: sustaining the Church through prayer.
Two Reasons for the Move
The abbess took the floor at the end of the Eucharist and explained the reasons for the decision. The first, to better care for the elderly sisters. The second, to strengthen the monastic charism in a larger community that can foster new vocations.
“It is true that the times we live in seem not to invite this, but we are convinced that He can do all things and that His ways are not our ways,” she affirmed.
She acknowledged that the departure is marked by “uncertainties, fears, and joys,” and that leaving Navarra hurts. “We leave many things behind. Our Navarrese land, our monastery, our families, our friends, we leave a diocese that we love with all our hearts.”
Eight Centuries of Benedictine Presence
The farewell brought together representatives from other religious communities, such as the monks of Leyre, nuns from Oñate and Burgos, and members of various congregations present in Estella. The Bishop of Vitoria, the Navarrese Juan Carlos Elizalde, also attended.
With this move, the Estella monastery is left empty awaiting the determination of its future. The departure of the Benedictine nuns marks the end of an 800-year stage of contemplative life in Navarra, a silent presence that has accompanied the spiritual history of the region generation after generation.