THE ABBEY OF SASSOVIVO

The name of the abbey is Santa Croce in Sassovivo, which as you know, is The Holy Cross. Sassovivo means “living stone” because in this very rocky area there are two springs of water. The water gives life to the land.

About the year 1000, St. Mainardo and his companion Dionisio came here to live with other hermits. He founded the community.

The community followed the Rule of St. Benedict. Their life was devoted to prayer and work. The first documents about monastic life in the abbey are from 1066 and 1080. Certainly by 1084 the style of life had passed from that of hermits to that of monks (eremitic life to cenobitic life) and from that year Mainardo was called “abbot”.

The monks of Sassovivo were well-known for their lives of holiness and their economic power. During the first decades they were governed and guided by wise and competent abbots and treasurers [economos]. At the end of the XII century the abbey possessed more than 150 buildings (for example churches, convents and leper hospitals).

All this was due to the fact that in 1138 Pope Innocent II by decree placed the abbey under the immediate protection of the Holy See and granted the privilege (to abbot Michele) of administering its goods independently of the local ecclesiastical authority.

The community founded by Mainardo lived in Sassovivo until 1467 when the last abbot elected by the monastic chapter,Tommaso da Foligno, died. From this date the monastery was given to Cardinal Filippo Calandrini as commendatory abbot. He took possession of the abbey and its patrimony in September 1467. His successor as commendatory abbot, Marco Barbo placed the abbey in the care of benedictines of Monte Oliveto.

The Olivetans lived here until the beginning of the XIX century. From that time Sassovivo suffered a long period of material damage due to earthquakes and general decline. However from 1951 to 1957 the abbey was home to a group of benedictine monks, refugees from the Communist regime in Prague. Finally in 1979 bishop of Foligno gave the abbey into the care of the community of the Little Brothers of Jesus Caritas of Charles de Foucauld. From that time a new period of rebirth began for this ancient and glorious monument.

 

The cloister

 

The cloister in general was an area that allowed easy access to the three most important parts of the monastery: the church, the refectory (dining room) and the chapter room. At the same time it had the function of collecting rain water in a deposit (generally monasteries were built in high or desert places). Gradually the cloister acquired a spiritual and theological significance. The well placed in the center is a symbol of Christ “fountain of living water” as John says in the Gospel.

The cloister of Sassovivo is considered “an architectural gem”. An inscription on one side of the cloister records the date 1229, the name of abbot Angelo and the master of work Pietro di Maria. According to the documents the cloister was built in Rome because it is an identical copy of the cloister of the abbey of Santi Quattro Coronati which at that time was a dependency of Sassovivo. So it was built in Rome and little by little brought here.