St. Benedict Monastery

 abbey, Order of Saint Benedict, catholicism

St. Benedict of Oxford is the present mother house of the Benedictines of Detroit, the corporate name of the American priory of the Sylvestrine Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict. It was in 1938 that the Monastery of St. Sylvester was built on the property adjacent to St. Scholastica Parish. The first phase of the monastery was blessed on November 27, 1938 and became the community’s headquarters and the novitiate. With the consent of the archbishop of Detroit they purchased the land and took possession of it on November 15, 1959 as their house of novitiate. The property came with a modern family home. The house, doubled in size with the addition of spaces suited for monastic living, served the community until it was doubled again in the late seventies.
St. Benedict of Oxford is the Major Priory of the Sylvestrine Benedictines in America. It was officially designated as the Order headquarters in America in 1978.