Norbertine Abbot of 900-year-old abbey calls for help from U.S. government after Romanian court orders unconstitutional eviction
Abbot Anzlem Fejes, of the Norbertine Abbey of Oradea, in Romania, has called upon the U.S. State Department, as well as Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, to leverage international pressure to prevent the suppression of his 900-year-old abbey by the City of Oradea, following a court order for his eviction from his own abbey, despite constitutional protections to the contrary within Romanian law.The court ordered the eviction of Abbot Fejes and declared it immediately enforceable. Municipal authorities have now scheduled his eviction to take place on Monday, Feb. 23, at 10:00 am in Oradea.
The ruling was issued despite the court’s own admission that there are legitimate constitutional challenges that must be answered in the case. According to Romanian law, a functioning church and monastery complex are sacred places that are not capable of being transferred or seized by the State, being extra commercium due to their religious use and purpose.
In response to the ruling, in a statement sent to the American Embassy in Romania, Abbot Fejes has appealed to the U.S. State Department and to Members of Congress in Washington for assistance. Citing the Lepanto Institute’s previous report, he has called for the U.S. government to exert international pressure to protect religious liberty in Eastern Europe and to help preserve a 900-year-old Catholic monastery from illegal seizure and suppression by the Romanian government.
As mentioned in Lepanto’s previous report, the Norbertine Abbey of Oradea has historical links to the Catholic Church in the United States. The present-day American Norbertine Abbey of St. Michael’s, in Orange, California, traces its roots to the Abbey of Oradea in Romania. The founding fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey escaped communist oppression in Hungary in the 1950’s, transferring Norbertine life from the Abbey of Csorna in Hungary, itself founded centuries before by the Abbey of Oradea in Romania.
READ: Romanian city tries to evict Norbertine abbot, seize monastery, and suppress community
Commenting on the court’s Jan. 29 decision, Andrea Varga, legal historian and representative of Abbot Fejes before the court, told Lepanto,
“What makes this especially alarming is the ruling’s internal contradiction: the court admitted the constitutional challenge and referred it to the Constitutional Court, yet refused to suspend the proceedings until the Constitutional Court issued its decision… Despite all of this, an immediately enforceable eviction order was issued.”
The eviction is being attempted through a backdoor, illegal administrative blurring of addresses for adjacent properties, and an attempted municipal, clerical “transfer” of the property of the Norbertine Abbey to the City of Oradea without any legal change of title to the property in question, which has belonged to the Norbertine Order continuously since the 1100’s, an ownership that was recognized even by the communist regime that governed Romania following the Second World War.
Commenting on the blurring of addresses in the case, and the serious legal consequences, Varga told Lepanto,
“It is also particularly serious that the enforceable measure does not specify precisely from which building, and from which part of that building, the eviction is to be carried out. The property in question consists of three functionally and historically distinct parts: a church section, a monastic residence (the abbey/monastery house), and a section currently used as a municipal high school (the former Premonstratensian school and former law faculty site). Because the decision fails to clearly define the exact scope of enforcement, it creates a real and immediate risk that Abbot Anselm could be removed even from the church itself. This is not a minor technical flaw; it is legal uncertainty that enables abusive enforcement and directly affects freedom of religious practice and the protection of sacred premises.”
In a Jan. 27 article published by local Romanian news outlet Zianews, Valer Marian—an Orthodox Romanian and former prosecutor, Romanian parliamentary senator, and prefect of Oradea’s neighboring county—alleged that the seizure of the Abbey of Oradea is the latest attempt of Oradea’s previous Mayor, now Romanian Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, a known Freemason, to oppress the Catholic Church.
According to Marian, Bolojan is “an established Freemason for over three decades.” Per Marian’s report, since the beginning of Bolojan’s tenure as Mayor of Oradea in 2009, the City, through its Land Registry, has carried our several illegal administrative “transfers” of Abbey property to the City without a proper legal deed of transfer of ownership and title, thereby stripping the monastic community of its constitutionally protected patrimony.
Marian stated,
“After Ilie Bolojan became mayor, starting in 2009, Oradea City Hall carried out several insidious and fraudulent operations of subdivision and amalgamation and requested their registration in the Land Register with the Municipality of Oradea as owner, thereby stripping the patrimony and harming the papal order through the unlawful deletion of its ownership right. The Bihor County Office for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity (OJCPI) entered these fictitious acts in the Land Register, but these property transfers were carried out administratively, without legal basis and without an authentic deed transferring ownership.
An outright theft, with the requisite complicities from the Bihor OJCPI and from the Oradea judiciary, which Ilie Bolojan largely controls and directs. Relying on these fraudulent acts, the city hall drew up a real-estate modernization project for the area—namely, the rehabilitation of the Mihai Eminescu National College—for which it accessed European funds totaling €26.5 million. Eminescu College is located at Roman Ciorogariu Street no. 18, but Bolojan and his clique also included in the project the Premonstratensian monastery and church, which are located at numbers 14 and 16. The building housing Eminescu College was also constructed by the Premonstratensian Order; since the 18th century it has housed a gymnasium and a law academy, where instruction has also been offered in Romanian starting in 1851.”
Confirming Marian’s assessment, Varga told Lepanto that “in Oradea the Masonic lobby is very strong, and the Romanian press has repeatedly reported that key figures pushing this eviction belong to that circle.”
Warning that a later decision of the courts will not be able to fully repair the harm done to the Norbertines in Oradea by the eviction of their Abbot, Varga stated, “When doors are forced, locks changed, and a religious superior is removed from his canonical home and seat of governance, the harm is already done.”
She also drew attention to an apparent “troubling double standard.”
“In Romania there is a widely understood winter protection period — an expectation that people are not put out into the cold before 1 March,” she said. “Yet it appears this protection will not be respected here: not when the person targeted is a Norbertine (Premonstratensian) prelate, a life-elected superior, and the place is a monastery complex.”
An appeal to the European Court of Human Rights has been filed seeking interim measures while the case moves forward in Romania’s Constitutional Court. Abbot Fejes has also called for international pressure from the U.S., which has previously drawn attention to present-day religious persecution in Europe.
It is hoped that the attention and intervention of the U.S. government will assist Abbot Fejes and his community against the unconstitutional and unjust designs of the City of Oradea and its Masonic lobby and prevent the eviction of the Norbertine abbot and the consequent seizure and suppression of his 900-year-old abbey.
The full statement of Abbot Fejes to the U.S. State Department and Members of Congress, sent to the American Embassy in Romania and obtained by the Lepanto Institute, follows below, as well as an excerpt from the detailed report of Valer Marian published by the Romanian news outlet Zianews, laying out the legal artifices employed by Romanian government officials in the case.
INFORMATION NOTE Regarding the Situation of the Provostry of the Premonstratensian Canonical Order in Oradea
TO: The Embassy of The United States in Romania
The United States Department of State (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor / Office of International Religious Freedom)
Members of the United States Senate
Members of the United States House of Representatives
SUBJECT: Imminent enforcement of a judicial eviction order entailing the risk of irreversible institutional dispossession and de facto suppression of a State-recognized religious legal person.
The Provostry of the Premonstratensian Canonical Order in Oradea (Norbertines) (hereinafter The Provostry) (a religious legal person recognized by the Romanian State) (Annex 6-9), lawfully represented by FEIES RUDOLF (FEJES RUDOLF ANZELM O. Praem.), in his capacity as Preposit-Prelate / Major Superior and legal representative, brings to your attention a critical situation involving the imminent enforcement of a civil judgment which poses a threat to the rule of law and religious freedom.
Through the enforcement of Judgment no. 691/2026 in case 12605/271/2025 (Oradea District Court) (Annex 1), delivered in proceedings where The Provostry did not have the status of a party, the State authorities are initiating the de facto dispossession of a recognized religious order.
INSTITUTIONAL STATUS AND LEGAL PERSONALITY
The Provostry is a religious institution of pontifical right, belonging to the Institutes of Consecrated Life of the Roman Catholic Church and constituting an autonomous part of the universal Premonstratensian Order. It is endowed with public (ecclesiastical) legal personality, as evidenced by the Attestation of the Apostolic Nunciature in Romania (Annex 12).
In this document, the ecclesiastical authority certifies the ecclesiastical nature of the church and of the stable premises intended for worship, their exclusively religious purpose, and the fact that any valid alienation of assets forming part of the stable patrimony is conditional upon the permission of the Holy See.
THE NATURE OF THE ABUSIVE MEASURE
The domestic measure is formally presented as a “civil eviction” against a natural person (the legal representative summoned in his own name). In substance, however, it targets the Provostry itself.
The judgment is expressly declared immediately enforceable and the Oradea Municipality has already initiated steps to obtain the decision to enforce it (Annex 2).
Although the domestic proceedings are procedurally framed inter partes between the Municipality of Oradea (claimant) and the Provostry’s legal representative (summoned as defendant in his personal capacity), and although the eviction is formally presented as concerning property belonging to the Municipality, the reality is different. The Provostry’s legal representative would effectively be removed from the Provostry’s own property. Therefore, the real object of the enforcement is not a private dwelling but the Provostry’s ecclesiastical complex and canonical seat: Oradea, 14 Roman Ciorogariu Street (the church) and 16 Roman Ciorogariu Street (the religious house/monastery – the canonical seat), together with the monastic enclosure, the permanent premises of communal religious life, and indispensable institutional property.
This mechanism represents a deliberate bypassing of the institutional holder. The Provostry:
Was not a party to the proceedings;
Was not summoned as the institutional holder;
Could not adduce evidence or submit substantive defences;
Did not benefit from adversarial proceedings.
THE DIRECT AND INEVITABLE CAUSAL CHAIN OF HARM
The Provostry emphasizes that the execution of this judgment creates a direct causal chain that violates fundamental rights:
(i) An inter partes immediately enforceable judgment against the legal representative is being artificially treated as the eviction of a “natural person”;
(ii) This leads to coercive enforcement: forced entry, changing of locks, sealing, inventorying, and removal of goods;
(iii) The result is the immediate exclusion of the canonical leadership from its seat;
(iv) This causes the paralysis of internal governance and communal life;
(v) The ultimate outcome is the factual takeover of control over sacred spaces and institutional property.
This is not the “eviction of a person from a dwelling,” but the decapitation of leadership and the de facto sequestration of the Provostry’s seat.
RECOGNITION BY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES
The premise of the enforcement – that the premises are subject to “private occupation” – is definitively refuted by the State’s own records. The central authorities of the Romanian State have explicitly recognized that the Provostry operates a functioning monastery at 14–16 Roman Ciorogariu Street, and that the presence of the legal representative (the Preposit-Prelate) is inextricably linked to his official capacity.
In the Romanian legal order, the existence and independent legal personality of the Provostry are officially confirmed by the central public administration. Specifically, the State Secretariat for Religious Affairs, by Letter no. C/623 of 8 September 1997, certified the legal status of the Provostry.
This official acknowledgment confirms that the entity located at Roman Ciorogariu 16 is not a private residence, but a religious legal person of pontifical right with its own distinct identity. Consequently, the State is fully aware that the building functions as a monastery and the seat of an ecclesiastical authority, rendering the treatment of the location as a “private dwelling” liable to eviction a contradiction of the State’s own administrative acts. The Provostry possesses all relevant documentation substantiating its property rights over the monastery from which the Municipality of Oradea seeks to evict its representative.
OFFICIAL STATE RECOGNITION OF THE REPRESENTATIVE
The institutional nature of the legal representative’s presence and residence is confirmed by official records filed with State authorities. The legal representative does not hold the status of a private occupant or a “tenant”; rather, he exercises a recognized ecclesiastical function within a system of records and registration regulated by Romanian law, evidenced by standardized instruments verifiable by the competent authorities.
Specifically, his status is officially registered with the Bihor Territorial Labor Inspectorate and the relevant documents expressly designate his place of work as the canonical seat of the Provostry, namely the monastic complex in Oradea, at 14–16 Roman Ciorogariu Street (Annexes 13–14). This fact entails direct legal consequences: the representative’s presence at that address is not of a private nature, but is a functional presence, mandated by the discharge of his duties and reflected in the official records of the State.
Furthermore, under Romanian law, a monastic establishment possesses a distinct legal regime derived from its status as a religious unit, recognized and organized in accordance with the norms applicable to religious denominations. Within this framework, from the standpoint of institutional status, the monastery functions similarly to a monastic establishment of the Orthodox tradition, as a space consecrated exclusively to religious life and ecclesiastical governance; consequently, the legal representative’s status as Exarch is determined by this special ecclesiastical regime. Accordingly, the legal relationship of the representative to the premises cannot be characterized as simple residential use or as a private relationship, but rather as a presence mandated by his office, within the institutional framework of the law on religious denominations. By the very nature of the office and the registered framework, the place where duties are exercised is the monastery itself, and residence within its precincts is inherent and necessary for the fulfillment of his obligations.
Therefore, the eviction of the representative is legally equivalent to the removal of a registered employee from his recognized place of work, having the effect of effectively blocking the functioning of a State-recognized entity, under the guise of a civil eviction against a private individual. Precisely for this reason, the State’s conduct cannot be regarded as a mere neutral enforcement of a judgment: by instrumentalizing its own administrative and enforcement mechanisms to selectively remove only the Major Superior of the Provostry from his canonical seat and recognized institutional status, the State diverts the intent of its own norms, as well as its constitutional order, from their legitimate purpose. In the terms of the ECHR Convention, this constitutes a typical example of abuse of power and the use of restrictions for unauthorized purposes, falling within the scope of the prohibition stipulated by Article 18: the formal label of “civil eviction” serves as cover for an ulterior motive, namely the decapitation of the Provostry’s leadership and the de facto neutralization of a State-recognized religious legal entity, achieved without adversarial proceedings against the institutional titleholder.
CONCRETE IMPACT ON RELIGIOUS LIFE AND PATRIMONY
The Provostry is affected by this evacuation in a manner that creates irreversible harm. Because the enforcement allows for the “eviction” of the representative, the following consequences are imminent:
Seizure of the Complex: The State, through the bailiff, is empowered to effect forced entry, change locks, and seal the premises.
Dispossession of Archives: There is an immediate risk of seizure, transport, or immobilisation of the Provostry’s archives, registers, library, and administrative records, which are indispensable for institutional functioning.
Interference with Worship: The enforcement permits the disturbance of liturgical celebrations and public worship in the church (no. 14) and the disruption of community life within the monastic enclosure (no. 16).
Displacement of Leadership: The legal representative is being prevented from exercising his leadership and representation duties at the workplace recognized by his employment contract.
THE “BACK DOOR” TAKEOVER AND SYSTEMIC IMPLICATIONS
The situation is grave because the State is obtaining, “through the back door,” the takeover of the seat of ecclesiastical governance (the functional equivalent of taking over an episcopal see). By suing the representative as a private individual, the authorities have stripped the Provostry of its right to a fair trial (Article 6) and an effective remedy (Article 13) from ECHR convention.
Once the harm has been consummated (locks changed, seals applied, property removed), any later redress becomes practically illusory. To tolerate such a mechanism validates the de facto dispossession of a real holder without proceedings against that holder.
INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION
The Provostry is not a “local” or “private” reality, but part of a universal religious order with its central seat in Rome and institutional presence in USA and in several European States. So the interference has a public and interstate dimension, Romania is using public force to overturn the functioning order of a recognized religious structure.
Historically and culturally, the Provostry represents a long-standing monastic presence in Oradea, part of Europe’s living religious and cultural heritage. The legally correct treatment cannot be a “rapid eviction” but must be a strict control of legality in adversarial proceedings with the institutional holder.
CONCLUSION
The Provostry submits this note to alert international bodies that domestic remedies capable of preventing this harm are currently ineffective. The judgment is immediately enforceable, and the decisive harm – the loss of control over the seat, the archives, and the sacred space – will be consummated before any examination on the merits can take place involving the Provostry.
We request that you take note of this imminent violation of property rights, the right to a fair trial, and freedom of religion, where a “civil” instrument is being abused to effect the suppression of a religious legal person.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION AND INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS
The Provostry remains at your full disposal to provide any further documentation, in addition to the annexes provided now or specific legal clarifications necessary to substantiate the facts presented above. We are prepared to cooperate fully with your offices to verify the status of our Order and the reality of the threat we face.
Furthermore, for a comprehensive independent perspective on this matter, we respectfully recommend the detailed analysis published by the Lepanto Institute, a U.S.-based Catholic research organization. Their report accurately summarizes the case and highlights the systemic implications of these events for religious freedom.
Article Title: Romanian city tries to evict Norbertine abbot, seize monastery, and suppress community
Link: Romanian city tries to evict Norbertine abbot, …
We trust that this information will assist you in evaluating the gravity of the situation.
With faith in God,
Fejes Rudolf Anzelm O. Praem.
Preposit-Prelate of The Provostry of the Premonstratensian Canonical Order in Oradea
Str. Roman Ciorogariu no. 14-16, Oradea, postal code: 410017, Romania.
From the Jan. 27 article published by Romanian news outlet Zianews, by Valer Marian. The following details clearly the legal artifices employed by Romanian government officials against Abbot Fejes.
Last summer, Oradea City Hall filed with the local court an eviction request against the preposit prelate of the Canonical Premonstratensian Order, Abbot Rudolf Anzelm Fejes, seeking to remove him from the sacred premises (monastery and church) owned by this papal order for hundreds of years in the city center (Roman Ciorogariu Street no. 14–16).
The church dedicated to “Our Lady of Sorrows” and the monastery dedicated to “Saint Stephen, the First Martyr” were built by the order in the 12th century. In 1802, the Premonstratensian Order obtained recognition of ownership over these sacred places through a royal donation signed by Emperor Francis II of Austria, who was also King of Hungary.
All these assets were entered in the land register by the Premonstratensian Order in 1887 and re-entered in 1941, but were nationalized in 1948 by the communist regime. The Order nevertheless continued to pay building taxes for the church and monastery, and the communists did not dare commit the sacrilege of evicting it from them. Thus, not even the communist regime attacked the sacred places of the Premonstratensian Order, namely by evicting them.
By a certificate registered under no. 28515/1948 at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Catholic Cult Directorate, of the Romanian People’s Republic, the Premonstratensian Order is recognized as a legal person under public law, appearing in the register of public persons at this ministry under no. 51. The certificate establishes that, being a monastic establishment, the order enjoys the same rights as the monastic establishments of the Orthodox Cult.
The legal personality and the associated rights of the Premonstratensian Order received a new confirmation in the post-communist regime from the State Secretariat for Religious Affairs. By the address registered under no. 623/GFA of September 15, 1997, it is explicitly stated that the monastery in Oradea, Roman Ciorogariu Street no. 16, has legal personality, pursuant to art. 28 of Decree no. 177/1948. Moreover, the monastery is reconfirmed as a sacred good by the attestation issued by the Apostolic Nunciature in Bucharest under no. N.4010/XII-P/25.06.2020.
Neither the post-December governments nor the previous mayors of Oradea committed such an abuse—until Bolojan and his puppets.
After Ilie Bolojan became mayor, starting in 2009, Oradea City Hall carried out several insidious and fraudulent operations of subdivision and amalgamation and requested their registration in the Land Register with the Municipality of Oradea as owner, thereby stripping the patrimony and harming the papal order through the unlawful deletion of its ownership right. The Bihor County Office for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity (OJCPI) entered these fictitious acts in the Land Register, but these property transfers were carried out administratively, without legal basis and without an authentic deed transferring ownership.
An outright theft, with the requisite complicities from the Bihor OJCPI and from the Oradea judiciary, which Ilie Bolojan largely controls and directs. Relying on these fraudulent acts, the city hall drew up a real-estate modernization project for the area—namely, the rehabilitation of the Mihai Eminescu National College—for which it accessed European funds totaling €26.5 million.
Eminescu College is located at Roman Ciorogariu Street no. 18, but Bolojan and his clique also included in the project the Premonstratensian monastery and church, which are located at numbers 14 and 16. The building housing Eminescu College was also constructed by the Premonstratensian Order; since the 18th century it has housed a gymnasium and a law academy, where instruction has also been offered in Romanian starting in 1851.
The main obstacle is the preposit prelate of the Premonstratensian Order, the papal abbot Rudolf Anzelm Fejes, whom Oradea City Hall now seeks to evict from the monastery by invoking its claimed ownership over it. Preposit Fejes Rudolf Anzelm received in June 2025 a notice to vacate and hand over within five working days the property located in Oradea, Roman Ciorogariu Street no. 16, where the monastery in which he serves and resides is located.
Abbot Anzelm did not comply with the notice, and the city hall requested his eviction from the Oradea District Court by way of a presidential injunction, with case no. 12605/271/2025 being registered. The case was assigned—probably not by chance—to Judge Anamaria Negrea, who was transferred to the Oradea court from the Marghita District Court.
In the case the only “map” underpinning the eviction action is the site plan annexed to the extract of Land Register CF 192156 Oradea and to Oradea Local Council Decision no. 62/14.07.2015—namely, a cadastral plan drawn up unilaterally by the Municipality of Oradea to create, on paper, a 10,707-sq-m “school property,” necessary to access European funds for the Mihai Eminescu National College.
This plan, however, does not at all reflect the ecclesial and legal reality of the ensemble: according to CF 3159 Oradea, the church and the historic courtyard of the Prepositure of the Premonstratensian Order are located on the old topographical numbers 846, 847, 848, 849–851, initially registered in favor of the Prepositure of Promontoriul Oradea and later transferred, through successive rectifications, into the patrimony of the Romanian State, without any court decision having abolished the destination as a church and religious domus.
The aforementioned decision “extracts,” purely administratively, an area of 954 sq m from topographical no. 846 and, together with topo nos. 849–851, agglomerates them into a new cadastral number 192156, from which CF 192156 is opened, in which the entire built ensemble is labeled “Mihai Eminescu National College,” public property of the Municipality of Oradea. The map annexed to CF 192156 clearly shows that the perimeter of this new property encompasses the same building body that houses the church and the domus, so that, in fact, the same church appears simultaneously in CF 3159—as the church of the Prepositure (respectively of the State with the destination of a Catholic church)—and in CF 192156 as a “college building.”
Following his request, the North-West Regional Development Agency informed Abbot Anzelm, by letter no. 036655/27.11.2025, that, after checks carried out by its control structure, “no elements were identified that would confirm the existence of an irregularity,” respectively that “no elements were identified that would confirm the existence of any indication of fraud/attempted fraud.” Yet the geotechnical study in the file, no. 20.050/2020, was prepared for the property at no. 18 Roman Ciorogariu Street, within an earlier project that was abandoned, not for the objective later authorized by Building Permit no. 26/15.01.2024 issued by Oradea City Hall, which in law targets the properties at nos. 16–18, extending interventions over the Premonstratensian monastic ensemble. Although standard NP 074/2014 limits the validity of a geotechnical study to a maximum of two years, this old document was reused, “updated” only on paper, and employed as the basis for a permit issued four years later, in a completely different urbanistic and technical context.
The report AF no. 28357/11.04.2023 regarding quality verification under requirement AF refers to another geotechnical study (no. 23.050/2023), nonexistent in the technical file, and falsely attests compliance with NP 074/2022, even though the study actually used was prepared under NP 074/2014.
From both a technical and legal standpoint, a document from 2020 cannot comply with a standard that entered into force only in 2022. This internal inconsistency, compounded by the obvious rewriting of years and registration numbers, demonstrates the reuse and retroactive adaptation of old documents in order to artificially create the appearance of “complete and compliant” documentation at the time European funding was sought and the building permit issued. These elements cannot be characterized as mere “clerical errors,” but indicate the use of expired documents, later modified, to cover the absence of current, coherent technical documentation consistent with the project’s real object.
The geotechnical study and other technical documents explicitly refer to the property located at 18 Roman Ciorogariu Street—the school building of the “Mihai Eminescu” National College—identified by Land Register CF 192156 and LMI code BH-II-a-B-01041. Building Permit no. 26/15.01.2024, however, covers an expanded perimeter (nos. 16–18), in fact including interventions on the monastic buildings at nos. 14–16, that is, on a place of worship that is legally and functionally distinct from the school building.
This extension of the permit’s object beyond the property for which the studies and reports were prepared violates the principle of individualizing the object of the works and generates an essential inconsistency between the technical documentation and the administrative act. Such an inconsistency is, in itself, an irregularity, as it creates the risk of the unlawful use of European funds for an objective other than the one formally justified.
Thus, the circumstances outline offenses of abuse of office, intellectual forgery, and fraud involving European funds, for which Ilie Bolojan and his accomplices could be handcuffed—if there were real prosecutors in our country.
Source:
Norbertine Abbot of 900-year-old abbey calls for …