Press Release
Hungarian Benedictine Congregation

We are pleased to announce that, in accordance with the decision of the Chapter of the Pannonhalma Archabbey, the General Chapter of the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation elevated the Monastery of St. Maurice in Bakonybél to the status of a conventual priory on 29 May 2026. With this decision, the Benedictine monastery in Bakonybél has become an independent member of the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation.

On 1 June 2026, the Convent of St. Maurice Monastery elected Father Dr. Zsolt Izsák Baán OSB as its first conventual prior, who was installed in office by Abbot President T. Cirill Hortobágyi OSB.

King Saint Stephen I founded the Monastery of Saint Maurice in Bakonybél in 1018 at the request of Saint Günter, a hermit who had come from Bavaria. The abbey, which was of national importance during the Middle Ages, was destroyed in the mid-16th century during the Ottoman occupation. Benedictine monks returned to the monastic site around 1700, but later the Enlightenment and communist persecution of the church also led to forced interruptions in the monastic presence. In 1998, thanks to the re-founding efforts of the Pannonhalma Archabbey, Benedictine monks were able to return to the ancient walls of the monastery, which had been dissolved in 1950 under state pressure. The community first operated as a cell and has since functioned as a dependent priory.

Life at the Benedictine monastery in Bakonybél is characterized by the primacy of prayer, a liturgy performed with dignity and care, a fraternal communal life lived in the sharing of daily life and physical work (herb garden, workshops, animal husbandry). As part of the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation, the Bakonybél community serves God’s people and proclaims the Gospel by welcoming pilgrims and guests, providing spiritual guidance, holding contemplative retreats, and translating and publishing texts of the monastic tradition into Hungarian. The monastery currently has nine monks and numerous oblates. The community is committed to ecumenical openness and the protection of creation.

Father Izsák Baán was born in Komló in 1978. He completed his studies in philosophy and theology in Budapest and Rome. He took his solemn vows in 2008 and was ordained a priest in 2012. As the prior of the formerly dependent priory, he has led the monastery in Bakonybél since 2019.

With the elevation of the priorate in Bakonybél to the status of an independent monastery, the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation now comprises five independent monasteries: the Pannonhalma Archabbey, the Abbey of St. Geraldo (São Paulo), St. Mauritius Monastery (Bakonybél), St. Ányos Benedictine Priory (Tihany), and St. Mór Benedictine Priory (Győr). The Hungarian Benedictine Congregation, second in historical order and third in order of precedence worldwide, together with eighteen other congregations, forms the Benedictine Confederation, the confederative organization of the Benedictines within the Catholic Church.