Mariannhill Monastery

In 1882 on the 26 December, Trappist missionary Fr Franziskus Pfanner established Mariannhill Monastery in the outskirts of the city of Durban, in South Africa. Moved by the ideal of promoting the integration of the native Zulu people in the white society of the Transkei region, Fr. Pfanner also promoted local development opening schools, health clinics, craft workshops, printing presses and farms providing work for hundreds of monks, lay missionaries, women religious and natives. In 1885 he was made an Abbot and, in the years that followed, thanks to his encouragement the presence of monks throughout the Vicariate of Natal by 1907 had produced 19 branches and a Congregation of women religious, the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood – already approved by the Holy See.

The Trappists of Mariannhill, active in various sectors ranging from evangelisation to healthcare and education, needed a new juridical form and so it was Pope Pius X who decided on 2 February 1909 to separate the Monastery from the Order of Trappists and make it a religious congregation of pontifical right. The solution was officially made public on 28 July 1909, (the anniversary of the priestly ordination of Abbot Pfanner’s and his arrival in Africa) however the elderly missionary had died shortly before, on 24 May 1909.