The church's building is a peculiar synthesis of Baroque and Gothic, with Renaissance ornament details, dominating the monastery complex.

The first abbey church was inaugurated in 1194, and soon after the nuns, who until then resided in Averbode as well, moved to Keizerbos, where it stayed until it disappeared in 1796.

Political and religious instability in the latter half of the century, with the Beeldenstorm, made the canons flee the abbey again in 1578 to the refuge of Diest.

At the end of the 18th century, in 1789, the Brabantse Omwenteling started a period of great political turmoil, with the French and the Austrians fighting for control over Brabant.

Most parts of the library and the archive, including the sumptuous Mosan masterpiece, the Evangeliary of Averbode,[11] were brought to safety beforehand, and the abbot and some canons fled across the Rhine.

[13] The abbey was now the largest employer of the region, and built social houses for its employees in 1899 and created a cooperative dairy in 1907 and a bank in 1911.

A second mission started in 1903 in Denmark, where the abbey founded the parish of Vejle, with a new Catholic school and from 1913 on a hospital.

The priest Edward Poppe, although not a member of the abbey, was the leading force behind the Crusade until his death in 1924 at the age of 34.

Because of the success of the Brotherhood, the Crusade and the missions, and the population explosion in Belgium, the numbers of canons increased to 230 by 1937.

In 1945, a school in Brasschaat which was run by the abbey was hit by a V-1 flying bomb, killing a canon and three priests.

[20] The general decline of Catholicism in Western Europe and especially in Flanders started to affect the abbey of Averbode as well though.

Between 1664 and 1672, a new church was built, after a design by the Flemish architect Jan van den Eynde II.

[2][4] The ground-plan of this Baroque church combines a centralized cruciform space to the west for the laity with a deep choir, which was necessary for Norbertine choral services.

[5][1] The treatment of space is more emphatic here than in other Norbertine abbey churches, on account of the happy combination of a radial plan with a very long and axially accentuated choir.

[5] The design combined Gothic structural forms, such as ribbed vaults, with Renaissance ornamental details.

The Abbey Cafe features a variety of products, including the house beer, Momentum, which is brewed on the premises.

The Abbey Shop stocks products ranging from books to regional produce, including bread baked on site.