Bridgettines
One of the monks of the community, Richard Reynolds, O.Ss.S., was among the first members of the English clergy to be executed as a traitor for his refusal to accept the Oath of Supremacy.
Syon Abbey was among the few religious houses restored during Queen Mary I's reign (1553–1558), when nearly twenty members of the old community were re-established there in 1557.
Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth I and the ensuing persecution of Catholics by the English Crown, the Bridgettine monastic community left England, first for the Low Countries, then, after many vicissitudes, to Rouen in France, and finally, in 1594, to Lisbon.
Among the texts preserved was the Showing of Love by Julian of Norwich and The Orcherd of Syon, which translated Catherine of Siena's Dialogue.
Syon Abbey's Tudor gatepost in marble, on which parts of St Richard Reynolds' body were placed, was brought by the nuns into their exile, and then returned with them to England.
Most houses of the order support themselves by providing bed and breakfast hospitality to guests at standard industry rates.
The largest branch of the Bridgettines today is the one founded by Saint Elizabeth Hesselblad, a nurse, on 8 September 1911, and consisting of religious sisters dedicated to providing hospitality for those in need of rest.
At the abbot's request, Bishop Silvio Cesare Bonicelli of Parma issued a special decree, permitting the fugitive sisters enter a monastery of Benedictine nuns.
[5] Iver Heath, in Buckinghamshire, was the first foundation of the new branch of the Bridgettine Order in the UK and has been a house of prayer and provided hospitality since 1931.
Founded on 16 March 1976, by Brother Benedict Kirby, O.Ss.S., it is the only Brigittine monastery of men in the world and the first since the nineteenth century when they were dispersed, largely due to the European wars.
The monastery has the canonical status of a priory sui juris (one which is autonomous) and is supported mainly through sales of their chocolate fudges and truffles.
