International ecumenical center
Welcome to Farfa!
The International Bridgettine Centre is located in the idyllic village of Farfa in the Mountains of Sabina, surrounded by forest clad hills, vineyards and olive groves – around one hour’s drive northeast of Rome and a similar distance from Fiumicino Airport. It is housed in buildings that are part of a massive complex that since early medieval times formed part of an important Benedictine monastery that for centuries was one of the most important monastic centres of Western history.
In the beginning of the 1990’s on the occasion of the 600th centenary of Saint Bridget’s Canonization the part of the complex that today houses the International Bridgettine Centre was handed over to the Bridgettine Order who, under the direction of General Abbess Mother Tekla Famiglietti has since renovated the buildings so that today they appear as a modern centre with library and conference facilities (chapel, auditoriums, conference rooms, etc) with the possibility of full-board lodgings for 50-60 persons. The responsibility of the management of the Centre and the guesthouse lies with the Bridgettine sisters whose community is located on the other side of the road, and the Centre’s academic activities are co-ordinated by a fully trained theologian, Dr. Niels Christian Hvidt of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, with intense connections to those parts of the ecclesial and cultural spectrum of the centre.
In a time where the confessions overcome old enmities and clearly are approaching each other and where there is also a tendency even to break down traditional political barriers and construct a unified Europe, the International Bridgettine Centre provides a meeting place for people of different confessional contexts and cultures. Under Bridgettine inspiration the house welcomes encounters on all levels between Catholicism and Protestantism, especially Lutheranism, and it seeks to present a framework for a fruitful cultural exchange between Catholic Southern Europe and the mainly Lutheran North. The aim is simply the wish that European people become aware of their common cultural, philosophical, and theological heritage and come to know each other in a better way in a time that tends towards unity and fellowship in transcendence of confessional and nationalistic isolation and self sufficiency.