Subiaco Abbey
A Working Benedictine Monastery In The Arkansas River Valley, Founded 1878 By Swiss German Monks To Serve German Speaking Settlers. The Sandstone Abbey Church And Cloister Were Built By The Monks Themselves From Local Stone. · Subiaco, Arkansas
Benedictine monks arrived in the Arkansas River valley in 1878 to serve German-speaking settlers, quarried the local sandstone and spent decades building a monastery out of it. Subiaco is still a working abbey with a community of monks, a boarding school attached, and a church that is far more substantial than a village of a few hundred people would suggest - heavy Romanesque sandstone, a cloister, and a bell tower visible across the valley. Visitors are genuinely welcome: you can walk the grounds and the church, attend the monks' sung office, take a retreat, and buy the habanero pepper sauce the community makes and sells, which is the most famous thing about the place in Arkansas.
405 North Subiaco Avenue, Subiaco, Arkansas, 72865, United States
The grounds and the abbey church are generally open to visitors during daylight hours, outside services and school activity. The monastic community keeps a daily round of sung offices which visitors may attend; times are posted and are the fixed points of the day. The gift shop keeps shorter, weekday-weighted hours. The guest and retreat house is booked directly with the abbey. This is a working monastery and a working school - ring before arriving with a group.