We were delighted to have another visit in September 2026 of our good friend Dom Peter Eghwrudjakpor of Ewu Monastery in Edo State, Nigeria.
Among many other interactions and services, Dom Peter preached our community retreat in 2022.
Now he has retired as Prior of his monastery, having served two 8-year terms of Office. He is currently taking a sabbatical at Glenstal Abbey in Ireland.
St. Benedict’s Priory Ewu was founded from Glenstal in 1979, and so with Glenstal belongs to the Annunciation Benedictine Congregation. Today Ewu has around 50 monks. It also has two dependent houses: one in the East of Nigeria at Calabar and one in Angola. The monks of Ewu are perhaps most famous for their Herbal Medicine clinic. They also have large guest houses and a farm, raising animals and plant crops, including very productive Palm trees. They also practise many of the usual small monastic industries such as bee keeping, candle making, printing etc. Just now they are engaged in building a large new Church. Rather recently Pluscarden helped fund the sinking of an extremely deep bore hole. Before that was in place and functioning, the monastery lacked a secure source of water.
Dom Peter is very much involved in the affairs of his Congregation, as one of the Counsellors of its Abbot President. Like our own Congregation, the Annunciation Congregation is international in character. It has houses in Belgium, Holland, France, Portugal, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Israel, Nigeria, Angola, Rwanda, Congo, West Indies, the USA, Mexico, Peru, India…
Dom Peter is also much engaged in promoting and strengthening monastic life in Nigeria, which has around 20 Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries. He has visited several other African countries which have monasteries.
While with us for not quite a week this time, Dom Peter was always available for speaking with individuals who wished. But one of his great loves is ordinary monastic manual work, and he threw himself into that, as always with tremendous energy: and for us, with beneficial results!
