This year, 2025, we will commemorate the millennium of the founding of the Monastery of Montserrat by Oliba, Abbot of Ripoll and Cuixà, and Bishop of Vic. History tells us that as early as 880, there was a small hermitage dedicated to the Virgin on Montserrat Mountain. It wasn't until a few decades later, in 1025, that a group of monks from Ripoll, sent by their abbot, built a Benedictine monastery next to the hermitage. Thus was born the Monastery of Montserrat, which has always been marked by this dual aspect: Benedictine monastery and Marian sanctuary. That is, a place of prayer, evangelical life, pilgrimage, and hope.
The fact that its founder was Abbot and Bishop Oliba, one of the most important promoters of peace during the Middle Ages, has profoundly influenced the Monastery of Montserrat throughout its history. For a thousand years, Montserrat has sought to be a place of welcome and encounter, a place of listening, understanding, and peace. Thus, the influence of its founder strengthened the charisma that Benedictine monks have sought to live since the beginning of the Middle Ages, in the 6th century. Not in vain, one of its main mottos has always been: Pax! A simple but profound motto. Indeed, throughout hundreds of generations of monks, the monastery of Montserrat has worked with the cross, a symbol of faith and spirituality; with the book, a symbol of culture and thought; and with the plow, a symbol of social construction and progress. And it has done so with the desire to be rooted in the land that saw its birth but which, in turn, has opened it to the world. Rooted in the land and open to the world, witnesses of faith and welcoming of all, grateful for the past and moving toward the future. This is the spirit with which the monastery of Montserrat prepares to celebrate its first millennium of existence. Correos joins the millennium celebration by issuing a stamp featuring the monastery along with the millennium logo.
