Clear Creek Abbey

Abbey of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek

A completed section of the monastic compound.
Location within Oklahoma Show map of Oklahoma Clear Creek Abbey (the United States) Show map of the United States
Monastery information
Other names	Clear Creek Abbey
Order	Benedictine
Established	1999
Mother house	Abbey of Our Lady of the Assumption
Dedicated to	Our Lady of the Annunciation
Diocese	Tulsa
People
Founder(s)	Dom Philip Anderson
Abbot	Dom Philip Anderson
Site
Location	Hulbert, Oklahoma
Coordinates	36°02′02″N 95°11′45″W / 36.033852°N 95.195836°W / 36.033852; -95.195836
Website	www.clearcreekmonks.org

Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek Abbey or Clear Creek Abbey is a Benedictine Abbey in the Ozark Mountains near Hulbert in Cherokee County, Oklahoma. It is located in the Diocese of Tulsa.

The monastery traces its roots to the Abbey of Fontgombault in France. Thirty-one American Catholic men, seeking to live the full Benedictine life, went to Abbey of Our Lady of the Assumption at Fontgombault, France, which is a monastery of the Solesmes Congregation.^[1]

In 1999, seven of these men, now monks from Fontgombault, along with six other monks from Canada and France, established a community near Hulbert, Oklahoma at the invitation of Bishop Edward James Slattery.^[1] Clear Creek is the second monastery of the Solesmes Congregation established in the United States; the first is a house of nuns at Westfield, Vermont. The monastery is being built in phases, and until the church was finished, Masses were said in the crypt.

In February 2010, Clear Creek Abbey gained abbatial status. It uses the 1962 Roman Missal (Tridentine Mass).^[2][3] The choir is well known for its Gregorian chant. Its first abbot, as of 2010, is Dom Philip Anderson, who had been the prior since the monastery's founding. He has said, “We just follow the old monastic life. We pray, worship and do manual labor and give counseling to people... There's a whole culture war going on and a series of disappointments with the Catholic Church in America. People look to this monastery as a new beginning, as a new element that has a solid backing in a long tradition of monastic life.”^[3]

Clear Creek is now actively recruiting to its full capacity of 60-70 monks. As of 2003, there were 22 monks, while by 2013, there were over 40.^[1][3] Clear Creek currently houses 60 monks, and in recent years, a community of lay families have started to gather around the abbey.^[4]

The monastery is also actively fundraising, having raised $4 million (as of 2003) of a target of $32 million. After a large gift was received in 2009, construction on the church moved forward in 2011. The west façade, the nave, and the transept were raised to half their planned height. A roof was put over this new structure, allowing for its use as a church. In 2013, schematic architectural plans for the remaining buildings were completed. A contract for construction of the church’s eastern portion, or chevet, was signed on March 10, 2016.^[5]

• List of communities using the Tridentine Mass

• Clear Creek Monastery official website
• Thomas Gordon Smith Architects: building the monastery
• 2003 Washington Times Article on the monastery
• Article about the founding of the monastery
• Another article about the monastery's beginnings
• Article about the Kansas professors whose students founded the monastery
• Article about their educational approach.
• Tulsa World article on Brother Joseph-Marie Owen raising sheep
• Column about the monastery by a Nebraskan bishop
• Interview with Dom Philip Anderson: We Must All Build Bridges