Conception Abbey

Conception Abbey, site of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, is a monastery of the Swiss-American Congregation of the Benedictine Confederation. The monastery, founded by the Swiss Engelberg Abbey in 1873 in northwest Missouri's Nodaway County, was raised to a conventual priory in 1876 and elevated to an abbey in 1881. In 2021 the community numbered fifty-eight monks who celebrate the Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours daily and who staff and administer Conception Seminary College, The Printery House, and the Abbey Guest Center. Monks also serve as parish priests and hospital chaplains in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph and other dioceses. There is also a large postal facility attached to The Printery House, operated by lay employees, which includes package shipping and delivery facilities. Conception Abbey is located in Conception, Missouri, just outside Conception Junction. History Conception Abbey was established on 8 December 1873, by Benedictine monks of the Swiss abbey of Engelberg as a place of refuge should their monastery be suppressed by the Swiss government. They also came in response to the appeal of the Rev. James Power to minister to the spiritual needs of a colony of Irish and German settlers which he had established in northwest Missouri in 1858, prior to the Civil War. Benedictine Sisters from Maria Richenbach, a convent located not far from Engelberg, arrived in Missouri in 1873 soon after the monks, hoping ultimately to found a convent where special devotion to the Eucharist could be fostered. The founders of Conception Abbey were Fathers Frowin Conrad, O.S.B. (1833-1923), and Meinrad Widmer (1844-1901), of Lucerne, Switzerland. Frowin Conrad, named Placid at birth, was born in Auw, Canton Argau, Switzerland, on 2 November 1833, the eldest of twelve children, eleven boys and one girl. Of the eleven boys, five became priests, four of these Benedictine monks. Educated by the Jesuits as a youth, he entered the abbey school of Einsiedeln to study theology and then entered monastic life at Engelberg.