Keizersberg

Rising high above Leuven, the Abbey of Keizersberg (Mont-César) is a Benedictine monastery that has watched over the city for more than a century as a place of prayer and reflection. The hill takes its name from the castle that Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia had built there in the late ninth century, around which Leuven — the first capital of the Duchy of Brabant — grew.

That old castle was demolished in 1782 by order of Emperor Joseph II. When Abbot Hildebrand de Hemptinne of Maredsous sought to found a daughter monastery in Leuven in the 1880s, prior Robert de Kerchove chose this historic height. The foundation stone was laid in 1897, and on 13 April 1899 the monks took possession of the house. The buildings and the church were completed in the first decade of the twentieth century, with a large statue of the Virgin set in the garden.

It was from here that, in 1925, the liturgical and ecumenical movement led by Lambert Beauduin arose, one that would help inspire the Second Vatican Council. The abbey holds a rich library of hundreds of thousands of volumes and is a protected heritage site.