St. Andrew's Abbey was a Benedictine abbey which was destroyed in the French Revolution. Its modern successor St. Andrew's Abbey, Zevenkerken, founded in 1899–1900, is a Benedictine abbey of the Congregation of the Annunciation.
The charter of the abbey was signed in 1100 and ratified by Count Robert II of Flanders. The abbey was built on what is now the site of the parish church of St. Andrew and St. Anne. The first monks arrived in 1117. In 1188, the abbey became independent of its mother abbey and a period of prosperity began, which lasted until the fourteenth century. In 1240, after a long dispute between the abbot and the local parish priest, a wall was built in the church to divide it into two. In 1350 the abbey sold a piece of ground right next to the abbey itself on which the charterhouse of Sint-Anna-ter-Woestijne.
The abbey was severely damaged during the second half of the 15th century by German lansquenets. In 1521, Emperor Charles V and his brother Ferdinand visited the monastery and attended vespers, an event which is commemorated by a plaque.
In the 16th century the abbey was badly damaged by the Geuzes and most of the monks fled, leaving a community of four. It was rebuilt in the 17th century, but the constant wars and its location outside the walls of Bruges exposed it to further damage.
The abbey was suppressed and destroyed in 1796 during the French Revolution; only the 16th-century tower remained standing, and is now incorporated into the parish church built subsequently.
In 1898 a monk from Maredsous Abbey founded a new monastic community close to the site of the previous one. A new monastery, St. Andrew's Abbey, Zevenkerken, also Zwvenkerken Abbey, was built in 1899-1900, in Neo-Romanesque-Byzantine style. The abbey church contains seven chapels in various styles, one for each of the seven great basilicas of Rome, whence the name of the new foundation (which means 'seven churches' in Dutch). A school was established here in 1910, the present Zevenkerken Abbey School, a prestigious boardig school and part of St. Andrew's Abbey.
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