Portsmouth Abbey (under the patronage of St. Gregory the Great) is a community of Benedictine monks located on 500 acres of land on the shores of Narragansett Bay, just 7 miles north of Newport, Rhode Island. Our mission is to seek God in community, guided by the Gospel and the Rule of St. Benedict, and by prayer and work to sanctify ourselves, those who live and work with us and the entire world.

The monastery was founded in 1918 by Dom Leonard Sargent, an American monk of Downside Abbey in England. Our community belongs to the English Benedictine Congregation (the oldest of the 21 Benedictine Congregations) and, in keeping with the mission spirit of the congregation's early history, we run a college preparatory boarding school for boys and girls. The decline of Christian culture in the West underscores the importance of an education guided by the standards of the Gospel and the fostering of academic quality. The monks have also engaged in scholarly and artistic work. Hospitality and our monastic vocation internship program, as well as providing help to parishes in the vicinity, add an important dimension to our activity.