Priory of Saint-Orens d'Auch

The priory of Saint-Orens d'Auch is a former Cluniac priory located in Auch, in the Gers department in the Midi-Pyrénées region and in the historic province of Gascony.An early Christian place of worship, known as Saint-Jean-de-L'Aubépine, was established in the 3rd century on the right bank of the Gers. The burial place of the first bishops of Auch, it received the name of Saint Orens in the fifth century. A Benedictine abbey was founded in 960 and transformed into a priory when it became part of the Abbey of Cluny in 1068. The monks of Saint-Orens cohabited as best they could with the clergy established in the enclosure protecting the new metropolitan church of Sainte-Marie, with whom they had to share their prerogatives over burial rights. The Orientals were finally secularized in the eighteenth century. After the Revolution, the Ursulines took over the place. The church of the modern parish of Saint-Orens was rebuilt on the site of the seneschal's court after the Concordat. When the congregation was dissolved in 1904, the remaining buildings of the Priory were bought by the commune and listed in the inventory of historical monuments in 1947. The site is home to the nursery and primary schools of the lower town, the middle school and then the high school for young girls, and finally the mixed middle school Sadi-Carnot. Damaged again by the floods of 1977 in Gascony, it was decommissioned pending restoration work.

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