Maredsous Abbey Diversifies: Gin, Festivals, New Future

For over 150 years, Maredsous Abbey in Belgium’s Molignée valley has been known for its Benedictine traditions, Trappist-style cheeses, and abbey beers. But the historic monastery is now charting a decidedly modern course: distilling gin and whisky, hosting music festivals with a Portuguese priest-DJ, and launching a TikTok presence that has drawn hundreds of thousands of views. The diversification is not a rebranding exercise—it is a survival strategy.

The abbey, home to about 30 monks, faces a stark financial reality. Its neo-Gothic Saint-Benedict Basilica, built between 1876 and 1891, has never undergone major renovation and now requires EUR 2.5 million in urgent repairs. Water infiltration has caused serious deterioration across 3,500 square meters of roofing, 6,000 square meters of blue stone facades, and 62 windows. Because the basilica is not a protected monument, no public subsidies are available for the work, as VRT NWS reported.

The Basilique 2030 Project

The abbey launched the Basilique 2030 project in October 2025 under the leadership of Abbot François Lear, elected in December 2024. The initiative aims to restore the basilica to its former glory while marking the centenary of its papal designation as a basilica in 1926. According to the abbey’s official project page, the renovation is described as “a project of heart”—one that requires collective support through donations, sponsorship, and partnerships.

Abbot François has framed the restoration in spiritual terms: “We want our basilica to remain a place of welcome and light,” he said. “May this renewal of our basilica also be a renewal of our common faith.”

A CEO for a Modern Monastery

To navigate these challenges, the abbey took an unprecedented step in 2024: it appointed its first-ever CEO. Charles d’Orjo, a former Unilever executive with 12 years of international experience across Switzerland, Sweden, and the Netherlands, now leads the abbey’s non-profit VZW (Vereniging Zonder Winstoogmerk).

In an extensive interview with Forbes Belgium, d’Orjo acknowledged the abbey’s financial precarity: “Maredsous has the wrong reputation of wealth, but that is obviously not the case,” he said. “Currently the VZW generates no profit. That is one of the reasons for my presence as CEO.”

The abbey operates like a small-to-medium enterprise, employing 200 workers during peak season and welcoming 600,000 visitors annually. Its brands are produced through partnerships with external companies: Bel for cheese, Duvel Moortgat for beer, and the Maredsous Distillery for spirits. Annual maintenance costs run to EUR 1.7 million, with an additional EUR 300,000 in energy costs.

From Cheese and Beer to Gin and Festivals

The abbey’s expansion into spirits began around 2020, when the Desclée de Maredsous family—descendants of the abbey’s founding family—launched an organic gin line. As Focus on Belgium reported, the gin is made from certified organic grains infused with a dozen medicinal plants harvested from the abbey’s herb-rich soil. Three varieties—Invictus, Valeo, and Aequatis—are now produced, with a percentage of turnover supporting the abbey through a cooperative structure.

The most visible new venture, however, is the Maredsous Sound Festival, scheduled for August 28-29, 2026. The event targets young people aged 15 to 35 and is expected to draw 5,000 to 7,000 attendees on Friday and 3,000 on Saturday. Headlining the festival is Padre Guilherme, a Portuguese priest-DJ with over 2.5 million social media followers, known for blending electronic music with religious themes. According to the RTBF, the festival aims “to offer young people a moment of encounter, celebration and faith in a spiritual setting.”

All profits from the festival will be donated to the Basilique 2030 renovation project. The festival’s official website lists partners including Duvel Moortgat, Tipik, CathoBel, and the Diocese of Namur.

Monks on TikTok

The abbey’s digital pivot has been equally bold. In May 2026, Maredsous launched a TikTok account to promote the festival. A video featuring the Abbot wearing headphones and responding to the “what are you listening to?” trend went viral, with the monks’ videos amassing hundreds of thousands of views. As La Libre noted, the abbey seems to have mastered the platform’s codes. The VRT NWS coverage captured the monks’ own bemusement: “I don’t even know how it works,” one admitted.

How Far Can an Abbey Go?

The question of how far religious communities should go in commercializing their heritage is central to the debate. Kristien Suenens, a researcher at KADOC (Documentation and Research Centre for Religion, Culture and Society at KU Leuven), told VRT NWS that the trend reflects a decades-long evolution. “The question is how far these abbey communities want to go to put themselves in the picture,” she said. “But I think there’s also a tension about how far they can go.”

Suenens notes that abbeys have historically funded themselves through land ownership, schools, publishing houses, and the production of beer, cheese, and bread. With declining new entrants to monastic life, traditional income streams have largely disappeared. “Government support is only possible when buildings are protected,” she explained. “But for the most part, abbeys must financially save themselves.”

A Delicate Balance

For d’Orjo, the challenge is to maintain the abbey’s spiritual mission while restoring economic balance. “The abbey is made to inspire our visitors, not to make them consume,” he told Forbes. “This is not about profit, but about enabling the VZW to fulfill its mission.”

The coming months will test whether Maredsous can pull off its ambitious balancing act. The Sound Festival in late August will be the first major test of whether the abbey can attract a younger audience while preserving its spiritual character. Meanwhile, the Basilique 2030 project continues to seek the EUR 2.5 million needed to restore the basilica—a goal that now depends as much on festival ticket sales and TikTok virality as on traditional donations.

As the abbey celebrates the centenary of its basilica title this year, the question is no longer whether Maredsous will change, but how far it will go. The answer may well determine the future of Belgium’s historic abbeys.