Abbey of the Paraclete

The Oratory of the Paraclete was a Benedictine monastery founded by Peter Abelard in Ferreux-Quincey, France, after he left the Abbey of St. Denis about 1121. However, nothing remains of the Oratory.

In 1125 he was elected by the monks of the Abbey at Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, near Vannes, Brittany, to be their abbot, so he turned the Paraclete over to Heloise, his wife, who had been in a convent in Argenteuil since taking the veil. She became the Paraclete's abbess and spent the rest of her life there. She and Abelard were buried together there (Abelard in 1142, Heloise in 1164) until 1792, when their remains were transferred to the church of Nogent-sur-Seine nearby. In 1817, their bodies were reportedly moved to a new tomb at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, but whether they are both actually buried there remains a matter of dispute.

Paraclete comes from the Greek word meaning "one who consoles" and is found in the Gospel of John (16:7) as a name for the Holy Spirit.