Cartuja de Santa María de Benifasar

Santa María de Benifassà, in La Pobla de Benifassà in the province of Castellón, is the only charterhouse of Carthusian nuns in Spain. It occupies a former Cistercian abbey founded in 1233 by monks from Poblet, the first in the kingdom of Valencia, declared a national monument in 1931.

The Cistercians were expelled in 1835 and the monastery gradually fell into ruin. Around 1955, the Diputación de Castellón acquired what remained, then in 1960 considered transferring it to the Carthusian order. After reconstruction, Spanish nuns trained at the Italian charterhouse of San Francesco, near Turin, settled there on September 21, 1967.

Surrounded by steep mountains, the nuns live the solitude and silence characteristic of the Carthusians, in a place whose difficult access protects the enclosure. Since 2017, the house has been associated with the charterhouse of Nonenque, in France, and no longer receives novices.