Vespers with Gregorian Chant in the Church at Silos

The Benedictine monks of Silos sing their offices in Gregorian chant, and the abbey church is open to the public for each of them. The community gathers in the church seven times a day for the divine office, which surrounds and prepares the daily Mass, and the chant is the traditional one: the Latin music of the Roman liturgy, restored in the 19th century from the old manuscripts by the French abbey of Solesmes, to whose congregation Silos belongs. It is not a concert and there is no entry fee: you arrive, take a pew and follow the office in silence.

Timetable of the offices

The abbey publishes this timetable for the services open to the public:

• Vigils: 6:00, every day.
• Lauds: 7:30 Monday to Saturday; 8:00 on Sundays and holidays.
• Conventual Mass: 9:00 Monday to Saturday, with Terce at the end; 11:00 on Sundays and holidays.
• Sext: 13:45, every day.
• Vespers: 19:00, every day; on Thursdays from July to September, at 20:00.
• Compline: 21:40, every day.

On Sundays Terce is at 9:15, and on the abbey's holidays, at 10:30. Those holidays are 6 January, 19 March, 15 August, 12 October, 1 November and 8 and 20 December. The community warns that the times may occasionally change, without notice, because of its own needs; if you are coming a long way just for this, confirm beforehand.

Which office to choose

For visitors, the most convenient is Vespers at 19:00: it lasts between half an hour and three quarters and falls just after the cloister closes, which in the afternoon is open until 18:00. Compline, at 21:40, closes the community's day and fits if you are sleeping in the village. On Sunday, the 11:00 Conventual Mass lets you hear Gregorian chant in mid-morning, with time afterwards to see the cloister, which that day opens from 12:00 to 13:00.

Go in a few minutes early, switch off your phone and take no photos or recordings during the office. Children may come, but it helps if they know they must be quiet the whole time; if they get tired, leave quietly.

The church

The abbey church is not Romanesque, like the cloister, but Neoclassical and very sober. It was designed by Ventura Rodríguez, royal architect to Ferdinand VI: the first stone was laid on 21 October 1751 and it was inaugurated on 8 September 1792. For lack of money, around 1760 the dome was abandoned and the north tower was never built.

How to combine it

The natural thing is to see the cloister, the apothecary and the museum in the afternoon, go to the La Yecla gorge, three kilometres away, and come back for Vespers. If you stay for dinner and Compline, on the square you have the Hotel Tres Coronas and, opposite the monastery, the Hotel Santo Domingo de Silos. The abbey itself has a guesthouse for men and the village a mixed pilgrims' hostel.