LÉRINS. – A Cistercian abbey on an islet facing Cannes in the department of the Alpes-Maritimes (France). Honoratus (d. c. 430), a patrician from the Vosges, settled there with the consent of St Leontius, bishop of Fréjus; he was accompanied by an old man named Caprasius and founded a monastery which immediately flourished; from it came St Lupus of Troyes, Eucherius of Lyon, Hilary of Arles, Maximus and Faustus of Riez, Caesarius and Virgilius of Arles; St Vincent of L., Salvian of Marseille, St Patrick and St Augustine of Canterbury stayed there; L. was therefore called the Island of Saints.
In 660 St Aigulf is said to have introduced the Rule of St Benedict to L. Abbot Porcarius II was martyred together with about 500 monks c. 732 by the Saracens, who were driven off in 975. In 1073 Abbot Adalbert II fortified the monastery, which was however repeatedly sacked in the 12th century and in 1400. In 1464 the regular abbots were replaced by commendatory abbots.
In 1788 the bishops of Grasse and of Senze obtained its suppression from Pope Pius VI. During the French Revolution, in 1788, the island was confiscated; the name it had taken, St Donatus, was changed to Pelletier; in 1791 it was sold at auction; in 1859 it was bought by the bishop of Fréjus, Mgr Jordany, who restored worship there, entrusting the monastery first to the Franciscan Tertiaries, then to the Cistercians of S. Pietro in Vincoli, and finally to the Cistercians of the Immaculate Conception of the Congregation of Sénanque in October 1871.
A feature of the island are the seven chapels, which perhaps formed the first isolated groups of the monks of L.: the first is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the second to the martyrs Cyprian and Justin, the third to the Archangel St Michael, the fourth to the Transfiguration, the fifth to St Caprasius, the sixth to St Peter, the seventh to Abbot Porcarius and his fellow martyrs. Later the monastery arose, of which the ancient cloister remains; on its eastern side a chapel was built, first dedicated to St Leonard, then to St Benedict; on the south side is the refectory.
Above the cloister stood the chapel of the Holy Cross, containing precious relics and therefore called the Sancta Sanctorum, and the famous library now dispersed. Near the cloister a museum has been set up containing ancient inscriptions, architectural fragments and a Christian columnar sarcophagus representing the Redeemer between the twelve Apostles (cf. G. Wilpert, Restauro di sculture antiche e antichità moderne, in Riv. di arch. crist., 4 [1897], pp. 100 ff.). Of the ancient buildings of L. only a tower remains.