Land that was once home to a Catholic university is being returned to Benedictine monks who live on adjacent property.
The Oklahoma City-based retailer Hobby Lobby and the Green family bought the 73-acre property that housed St. Gregory’s University in Shawnee for $8 million in 2018 after the university declared bankruptcy.
In 2019, Hobby Lobby donated the land to Oklahoma Baptist University, whose campus is nearby. On Friday, OBU leaders announced that they had returned the land to the monks at St. Gregory’s Abbey in exchange for two other parcels of land in Shawnee that the Abbey owned.
Heath Thomas, OBU president, talked about the decision to give the land to the monastic community during a brief news conference with Abbot Lawrence Stasyszen held just outside St. Gregory’s Abbey chapel.
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After the 2019 land donation, OBU referred to the former St. Gregory’s property at 1900 W MacArthur as the OBU Green Campus, named after the Green family. St. Gregory’s Abbey and the Mabee-Gerrer Museum continued to occupy their adjacent property because they operated as separate entities from St. Gregory’s University.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma Baptist University to trade Shawnee land to St. Gregory’s Abbey
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