PERU — A funeral Mass will be offered at St. Bede Abbey Church at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 21, for Abbot Marion Balsavich, OSB, the fifth abbot of St. Bede Abbey who guided the Benedictine community from 1981 to 1990.

Abbot Marion, 86, died from complications of chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the early morning hours of Friday, March 16, 2012 in the infirmary of the abbey. He had been receiving hospice care for two weeks, following a brief stay at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Spring Valley.

His body will be returned to the St. Bede Abbey Church at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 20. The wake service will continue after the reception of the body until 9 p.m., with a prayer vigil celebrated by the monastic community at 7:30, and again on Wednesday from 3 to 3:45 p.m.

Abbot Philip Davey, OSB, abbot of St. Bede, will preside at the funeral Mass. Burial will follow in the abbey cemetery. The Hurst Funeral Home of LaSalle is in charge of funeral arrangements.

SPRING VALLEY ROOTS
Abbot Marion was born in Springfield on June 11, 1925 and baptized as Eugene Ignatius. His mother, Mary Marenda, was a native of Spring Valley, and his father, John Balsavich, was a native of northern Illinois who had come to Spring Valley to work in the coal mines.

After living in Springfield for five years, the family returned to Spring Valley in 1926 and Abbot Marion attended Immaculate Conception grade school. He came to St. Bede Academy in 1939, initially as a day student, where he excelled academically and was an active participant in extra-curricular activities. During his last two years of high school and his first two years of college he lived at St. Bede as a boarding student with the intention of entering the monastic community.

His novitiate year was spent at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., followed by simple profession in July of 1946. He spent the next two years completing college studies, first at St. Benedict’s College in Atchison, Kan., and then at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., from which he graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy in 1948.

He then undertook further studies in the school of theology at St. Bede for three years, during which he also taught remedial reading at St. Bede Academy and Greek in the junior college.

Ordained Sept. 22, 1951 by Bishop Joseph Schlarman of Peoria, he was then assigned to graduate study in theology at the international Benedictine university in Rome, Italy, where he obtained the degree of licentiate in sacred theology after two years. He earned a doctorate in theology in June of 1955.

Upon returning to St. Bede, Father Marion became the seminary rector and professor of dogmatic theology, as well as student chaplain and prefect of the seminary students in the junior college. Beginning in 1957, he also taught moral theology and offered a course in preaching to the theology students.

In 1962 Father Marion was appointed subprior of the abbey and superior of junior monks, as well as assuming a number of administrative duties. He then served as prior of the monastery under Abbot David Duncan, OSB, from 1968 to 1981. During these years he was instrumental in planning the construction of the abbey church that was completed in 1974 and in facilitating many of the changes, especially in the area of worship, that were required by the decrees of Vatican Council II.

Upon the resignation of Abbot David in 1981 he was elected fifth abbot of St. Bede on April 10 of that year and was blessed on May 25 by Bishop Edward W. O’Rourke in the abbey church. He served as abbot until he reached the age of 65 in 1990, when he submitted his resignation as required by the law in force at that time. During his administration he had spearheaded a renovation of the monastery that modernized the building and adapted it to current needs.

During the years when he was abbot he suffered a heart attack, from which he recovered, and also had surgery for skeletal problems in his back. A second surgery in 1998 did not completely resolve this issue, and in his final decade of life he was obliged to wear a leg brace and to use a walker, with increasing problems of balance.

Nevertheless he continued to take an active part in the community’s life, especially as guest master for more than 20 years. He also served for part of this time as director of the abbey’s theological library and oversaw the scheduling for the use of the abbey church.

Abbot Marion had one brother, John Paul, four years older than he, who died in 2009, and he is survived by a younger sister, Mrs. Joan Crumbaugh of Leroy, and other relatives in Spring Valley.