Tautra Mariakloster was given a new status as Main Priorate on Sunday 25.March. The following day, on the day of The Lord's Annunciation, sr. Gilkrist Lavigne was elected new prioress for Tautra Mariakloster. She follows sr. Rosemary Durcan, who has been prioress since the foundation of the monastery 13 years ago.

Sr. Gilkrist was novice master in the monastery at the time of the election, that means she has been responsible for the initial monasterial education. She has also been in charge of the soap production since the foundation in 1999. For a number of years she has been engaged in dialogue between many different religions.

Sr. Gilkrist was born in Canada and grew up in the USA. She entered a Benedictine Monastery in 1968. After some years in the Cistercian Monastery Santa Rita in Arizona, she entered Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in the USA, where she gave her solemn vows in 1987. She was seleted for the goup of sisters who were sent to Norway to found Tautra Mariakloster in the diocese of Trondheim in 1999, and became a Norwegian citizen in 2007.