 In a brief issued on 1 September 1837, Pope Gregory XVI, himself a Benedictine, raised the rank of the former Priory of Solesmes to that of an abbey, and constituted it the head of the French Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict.Guéranger was appointed the Abbot of Solesmes (on 31 October) and Superior General of the congregation.Those members of the little community he had formed who had received the monastic habit on 15 August 1836, made their solemn profession under the direction of the new abbot, who had pronounced his own vows at Rome on 26 July 1837.