Monasticism

Christian Monasticism

Christian monasticism is a consecrated form of life, neither clerical nor lay, pursued by men or women voluntarily to engage in loving God above all else through active and contemplative disciplines. Living ascetically, they seek renunciations corresponding to the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Cenobitic monasticism includes monastic communities proper (observing liturgical hours and living together in enclosed compounds), mendicant orders or friars (centered on poverty, mobile preaching, and service), and apostolic communities (focusing on good works as a social ministry). Eremitic monasticism typically emphasizes solitariness and contemplation rather than codified behavior, while semi-eremitic lavras consist of a loose structure of eremitic or anchorite cells and huts, providing a degree of community yet without ties to an external hierarchy.

The first person to structure a cenobitic community was Saint Pachomius (ca. 290–346). Saint Anthony of Egypt (ca. 251–356) is, however, largely considered the founder of organized monasticism, primarily because his rule was the first model for a monastic life of austerity and penitence. [Page 816]The rule of Saint Augustine (354–430) followed thereafter as a code of monastic rigor. Saint Anthony himself lived as a hermit and is credited with being the model for the Desert Fathers—fourth-and fifth-century quasi-eremitic monks in Egypt and Palestine who sought individual accountability with a spiritual elder and practiced celibacy, ascetism, and separation from family and society. Desert Mothers also existed, yet their asceticism occurred in more cenobitic settings. In spite of this broad common root, monastic developments occurred differently in the West and the East.

Western monasticism developed primarily after a model established by Saint Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480 to ca. 550), whose famous Rule remains archetypal for cenobitic monastic life in the West even today. Its adaptability to novel settings as well as its accent on moderation and a family spirit ensured its longevity. The Rule's two vows focus on stability, consisting of tying oneself to a monastic community till death, and conversion of life, whereby one seeks lifelong perfection under the explicit call to obedience and the implicit call to poverty and chastity. Toward the end of the first millennium, Benedictine monasteries became central to the intellectual and ecclesial life in Europe. Prayer, work, and lectio divina (“meditative reading of the scriptures”) made up a balanced monastic day. A major movement starting at the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy in the 10th century disrupted this balance, skewing the monastic preoccupation toward extended community prayer and creating a centralized monastic confederation known as the Cluniac system, with a vast hierarchy of monasteries scattered throughout Europe. Vigorous reactions against it appeared as a resurgent pro-eremitic monasticism, especially among Carthusians and Cistercians, who desired to return to the solitary poverty of the early Egyptian monks. A further change started around the 13th century, when the rise of urbanization occasioned the need for fewer stable, self-enclosed communities; friars appeared on the monastic stage, most notably Franciscans, Dominicans, and Carmelites, serving as itinerant preachers and, with the advent of universities, as professors. Women had been part of the monastic tradition from its inception, either as nuns attached to double houses or in female-only monasteries. However, a thoroughly women's movement had not originated until around 1200s in northern Europe; known as the Beguines, these were Catholic laywomen living a monastic life yet without taking permanent vows or establishing a monastic order. Once the Reformation spread on the European continent, monasteries of all kinds were often closed, especially in the areas where Protestantism dominated. However, in the 20th century some Protestant denominations, such as the Anglicans and the Lutherans, founded several monastic communities; an ecumenical contemplative center was also established at Taizé, France.

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