scholarly journals Monasticism, Monotheism, and Monogamy: Past and Present Expressions of the Undivided Life

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 489
Author(s):  
Martha Elias Downey
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Monastic Communities

Monasticism first appeared in Christian tradition in the late third and early fourth centuries as a way to practice true religion. Soon after, it also became a way of eschewing the Church’s embrace of political power and the divided loyalties which accompanied that union. Contemporary expressions of monasticism in the Protestant tradition (often identified as new monasticism) have interpreted the mono (singularity) not as celibacy or living in a cloistered community, but as abandoning cultural promiscuity in order to live out a monogamous spirituality. Though each monastic community has its own distinct characteristics and context, one can identify two common markers which unite both contemporary expressions of monasticism and historical monastic communities: (1) monotheism or a singular devotion to God which is separate from political, societal, and economic ambitions, and (2) monogamy or a commitment to a particular community, neighborhood, and mission. This article explores ancient and contemporary expressions of monasticism by examining their guiding documents and looking for evidence of monotheism and monogamous spirituality. By giving fresh articulation to the mono in monasticism, we are better able to identify the heart of the undivided (monastic) life and discern its presence in reimagined forms.

scholarly journals New Monasticism: An Answer to the Contemporary Challenges of Catholic Monasticism?

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 411
Author(s):  
Stefania Palmisano ◽  
Marcin Jewdokimow
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Significant Drop ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Living Together ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Traditional Communities

New Monasticism has been interpreted by its protagonists as an answer to the challenges of the future of Christian monasticism. New Monastic Communities can be defined as groups of people (at least some of whom have taken religious vows) living together permanently and possessing two main characteristics: (1) born in the wake of Vatican Council II, they are renewing monastic life by emphasising the most innovative and disruptive aspects they can find in the Council’s theology; and (2) they do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations—although they freely adapt their Rules of Life. New Monastic Communities developed and multiplied in the decades during which, in Western European countries and North America, there was a significant drop in the number of priests, brothers and sisters. Based on our empirical research in a new monastic community—the Fraternity of Jerusalem (a foundation in Poland)—we addressed the following: Why are New Monastic Communities thriving? Are they really counteracting the decline of monasticism? What characteristics distinguish them from traditional communities? We will show how they renew monastic life by emphasising and radicalising the most innovative and disruptive theological aspects identified in Vatican Council II.

scholarly journals Wczesny monastycyzm w relacji do władzy biskupiej i papieskiej

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 307-324
Author(s):  
Olga Cyrek
Keyword(s):  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The article describes the relationship between the first monks and the Church hierarchy represented by the bishops and popes. Bishops often mingled in the internal affairs of monastic communities, but some organizers of monastic life, such as Caesarius of Arles limited the interference from the outside. Abbots in Ireland while they become more important than bishops. Basil the Great, Augustine of Hippo, Caesarius of Arles, though they were monks, they exercised their functions well in positions of church and maintained friendly relations with the popes. A unique situation is the abbot of St. Columba the Younger, who in Gaul is involved in disputes with the local hierarchy. He did not agree even with the pope, but never openly spoke out against the Apostolic Seat. Monks usually do not lead to the riots but were respectful for the representatives of ecclesiastical authority.

scholarly journals The politics of monastic life: opportunities for exit and voice in a voluntary total institution

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-127
Author(s):  
Mikaela Sundberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Total Institution ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Cistercian Order ◽  
Total Institutions ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Exit Option ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Initial Entry

AbstractTotal institutions are by definition totalitarian, but not necessarily authoritarian. Voluntary total institutions consist of members who have chosen to enter, but what opportunities do they have to leave? This article addresses opportunities for exit and voice in Catholic monasteries within the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance. Monasteries have institutionalized important democratic processes regarding membership and leadership. Members are involved in decision-making through community bodies and discussions, but in many practical concerns, superiors may wrest control by neglecting to ask the community for alternative opinions. The superior’s decision-making style therefore crucially affects the range of democratic decision-making in individual monastic communities. Complete exits are common during the initial entry process. The cost of leaving is higher for full members, and the internal exit option to other monastic communities in the Order is therefore of great importance. It means that monastic communities cease to operate as monopolies.

Town and Monastery in the Carolingian Period

1979 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
Rosamond McKitterick
Keyword(s):  
Rural Community ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Agricultural Region ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Important Position ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Town

Although there were both urban and rural monastic communities in the Frankish kingdoms in the Carolingian period, far more is known about the landed monasteries in the countryside regarding both their internal organisation and the relationship between them and the rural community in which they lived and over which they were the lords. The statutes of Adalhard of Corbie for example provide information concerning the monastery both within the monastic community and on its estates, and show us the abbey as the centre of an agricultural region. The monasteries in the towns on the other hand are much less well-documented and the evidence for Carolingian towns themselves is both sparse and difficult to interpret. If a town is understood to be ‘a concentration of population larger than the neighbouring agricultural settlements in which there is a substantial non-agricultural population which may be concerned with defence, administration, religion, commerce or industry’, there are not very many Carolingian centres for which enough evidence survives to justify their being called towns. Valenciennes for example, described recently as une ville carolingienne, is mentioned in the sources occasionally as a portus and seems to have succeeded Farrars in importance in the region sometime in the eighth century. In the time of Charles the Bald it had a mint, and Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, Lothar I and Lothar II are all known to have issued charters from a royal palatium at Valenciennes. There were several churches and the abbey of St Salvius in the settlement, and it is likely that some trading activity went on. But other than that Valenciennes was a settlement which carried on some sort of economic activity, very little is known. The abbey of St Amand, a rural monastery nine miles from Valenciennes, achieved a far more influential and important position in the kingdom than the town of Valenciennes ever did.

Victory and Defeat: A Conflicted Church, 1136–1140

2020 ◽  
pp. 110-140
Author(s):  
Brian Patrick McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Early Winter ◽  
Sufficient Time ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
The World ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Building Program ◽  
Saint Bernard

This chapter explores how the autumn and early winter of 1135–36 provided sufficient time for Saint Bernard to give his first sermons on the Song of Songs at Clairvaux and also to familiarize himself and come to terms with the brothers' ambitious building program. But just when he may have felt he had returned to the routine of monastic life, he was called back to Italy. His companion now, as previously, was his brother Gerard, Clairvaux's capable cellarer whom Bernard felt he needed at his side rather than leaving him behind to deal with the material affairs of the monastery. In March or April of 1137 at Viterbo, Gerard became severely ill. Bernard's description of events emphasizes how important it was for him to restore Gerard to his monastic community so that he could die there. During the last year of Gerard's life, Bernard must have lived in fear that he soon would lose the man whose company and guidance had shepherded him since childhood. Just as the papal schism was coming to a seemingly happy end, Bernard was facing the end of the world that had made him.

Local Buddhist Monastic Agreements among the (M?la)sarv?stiv?dins

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Masanori Shono
Keyword(s):  
Monastic Community ◽  
Monastic Communities

Recently, there have been an increasing number of studies on the Buddhist monastic community as a whole and on individual Buddhist monks and nuns in Vinaya literature. However, we do not know much about how a local Buddhist monastic community was administered. In order to consider just an aspect of the administration in a local monastic community, I will in this paper investigate descriptions of agreements (Skt kriy?k?ra-) that local monastic communities or local Buddhist monks conclude in Vinaya texts belonging to the (M?la)sarv?stiv?dins.

Les ambivalences du succès monastique. Étude de cas

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-287
Author(s):  
Stefania Palmisano
Keyword(s):  
Field Research ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Internal Organization ◽  
Etude De Cas ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Étude De Cas

This article explores the dynamics of success in a monastery and its consequences for monastic life, regarding both internal organization and relations with the outside world. The opportunity to reflect on these topics comes from events taking place in Bose (Piedmont, Italy), one of the best-known and most lively NMCs in Europe. Based on field research carried out between 2011 and 2014, I review the history of the institutional, organizational and economic changes which it has undergone – from poor, anonymous and under suspicion of deviance to well-off, media-friendly and exemplary – and I analyse the repercussions of these changes for the monastic community. Leading questions are as follows: Why and how has Bose changed throughout its history? What strategies has the founder adopted to accomplish these changes? How has he built up his charisma? How are his agency and his charisma linked and how do they influence each other? Finally, has Bose’s success led the community astray from the spirit of the founding aims and values?

The Gurudharmas in Buddhist Nunneries of Mainland China

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tzu-Lung Chiu ◽  
Ann Heirman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
The Past ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Insight Into

According to tradition, when the Buddha’s aunt and stepmother Mah?praj?pat? was allowed to join the Buddhist monastic community, she accepted eight ‘fundamental rules’ (gurudharmas) that made the nuns’ order dependent upon the monks’ order. This story has given rise to much debate, in the past as well as in the present, and this is no less the case in Mainland China, where nunneries have started to re-emerge in recent decades. This article first presents new insight into Mainland Chinese monastic practitioners’ common perspectives and voices regarding the gurudharmas, which are rarely touched upon in scholarly work. Next, each of the rules is discussed in detail, allowing us to analyse various issues, until now understudied, regarding the applicability of the gurudharmas in Mainland Chinese contexts. This research thus provides a detailed overview of nuns’ perceptions of how traditional vinaya rules and procedures can be applied in contemporary Mainland Chinese monastic communities based on a cross-regional empirical study.

scholarly journals Facebook as a monastic place? The new use of internet by Catholic monks

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Jonveaux
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The World ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Religious Reasons ◽  
Use Of Internet

Although Catholic monasteries are theoretically out of the world, monks and nuns more and more use the internet, both for religious and non-religious reasons. While society at large often takes it for granted that monks are out of modernity, monastic communities have been adopted media from relatively early on, and we cannot say that they have come late to its use. The internet can offer monasteries a lot of advantages because it allows monks to be in the world without going out of the cloister. Nevertheless, the introduction of this new media in monasteries also raises a lot of questions about the potential contradictions it poses with other aspects of monastic life. The paper seeks to research the use of the medium by monks and nuns even in their daily lives, and  attempts especially to investigate the potential changes it brings to monastic life.

The Archaeology of Early Monastic Communities

2019 ◽  
pp. 146-165
Author(s):  
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Monastic Communities

This chapter discusses new developments in the field of monastic archaeology and the archaeology of early monastic settlements. The presence of monastic communities in documentary and literary evidence has produced a wide array of studies of monasticism, but very few of these have considered the purpose-built environments or the remodeled natural environments for monastic habitation. This chapter therefore considers examples from Egypt, Gaza, Britain, and Ireland to illustrate the history of archaeological study of monastic life and the importance of integrating monastic archaeology into broader categories dealing with landscape, urbanization, and connectivity from the fourth century through the tenth century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document