Sociology and monasticism : between innovation and tradition 9789004270879, 9004270876

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Sociology and Monasticism

Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion Editors Enzo Pace, Luigi Berzano and Giuseppe Giordan Editorial Board Peter Beyer (University of Ottawa) Anthony Blasi (Tennessee State University) Roberto Cipriani (Università di Roma Tre) Xavier Costa (Universidad de Valencia) Franco Garelli (Università di Torino) Gustavo Guizzardi (Università di Padova) Dick Houtman (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) Solange Lefebvre (Université de Montréal) Otto Maduro (Drew University) Patrick Michel (cnrs, Paris) Ari Pedro Oro (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) Adam Possamai (University of Western Sydney) Ole Riis (Agder University) Susumu Shimazono (University of Tokyo) William H. Swatos, Jr. (Augustana College) Jean-Paul Willaime (ephe, Sorbonne) Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (University of Leipzig) Linda Woodhead (Lancaster University) Fenggang Yang (Purdue University) Sinisa Zrinscak (University of Zagreb)

VOLUME 5

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/arsr

Sociology and Monasticism Between Innovation and Tradition Edited by

Isabelle Jonveaux Enzo Pace Stefania Palmisano

LEIDEN | BOSTON

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1877-5233 ISBN 978-90-04-27087-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-28350-3 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents

List of Contributors viii Introduction: The State of the Art in the Sociology of Monasticism xiii

Part 1 Catholic Monasticism 1

Monastic Asceticism and Everyday Life 3 Salvatore Abbruzzese

2

Virtuosity, “Folklorisation” and Cultural Protest: Monasticism as a Laboratory of the Confrontation between Christianity and Modernity 21 Danièle Hervieu-Léger

3

Female Monasticism in Italy: A Sociological Investigation 34 Giovanni Dalpiaz

4

Ethnography of Cloistered Life: Field Work into Silence 55 Francesca Sbardella

5

Redefinition of the Role of Monks in Modern Society: Economy as Monastic Opportunity 71 Isabelle Jonveaux

6

An Innovative Return to Tradition: Catholic Monasticism Redux 87 Stefania Palmisano

7

New Spirituality in Old Monasteries? Kees De Groot, Jos Pieper and Willem Putman 107

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CONTENTS 

Part 2 Ex Oriente lux: Other forms of Monasticism 8

Athos Outside of Athos: Orthodox Monasticism in the West 133 Laurent Denizeau

9

Spiritual Direction in Orthodox Monasticism: The Elder Beyond Weber’s Theory of Charisma 150 Maria Hämmerli

10 A National Monasticism? Monastic Politics of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Syria 169 Anna Poujeau 11 Contemplative Spirituality and the Intermonastic Encounter Movement 185 Timon Reichl 12

Experiencing the Liminal: Understanding Separation and Transition among Buddhist Monastic Women in Contemporary Britain 206 Caroline Starkey

13 A Space of Mountains within a Forest of Buildings? Urban Buddhist Monasteries in Contemporary Korea 227 Florence Galmiche

Part 3 Methodology and Classical Authors of the Sociology of Monasticism 14

Studying Contemporary Monasticism in Italy: An Anthropological and Historical Perspective 243 Maria Chiara Giorda, Javier González Díez, Sara Hejazi

15

Monasticism and Society in Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch 261 Paul-André Turcotte

CONTENTS

16

Séguy and the Monastic Utopia 277 Enzo Pace

17

A Sociology of Imagined Societies: Monasticism and Utopia 284 Jean Séguy

Index 321

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List of Contributors Salvatore Abbruzzese Ph D in sociology. In 1981 he got his doctor’s degree under the leading of Raymond Boudon, was member of the Groupe de Sociologie des Religions (équipe of Jean Séguy), and since 1992 membre correspondant of the Centre d’Etudes Interdisciplinaires des Faits Religieux (ceifr), research workshop at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Publications: La vita religiosa. Per una sociologia della vita consacrata. Rimini: Guaraldi, 1995; Comunione e Liberazione. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010; Un moderno desiderio di Dio. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010. Giovanni Dalpiaz is a Benedictine monk, a sociologist and professor at the Faculty of Theology of Triveneto, Italy; he lectures on the Sociology of religion at the Studio Teologico S. Bernardino in Verona, and at the Studio Teologico S. Zeno in Verona. He lectures on the Sociology of religious life at the Pontifical Faculty of Education Sciences Auxilium in Rome. Publications: Fuori dal recinto. Giovani, fede, chiesa. Milano: Ancora, 2013 (ed. with Castegnaro A., Biemmi E.); “La vie religieuse en Italie,” Social Compass, 60 (2013), pp. 348–361. Laurent Denizeau is an anthropologist and lecturer at the Catholic University of Lyon. In his PhD in social anthropology (Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2007), he made an ethnographic study of orthodox monastic life in France and Greece (Mount Athos). In this research, he studied the role of filiation and the place of the spiritual father in the definition of tradition within a monastic context. He is the author of Petite ethnographie d’une tradition monastique. Paris: Téraèdre, 2010. Florence Galmiche research interest broadly lies in examining the place and roles of religion in contemporary Korean society. She has a PhD in sociology at the ehess in 2011 with a dissertation on urban Buddhism in South Korea, she did a postdoctorate at the Ruhr University Bochum from 2012 to 2013 and she is now Maître de conférence in Korean Studies at the University Diderot-Paris 7. Publications: A Retreat in a South Korean Buddhist Monastery. Leiden: Brill, 2010; “La construction d’une identité religieuse bouddhiste en Corée du Sud,” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 4 (2012), pp. 311–358.

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Kees de Groot is a sociologist and a theologian. He lectures in practical theology at Tilburg University. His research interests are: spiritual care; religion and popular culture; congregational studies; Christian social thought. Recent publication: Brazilian Catholicism and the Ultramontane Reform, West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2013. Maria Hämmerli is a PhD candidate in sociology of religion at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. The general focus of her research is the Orthodox migration to the West. She is chief editor of the volume Orthodox Identities in Contemporary Western Europe: Migration, Settlement, Innovation (forthcoming). Sara Hejazi is Research fellow, Department of History at the University of Turin and Assistant Professor in “Cultural Anthropology.” She is involved in a project about contemporary monasticisms in Italy. She published monographs and many articles, among the latest: “Ahl al Bayt: Maometto e la gente della casa come ideale famigliare nel sufismo contemporaneo,” in Giorda, M., Sbardella, F. (eds.), Famiglia monastica. Prassi aggregative di isolamento. Bologna: Patròn, 2012. Danièle Hervieu-Léger is Directrice d’études at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (ehess) and Director of the Interdicisplinary Center for the Studies on Religion (ceifr, 1993–2004). She was Editor of the journal Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions and President (Chancellor) of the ehess from 2004 to 2009. Publications: La religion pour mémoire (1993); Le pèlerin et le converti. La religion en mouvement (1999); Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde (2003). She is currently preparing a book in sociology of the monastic life in Europe (XIXe–XXe). Isabelle Jonveaux is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Graz, Austria. After completing her doctoral research about the monastic economy in modern monasteries in Europe at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and at the University of Trento (Italy), she carried on with a post-doctoral research about asceticism in Catholic monasticism. She is currently preparing her habilitation (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) about secular asceticism and aspirations to simple life. Publications: Le Monastère au travail. Paris: Bayard, 2011, and Dieu en ligne. Paris: Bayard, 2013.

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Enzo Pace is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Padova and Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and was PastPresident of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. Recent publications: Al Islam fi Uruba (Islam in Europe). Abu Dhabi: Kadima, 2010; (eds. with Vilaça, H.), Religião em movimento. Porto, Estratégias Criativas, 2010; Religion as Communication. Farnham: Ashgate 2011; Il carisma, la fede, la chiesa. Introduzione alla sociologia del cristianesimo. Roma: Carocci 2012; (ed.) Le religioni nell’Italia che cambia. Roma: Carocci 2013. Jos Pieper is a psychologist of religion at Utrecht University and Tilburg University. His main research topic is religion and mental health, especially religious coping. He is also interested in new spirituality. Among his publications: The Modern Pilgrim. Leuven: Peeters, 1998 (with M.H.F. van Uden and P. Post) and “Religious and Receptive Coping,” Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 34 (2012), pp. 173–189 (with Uden, M.H.F. van and Vries-Shot, M.R. de). Anna Poujeau PhD in social anthropology at the University Paris Ouest, Nanterre-La Défense. She is a post-doctoral fellow of the labEx haStec (Laboratoire européen d’histoire et anthropologie des savoirs, des techniques et des croyances) at the ehess (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) and a member of the ceifr (Centre d’études interdisciplinaires des faits religieux). Since 2002, she has been working in Syria on the Christian minority and its social and political inscription in the country. Currently, she is developing new researches on the Christian funeral poetry in the South of Syria (jabal al carab and Hawran). Willem Putman is a supervisor and an emeritus lecturer in practical theology at Tilburg University. His current research is in new spirituality. See the article by Groot, K. de, Pieper, J.Z.T., & Putman, W.B.M. (2012). “Nieuwe spiritualiteit in oude kloosters?,” Jaarboek voor Liturgieonderzoek, 28, pp. 81–102. Stefania Palmisano Lecturer in the Sociology of Organization and of the sociology of religious organizations at the University of Turin; Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion in Lancaster University (uk) and at the Department of Sociology in Boston University. Recent publications: “Ambiguous Legitimation: Grassroots Roman Catholic Communities in Italy

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and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies” (Temenos, 47/2); “Moving Forward in Catholicis” (Journal for the Study of New Religions, 1/2) and “Spirituality and Catholicism: The Italian Experience” (Journal of Contemporary Religion, 25/2). Timon Reichl is currently conducting his doctoral research on contemporary interreligious interactions of Christian, Buddhist and Hindu monastic traditions at the University of Münster, Germany. He completed his master’s degree in Religious Studies, Tibetology and Psychology with a research project on the transmonastic and interreligious Zen-Buddhist organization Sanbōkyōdan at the “Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften” (Bonn). He then joined the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” (Münster) as a research assistant. Publication: Sanbōkyōdan in Deutschland. Landsberg: Olzog, 2012. Jean Séguy (1925–2007) was Directeur de recherche at the cnrs. He is one of the leading names in French sociology of religions since wwii. He first studied English language and literature. He attended high school in Annaba (St. Augustine’s ancient Hippo), Algeria, where his father was responsible for the tobacco works. After staying in Egypt, he returned to Paris, where Henri Desroche (another leading figure in French sociology of religions) convinced him to apply to the cnrs in 1960. He was director of the journal Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions for many years, contributing articles and commentaries, as well as publishing more than 200 reviews. Francesca Sbardella is Assistant Professor of Demo-ethno-anthropological Studies at the University of Bologna (Italy), where she lectures on the anthropology of religious systems and patrimony. Her main research interest is in the anthropology of religions within Europe, with a particular focus on the Catholic context. Publications: Scrivere del ‘sacro’. Testi inediti episcopali e monastici. Bologna: Clueb, 2012 and Antropologia delle reliquie. Brescia: Morcelliana, 2007; she edited Antropologia dell’Europa. I testi della riflessione francese. Bologna: Patron 2007. Caroline Starkey is a PhD student at the University of Leeds, uk (School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science). Her PhD research, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council uk, explores how the context of Buddhism in Britain shapes the practices of female ordination. Using ethnographic research methods with twenty-five women across six different Buddhist traditions, the

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research examines the role location plays in shaping women’s religious practices, and analyses how ordained women relate to ideas of gender equality, feminism and religious discipline. Paul-André Turcotte PhD in sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and in Theology (History) at the Catholic Institut (Paris), he is Director of the research commission on the conflictual transactions of religions at the aidop (International Agency for Diplomacy and Public Opinion), as well as President of the French Association for Formation and Research in the Social Sciences (affress). He edited two thematic issues of Social Compass: “Economy, Culture, and Religions in sub-Saharan Africa” (2011, 58–1) and “The Churchtype Compared with the Sect-type” (2012, 59–4).

Introduction: The State of the Art in the Sociology of Monasticism In contrast to the growing belief in society that traditional religious institutions are losing credibility, there has been renewed interest in monasteries, going beyond what is strictly defined as religious – e.g. increasingly numerous requests for cooking and gardening courses as well as guided tours in monasteries, the appeal of monastic products of various sorts, but especially fresh produce and hand-made goods, and media interest in the subject as a result. In parallel with a strong crisis in its recruitment, monasticism in the Western world is experiencing a period of innovation and experiments accompanied by unexpected popularity, as is evidenced by numerous films and publications. The success of the film Die grosse Stille or that of the more tragic Des hommes et des dieux, which portrays the life and martyrdom of seven Trappist monks killed in Algeria in 1996, in addition to the documentary “Blessings: The Tsoknyi Nuns of Tibet,” with commentary by Richard Gere, are but some examples illustrating that monasticism still arouses interest in secularized society. This is further confirmed by the European boom in monastic tourism: one must give notice when booking solitude because, as the newspapers of various countries report, the number of tourists who wish to spend a holiday in a monastery or to make a pilgrimage is increasing exponentially year after year.1 On the other hand, the sociology of religion hardly ever mentions monasticism. In contrast with historians, who have paid close attention to the phenomenon, sociologists have practically ignored this topic. If monasteries in Europe are nowadays discrete and less numerous, we should be aware how different the situation was in the past, for instance in the Three-Orders society (Duby 1978). Indeed historians emphasize, in particular, monasticism as an engine of social and economic development in the middle Ages (Leclerq 1968). This lack in the present period is even more surprising when we consider that the sociological classics regarded fuga mundi – even in its manifestation in monastic life – as the acid test for the comprehension of society. From 1 On the last Sunday of August 2012, the Italian newspaper La Stampa devoted two pages to holidays in monasteries, a tradition which, even if it cannot be called “fashionable,” is undoubtedly widespread among people of different ages, genders and professional identities. The modalities, the reasons (e.g. the economic crisis driving people toward alternative, cheap holidays) and the objectives may differ, but the result is the same: temporary occupation of monastic space by non-monastics.

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Durkheim to Simmel and from Troeltsch to Weber, understanding the world and its workings meant analyzing its opposite, which is to say the behaviour of those who have voluntarily renounced it and, therefore, the dialectic between the society of belonging and that of the fuga. However, it must be underlined that the fuga mundi does not mean that monks and nuns no longer belong to society, but rather that they have redefined their way of connecting with it. Commercial, pastoral and even, in the Middle Ages, diplomatic activities of monks prove it. Furthermore, studying religion also means for Weber and Troeltch exploring the case of “virtuosi” or “ascetics” who are like “professionals” of religion dedicating their lives to the search for salvation. Neverthless, the more one examines recent developments in the Christian field, the more one discovers that the consequent disciplinary consolidation, corralled between the demands of specialization and professionalization, have marginalized this theme. Even modern sociological production is little interested in the subject. A study of the rare literature available shows that a book on the sociology of monasticism is urgently needed in order to compensate for four principal shortcomings: First, much more empirical research has been devoted to monasticism in Oriental religions (Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism2) than that in the Christian world. There are two main reasons for this. The first is a new interest in Oriental spirituality in modern Western society. As monasticism occupies an important position in Buddhism, for instance, the study of religious life is a necessary stage in order to understand this spirituality. The second is greater anthropological interest in exotic realities that are not so well-known in Western society. Second, in literature dealing with consecrated life there is no shortage of research on “active” community living (Wittberg 1996, Ebaugh 1993) at the expense of that on “contemplative” community life. This distinction, which is generally unknown to most people, is problematic because it is not clearly defined either by the Church in canon law or by the sociology of religion. Max Weber, for instance, speaks about “monks” and apostolic orders, such as Jesuits, without making a clear distinction between the two. This is also because not all languages use two different terms for these approaches. Although French and Italian have at their disposal the terms “moines/monaci” and “religieux/ religiosi,” it is not the same in German, for instance, which uses “Mönche” in 2 If monasticism in Islam has not been discussed, the reason is that we cannot use this concept here. Sufism presents a form of confraternity but these pious individuals do not live in communities or consecrate themselves only to this religious quest. It is surely a form of virtuosity and an ascetic way of life, but more a form of living spirituality than a kind of monasticism.

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both cases. The word “Ordensleute” (“religious”) would be correct, but only “Mönche” (“monks”) is used. This explains why Max Weber did not feel the need to make the distinction, and the special situation of German and Austrian monasticism also justifies this amalgam between both kinds of religious life. Canon law speaks about “institutes for consecrated life” and “societies of apostolic life,” but it is difficult to classify orders according to this typology because their characteristics also change according to the society in which they exist. The distinction is also rejected by those who, both in monasteries and in apostolic congregations, claim they have a vocation inseparably oriented toward contemplation and action. Here the distinction is used to counterpoint contemplative monks and nuns (those who live in monasteries, often protected by enclosure) with religious people of more worldly orientation, especially those who are working in the world. Third, many studies of religious orders aim to analyze institutional and organizational aspects and relations with ecclesiastical authorities, often having recourse to typologies (Hill 1971, Francis 1950) diachronically focussed more on the past than on the present. Francis built his typology with historical examples, whereas Hill’s work mainly uses 19th-century English congregations. It is also worth pointing out that this type of sociology took root more in North America than in Europe. Wittberg (2006) has studied female religious communities today in the us without studying monasticism. Useful though they may be in exploring consecrated life, these studies remain, in a sense, at the door of religious life and do not really enter it in order to understand their internal working, motivations of the actors, dynamics of reorganization, or tensions with society. That is why we will here favour studies that, to use Séguy’s words, do not “hesitate in front of the door” but which choose to meet, through empirical methodology, the “inhabitants of the ‘fortress’” (1997: 50). Finally, we underline that most studies on contemporary monastic life are provided by insiders or monastic actors. One of the most important contributors was Blazovich who, in his Soziologie des Mönchtums (1954), proposed a sociological analysis of the ground elements of monasticism (Rule of Life, Chapter and Governance). Furthermore a galaxy of journals (e.g. Review of Religious Orders, Vie consacrée, Credere oggi, Erbe und Auftrag) publish the reflections of monks, nuns, abbots, abbesses and lay theologians upon changes in monastic life and future perspectives, representing invaluable evidence for the sociologist to understand today’s monastic life better. We hope that this book will deepen comprehension of the specificity of monastic life in the religious area from the sociological point of view. In order to tackle this research programme, we would like to introduce an important

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proviso dealing with the question of definition. When studying monasticism, one is immediately struck by the vagueness of such a definition for the social actors. Monks interviewed during our fieldwork research claimed, falling back on the Rule of Saint Benedict, that “a monk is one seeking God” or, alluding to the Greek monos, “who is one in the sense of united or unified” or, again, “one who is removed from society with the aim not of serving others but seeking one’s own spiritual perfection,” or finally, “a simple Christian looking for daily conversion.” It must be no less emphasized that monks today take their distance from classical sociological definitions which saw them as “virtuosi” or “ascetics.” The lack of definitional agreement can be also seen in the scientific literature where the term “monasticism,” historically rooted in the Christian tradition, is often used in a general way to indicate phenomena far from one another in time and space, in accordance with a descriptive rather than a hermeneutic approach. The difficulties of definition that result are neatly summarized by Leclercq, the great historian of the monastic world, when he states: “On sait – du moins les moines le savent – combien il est difficile de définir la vie monastique, en tout cas de l’enfermer dans une seule et brève formule, à plus forte raison dans un mot ou une expression.” (1968: 168). With regard to sociological literature, we may take as points of reference some definitions that are also discussed and developed in this volume. For instance, a monk may be defined as “a religious ascetic virtuoso, who flees from the world in order to consecrate himself totally to God in community life” (Jonveaux 2011:45) or to find supreme inner-world illumination (nirvana). If the definition of a monk is difficult, that of the monastery seems easier. Jean Séguy (1971) defines it as a “utopia of the Kingdom of God already here and still to come.” In this introduction to a book about different kinds of monasticism, it would nevertheless be useful to point out some fundamental characteristics without which we cannot qualify a form of religious life as monastic: community life, prayer, rule, and bodily discipline are fundamental for all monastic life, not only in the Christian tradition. Finally, in studying monasticism, we should not neglect the importance of analyzing the phenomenon in its context rather than as a reality per se. Monasticism is partially defined by its social and historical context, and the problems it faces largely depend on the environment. For instance, the crisis of recruitment, which is often a central question in current Catholic monasticism, is almost exclusively debated in relation to Western monasticism; it is not a problem in Africa or Asia, where the average age in communities of the religious is around 30. Putting all this together, the sociological study of monasticism appears not only necessary to fill the gap in the sociology of religion but also urgent in

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order to understand the paradoxical dynamic we can observe in monasticism in the context of secularization and “exculturation” (Hervieu-Léger 2003) in present Western society. Contributors to this book are social scientists of religion interested in studying monasticism as an indicator of the transformations occurring in various religious traditions in different social and cultural contexts. Insofar as some articles shed light on research methods and theoretical challenges arising from monasticism and modern/post-modern societies, the papers in the book deal with both theoretical issues and the outcomes of empirical research. The volume consists of four sections. The first is entirely devoted to the dynamics of Catholic monasticism in the West, focussing on one hand on the confrontation between the old monastic tradition and modernity (time, economy, organization) (Salvatore Abbruzzese, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Isabelle Jonveaux) and, on the other, on new forms of monasticism (Stefania Palmisano) or on the crisis of female orders in Italy (Dal Piaz) or again on the transformation of some Netherland monasteries into spiritual centres (Kees de Groot, Jos Pieper and Willem Putman). The second section introduces a comparative analysis with other kinds of monasticism outside Catholicism (Denizeau, Hämmerli). More specifically, two contributions explore the persistence and the change occurring within Orthodox monasticism, while three other chapters analyze different case studies: Buddhist monasteries in urban environments in South Korea (Galmiche), the experience of Buddhist monastic women in Britain (Starkey), Oriental Christian monasticism (Anna Poujeau). The last article (by Timon Reichl) in this section sums up the osmosis between Christian and Hindu monasticism and asceticism illustrated by the spiritual biographies of some Christian monks. The third and fourth sections are devoted respectively to methodological issues (Francesca Sbardella; Mariachiara Giorda, Javier Gonzàlez, Sara Hejazi) and to theoretical approaches. In particular, Paul André-Turcotte analytically reconstructs Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch’s theoretical plot of the analysis of fuga mundi, concentrating on Christian monks’ experience between sect and church as ideal types. Finally, Enzo Pace introduces a seminal article by Jean Séguy on the relation between monasticism and utopia. References Blazovich, Augustin. 1954. Soziologie des Mönchtums und der Benediktinerregel. Vienna: Herder p. xv. Duby, Georges. 1978. Les Trois Ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme. Paris: Gallimard.

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Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs. 1993. Women in the Vanishing Cloister. New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press. Francis, Emerich K. 1950. “Toward a Typology of Religious Orders.” American Journal of Sociology 55: 437–449. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2003. Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde. Paris: Bayard. Hill, Michael. 1971. “ Typologie sociologique de l’ordre religieux.” Social Compass 18: 45–64. —— . 1973. The Religious Orders, A Study of Virtuoso Religion and its Legitimation in the Nineteenth-Century Church of England. London Heinemann. Leclerq, Jean. 1968. Aspects du monachisme hier et aujourd’hui. Paris: Editions de la Source. Séguy, Jean. 1971.“Une sociologie des sociétés imaginées: Monachisme et utopie.” Annales 2: 328–354. —— . 1997. “Groupements volontaires d’intensité religieuse dans le christianisme et l’islam.” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 100: 47–60. Wittberg, Patricia. 1996. “‘Real’ religious communities: A study of authentication in New Roman Catholic religious orders.” Pp. 149–174 in The issue of authenticity in the study of religions, edited by L. F. Carter Greenwich: JAI Press. —— . 2006. From Piety to Professionalism and Back? Transformations of Organized Religious Virtuosity. Oxford: Lexington Books.

Part 1 Catholic Monasticism

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chapter 1

Monastic Asceticism and Everyday Life Salvatore Abbruzzese The phenomenon of religious orders – encompassed by the term “consecrated life” – is a crucial area of investigation in the sociology of religion. In this respect, Christian monasticism constitutes a form of utopian community on the border between the goal of escaping from the world and establishing a profound relationship with it. Specifically, in the analysis of religious asceticism – i.e., studying the dynamics of monastic forms – there are several fundamental issues to be considered. The first is the organization of daily life, which concerns the compatibility between different modes of asceticism (silence, prayer, meditation) and the most basic and essential forms of labour.1 This kind of life can be understood from a sociological perspective as an effort to attain “proximity to Christ” through a regular organization of individuals’ daily lives, both externally and internally. Such an attempt becomes all the more significant the more it is targeted to cope with possible obstacles, such as physical, moral and social limits. In this sense, monasticism has come to face issues concerning material survival, community life management and territorial independence. Indeed, the capability to face similar problems makes it possible for the monastic utopia to appear as a kind of experience that can be reproduced anywhere, thus entering the cognitive categories of the contemporary world as a “practical utopia” (Séguy 1971). Against this background, the principles and aims of the monastic ideal can be identified in the search for an aesthetic harmony between a lifestyle and the construction of a place where this can be realized. Thus, the monk becomes exemplary evidence of a way of life that is apparently antithetical to the secular world and seems to run counter to it in every respect. As is well known, Benedict of Nursia wrote his Rule in 529, at a time when the world was probably more insecure and precarious than now − i.e., after the sack of Rome in 410, with its dramatic loss of political and administrative power. Whereas Benedict established himself in a political world that was dying out, he also owned an important religious heritage to be transmitted. Benedictine monks were not just considered penitent monks; in fact, since they also perceived themselves as witnesses and disciples, they were the first to 1 For a preliminary sociological description of monasticism and its subsequent developments see Abbruzzese (1995, 2000, 2003).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_002

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have the duty of reading books, in addition to the duty of prayer. A monk’s time was organized according to the major events underpinning the salvation promise, and it was constantly oriented towards their continuous recall. On the other hand, secular time, the time of the decayed empire, appeared as being devoid of any possible future. Anchorites first, and then monastic communities as well, found themselves in a territory that had been deprived of every religious, cultural and political reference. A fragmented society and a non-existent future gain a completely different meaning when considered within the framework of “salvation history”  −  the conception of history whereby God’s Incarnation becomes the key element for every age to find its own meaning. The ora et labora monk is in fact the symbol of a profound shift and the vehicle of a new lifestyle. The first clash concerns the organization of work routines. Following the Greek and Latin traditions, in the sixth century work was still considered as a sign of subjection (negotium), the opposite of otium, which was a distinguishing sign of free men. Thus, the introduction of work in monastic life led to a clash with such a distinction and, at the same time, brought in a subordination principle, a clear sign of renunciation of freedom. If, on the one hand, this decision could represent a step towards humility, on the other hand work could also seriously compromise the ascetic effort, as it could divert from ascesis, which, instead, is based on meditation, fasting, and prayer. Whereas work could mortify the body and prepare the soul for simplicity, it could also distract from the main activity of prayer and meditation. Therefore, the great effort that monks have made throughout the centuries in order to organize and manage work-prayer balance should not be underestimated. This balance has always been very complex and could be achieved in only a few occasions and settings. In the following sections some examples of this reinterpretation and organization of time will be outlined, with special reference to everyday life within the monastic endeavour. Such an observation is based on the assumption that finding a balance between work and prayer was the first and most difficult challenge that monks had to face to reach their ascesis. Overall, the history of monasticism is so well documented that many libraries would be necessary to contain all the relevant literature, thus multiplying the possible analytical views. The present work is based on different perspectives with a common denominator − the existing tension within the monks’ community and their everyday life. The sacred dimension and everyday life do not inherently go hand in hand; rather, they tend to reject each other. From a sociological perspective, sacred time is the time for solemnity. It is a powerful time whose light can enlighten the weak time of ordinary life. According to

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Durkheim (1912), the distinction between the sacred and the profane comes along with the distinction between the individual, with his or her everyday concerns, and the society, which is considered as the reign of moral relations and of a totally renewed identity, between the banality of ordinary life and the full life of Our Lord’s day. Religious asceticism is fulfilled as such insofar as it aims to achieve the totality of dies domini in everyday life, thus letting it be entirely invaded by the divine. The link between the sacred dimension and ordinary life can be shaped through several elements, such as the liturgy of the hours, daily rites, and inner meditation, also performed by controlling all possible stimuli, from hunger to sleep, to relations and to uncontrolled emotions. Ordinary life sacralisation implies a strict management of time, which has to be organized and regulated in order to achieve the hésichia of quietness and peace (Lialine 1961). For this reason, work time, rest time, prayer time, solitude time and communion time have all to be organized very meticulously. Many theories have been developed to explain the causes behind the establishment and development of monasticism. According to some historians of religions, the development of this particular kind of asceticism is a European transposition of pre-existent Eastern spirituality (Massein 1952). According to others, it is a Christian reassessment of either Greek-Latin or Judaic hermitism already described by Pliny the Elder (Leclerq 1978, Guillaumont 1979). Finally, for others monasticism resulted from a reaction to the decline of customs within Christian communities, which were well integrated into the Roman world as a consequence of the Edict of Constantine (Colombás 1978). In sociology, the selection of a historical interpretation as reference depends on the availability of works capable of providing appropriate descriptions of the relevant frame of mind. In other words, it is necessary to go beyond a mere description of the events and to look for a sociologically significant synthesis, which is able to show the full picture of the whole historical period under consideration. The remaining part of this chapter is divided into three different sections. The first one concerns the relation with daily time in the anchoretic models of the fourth and fifth centuries. The second one highlights the specific development of the ora et labora Rule within Cluniac monasticism in the tenth through thirteenth centuries, following the evolution of Benedictine organization of spirituality. The third section focuses on the impact of religious spirituality on early modernity in the fifteenth century, considering two sociologically relevant variables − the establishment of the urban dimension and new possibilities for urban handicraft. This arbitrary choice of specific historical periods and the relevant figures has a purely exploratory significance. In other words, some particular aspects of the religious universe will be placed into focus

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because of their heuristic capability. Thus, a set of specific figures and configurations, which are only a partial view of the whole monastic universe indeed, will be arbitrarily presented as exempla, the only goal being to introduce a thesis and not to discuss the basics of monasticism.

Early Monasticism

The first image under analysis is Arsenius, a hermit monk evoked in Greek Patrology books (pg 65, 97) and then studied by Michel de Certeau (1987). The story goes that every Saturday evening this monk used to turn his back to the sun and pray hands up all night long, till the crack of dawn. The monk’s raised arms in sign of prayer are still an icon of the Desert Fathers’ spirituality and reveal the desire to subdue time to prayer needs, denying any physical and natural limit. The monk, known as athleta Christi, does not accept the limits of his physical strength. For him, this represents only a hindrance to be kept under control and overcome. Here the monk is represented “in the act of forging total dissociation in himself, by hammering it out like a cold metalwork, from a lifetime of asceticism” (Brown, 1982: 136). In addition to the primacy of prayer over any other principle concerning the organization and recognition of time, it is worth emphasizing the symbolically provocative stance of the monk against the night. Even at night, i.e. the reign of darkness, when each good conscience seems to be asleep and the forces of evil run free from any possible obstacle, the praying monk stands as a challenge with his gesture of defiance. That gesture has had a long tradition in the subsequent monastic universe. Throughout every historical period, monks’ nightly prayer has represented a fully-fledged “war song” against Evil, as was evocatively represented by Georges Duby (1979: 42). Finally, through his never-ending prayer, Father Arsenius pays the best tribute to Resurrection day. At the same time, by means of his exceptional Saturday wake, he sets the dies domini apart from all the other ordinary days. He fights against daily banality, as this can humiliate and oppose spiritual tension by mixing it with repetitive and already known actions. Thus, he imposes the primacy of a strong, and symbolically crucial, interpretation of the night prior to the day in which Resurrection shall be remembered. In this first image, the monk’s time is expressed on the basis of two characteristics. The first one concerns the break of physiological balances between

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sleeping and waking. Time cannot be slave to the balances a body designed to die has to respect. Meditation and prayer cannot be humiliated by sleep, hunger or fear, rather they have to be subdued to the needs of ascesis. The second characteristic concerns the reconstruction of weekly time, which is reinterpreted as an archetype of the “Holy Week.” This way, it is possible to experience again the constitutive elements of the Christian memory within ordinary time. The interpretation of nature and time-related elements (e.g., sunrise) is reconstructed from this different perspective. Thus the monk’s time becomes a symbolic time, where the hours of the day and the days the week are not meaningful for what they are but for what they are able to evoke. However, the creation of such a symbolic concept of time also leads toward a negation of natural time. In this respect, it is worth presenting another image about the relation with time, i.e. Anthony the Hermit, also known as “the father of the monks.” As reported by Athanasius in his work Life of Antony (Attanasio 1984), which can be considered as the very first biography about monastic life, this spiritual father spent twenty years enclosed in an abandoned fort and did not show any sign of ageing when he left it, as if no time had passed at all. His face looked the same as when his disciples first met him, before he retreated to live in solitude. Time had passed, but Anthony managed to cancel it. The monk’s time, if structured and lived in a symbolic way, not only knocks down the physiological barriers of sleep and hunger, but it also stops the course of natural time (Guy 1987). The monk’s personal time no longer matches with the one that regulates the universe of ordinary life (Le Goff 1977). For this reason, among anchorites time is structured in an individual and personal way, with each monk organizing it as he wants to. As reported by Lucien Regnault (1999: 96, 1990: 109), prior of the Solesmes Abbey, in late antiquity: [T]otally isolated hermits each had their own system and timetable, depending on divine inspiration or individual whims. For those, in the East as well as in the West, there was neither a liturgical Sunday or year. On Easter Sunday St Benedict, in his Subiaco solitude, didn’t know that this was the great Christian feast day. The same was true for the first Desert Fathers. The duration of ascesis − both in the case of Arsenius with his nightly prayer and in the case of Anthony’s voluntary exile – should not be counted in terms of hours or years passing, as this would be potentially unlimited. The third image, still taken from Athanasius’ work Life of Anthony, is indicative of the new organization of time arranged by the monk. Anthony was said

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to be discouraged because of the ineffectiveness of his ascetic efforts, but then he had the vision of an angel. This vision was in the form of a young man who was sitting and working; every once in a while this young man stood up and prayed, and then went back to work: this would be the best method to organize one’s daily ascetic effort. Within the framework of uninterrupted meditation over work, the interruption for prayer, that is the interruption of posture (de Vogué 1991) and the very fact of standing up, enables one to alternate working with meditative life which might otherwise be repetitive. Thus work plays an instrumental role, as it is used to interrupt continuous prayer and make the latter possible. Such a principle is even clearer if one considers the figure of Abbot Paul. As reported by Cassian in De Institutis Coenobiorum, Paul could live on palm-tree fruits and a small vegetable garden. After all, any other work would have been useless as the nearest town was way too far. Despite this, the abbot used to pick and weave palm-tree leaves to keep constantly busy. Every year, once his cell was filled with baskets, he used to burn all the items that “he had so diligently laboured,” which were useless and unsalable items anyway. The same author points out that: “though the need for food did not require this to be done, yet he performed it simply for the sake of purifying his heart, and strengthening his thoughts, and persisting in his cell, and gaining a victory over ascidia and driving it away” (Cassian: web references). Therefore, labour responded more to a moral demand than to a physical one. The prosperous nature in the Nile Delta allowed for simple crops which were sufficient to assure the survival of an adult person. Thus, the function of manual labour became more instrumental than economic. Rather than securing those goods necessary to live, its aim was to avoid laziness and boredom, or even to produce the surplus to be given to poor people. Consequently, working time lost its natural function to perform a different one, which was useful to ascesis. Considering the exemplar images presented above, the following observations may be made. First, from the original hermitical perspective, the monk’s time is structured individually. Nothing shall disturb meditation and prayer. Work itself should not become an obstacle, which is why the production of ropes and baskets can be performed without each Athleta Christi being distracted from meditation. Lucien Regnault (1999: 110, 1990: 122) reports that Isaiah said frankly: “When the Lord wakes you up, do your office with zeal.” The Lord could call upon the guardian Angel always beside the sleeper, “When your heart tells you day and night, ‘Up and pray!’ realize that this is the Angel right beside you speaking. And so, when you arise, he stays beside you and prays with you.”

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There are reasons behind such a dimension of prayer: the hermit monk lives constantly exposed to the end of times and shares his life with the possibility of an approaching end. In Athanasius’ famous biography, Anthony advises: “Each day, when we arise, let’s assume we won’t live till until nightfall, and at night, when going to sleep, let’s assume we won’t awaken” (Regnault 1999: 111). The organization of time, as well as of the whole anchoretic life, goes on with no rules, in that it is undertaken in the belief that it is part of a temporary endeavour which is realized before the world is destroyed by the Apocalypse. Secondly, the ora et labora Rule, which is thought to belong to early monasticism, did not originate from material necessity but from the psychological need to escape from sloth and the difficulties due to extreme solitude. Ascesis became possible only through the establishment of a secular daily life dominated by work, and it was then realised by means of methodical interruptions, thus emphasizing the different postures of the body, and by meditation, which is achieved when one can experience a direct relation with God in cooperation with an angel. Of course, there can be several exceptions, as was the case with some ascetics, whose prayer was never interrupted and went on and on with no break at all, as if time had stopped in a long wake, waiting for Resurrection. However, as the Angel had demonstrated to Anthony, these were unique cases, though they are often mentioned in the Fathers’s edifying narratives.

The Coenobitic Community and the Organization of Time: The Feudal Icon

Initially, the way coenobitic communities were organized did not have any significant impact on the life of monks. The strict Pachomian Rule (there were 5,000 monks at the beginning of the fifth century) was still meant to organize a life of prayer notwithstanding the presence of other people. “The person in charge to call the brothers to the refectory will meditate while he does it. That one who, at the doors of the refectory, distributes the dessert to the brothers who leave the table, will meditate about any passage from Scripture while he does his duty” (Pachomian Rule, part 1, see web references). Pachomius wanted to organize the monk’s time dictating the habit, the postures and the forms of relations, so that the original solitude of former anchorites would be minimally disrupted by the new experience of community life. With Pachomius, the time for work and the time for prayer started to be organized; since these times are shared, they cannot be chosen on an individual basis.

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Coenobitism introduced a real revolution – albeit without fanfare. On account of the fathers’ hermitism, cells used to be built without foundations and were destined to deteriorate in the course of time, as they were meant to be temporary. However, the coenobitic community had to lay the material and moral foundations for a potentially intersubjective ascesis to be codified as a rule and handed down. In order to group together a number of men with different characters and temperaments, methods and principles necessarily had to be encoded. The coenobitic communities were founded with the awareness that new kinds of social relations needed to be established. In fact, Pachomius, Basil and Augustine were the authors of the first rules − i.e., comprehensive rationalizations of behaviours and attitudes deemed suitable for the ascension to perfection pursued by monks. Considering the Rule of St. Augustine, the community started to adopt an introspective glance, opening up to inner life. Thus, community life became a way to reach perfection that should be emphasized, rather than the forced answer to the increasing insecurity that closely threatened every single anchorite’s life. In early Benedictine monasticism, time organization certainly depended on the new natural conditions of monastic settlements. Time and space were no longer two universes resulting from the plain solitude of Middle Eastern deserts; now they had to face a less generous and hospitable nature, i.e., the European context. However, rather than disrupting the goals of a life of perfection, the new climatic conditions contributed even more to rationalizing further the time distribution between work and prayer. In St. Benedict’s Rule, manual labour takes up only a circumscribed space. After describing the qualities every abbot has to own, and the virtues every monk has to practice (Chapters 4–7), Benedict regulates prayer, starting from the night prayer (8–20). The following sections are about sins and how to face them (23–30 and 44–46), about clothes and furniture care (32–34), about the organization of the kitchen (35), and how to behave at the table (39–41). The lack of attention at the table is linked to distraction in common prayer and it is treated in the same way (43). Work, i.e. manual labour, is discussed only in Chapter 48, the same chapter where the use of reading (§ 13–23) is discussed. Though in the Benedictine monasteries of Nursia, Farfa, Subiaco, and Montecassino, work responded to the survival necessities of the community, it was also presented within a moral framework: “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain times in manual labour.” Before being an indispensable means for survival, work represented an edifying undertaking, the concrete element of the moral disciplining process which the aim for a life of perfection needed in a community context.

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Work did not continue uninterrupted all day long, and it was not undefined either. In fact, the Rule envisages about four hours of work in the morning, soon after lauds. These are followed by two hours of reading. After lunch at noon (the sixth hour), there is a break of nearly two hours, during which monks have to remain silent. They are allowed to read, provided that the other brothers are not disturbed (48 § 5). Work continues just before the ninth hour (at about three o’clock in the afternoon), until vespers. In winter, work is anticipated by reading, and it starts only after the third hour office (at about nine o’clock in the morning). Reading is also recommended after dinner, and during Lent it is supported by a specific text that each monk receives personally (48 § 15). Benedict speaks about “assigned work,” thus assuming not only that it does not coincide with work in the fields, but also that there is a specific organization of the activities under the abbot’s and his superiors’ direction. It is not by chance that the paragraph about work comes after the rules of conduct and, in particular, of compliance. However, refusing to read is also defined as sloth by Benedict (48 § 18), thus reading appears to be part and parcel of the ascetic commitment. The work of Benedictine monks does not coincide with work in the fields; taking part in harvesting appears as a consequence of particular factors. “And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty should require that they themselves do the work of gathering the harvest, let them not be discontented; for then are they truly monastics when they live by the labour of their hands, as did our Fathers and the Apostles” (§7 e 8). In addition to such an exhortation, Benedict recommends not to use work fatigue as a means for the ascetic effort: “Let all things be done with moderation, however, for the sake of the faint-hearted” (§9). In practice, manual labour and harvesting fatigue are not a means to reach ascesis, but a need to be met promptly, grasping the tradition of an effort already made by the Fathers. Thus, time in Benedictine monasticism sets necessary labour, which is not just aimed at safeguarding the ascetic effort, against the organization of hours for praying and for reading. The economic success of early monasticism was due to a large extent to both the extreme effectiveness of the monks’ sociological composition and to the will not to be overwhelmed by labour. The first aspect can be easily identified: a masculine community of adults (even if there was a considerable number of minors) with no women and with few elderly people could certainly do a lot within a rural economy which was aimed at survival. Similarly, the need to find the necessary space for meditation and prayer led to an increasingly greater search for effectiveness in farming techniques (Moulin, 1991). On the basis of the observations presented above it is possible to adequately understand the evolution of monasticism, starting from the Carolingian age.

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It is known that when the local society started to decline because of invasions, the monastic universe began to be less peripheral within the universe of secular life. As Clifford Lawrence puts it (1989: 73): Monks were the spiritual counterpart of secular armies which defended the realm against its enemies, especially against incursions by the heathens. […] the great abbeys on the frontiers of the Carolingian Empire performed an important role in colonising newly conquered territories. Both as landed corporations entrusted with clearance and settlement, and as mission stations for the evangelisation of lesser breeds without the law, they were vital agents of the Carolingian Ostpolitik. This functional inclusion of monasticism in the organization of the empire foreshadows the well-known schema of the three orders that became the true icon of medieval Christianity. This schema is represented in different ways and by different sources, among which the one provided by bishops Adalbert and Gerard (the former bishop of Laon, the latter bishop of Cambrai) is one of the best known: “On Earth, some pray [orant], others fight [pugnant], still others work [laborant]; which three are joined together and may not be torn asunder. Because […] on the function of each the works of the others rest, each in turn assisting all” (Duby 1980: 51; cf. 1978). Without forcing history into oversimplified schemes, this representation of the monastic universe as a praying community could in fact overshadow the main goal (until then) of monastic ascesis, i.e., the wish to get closer to Christ. To this end, prayer had been a tangible means, a way to perfect the ascension path and the dialogue with God. Turning the aim of prayer into the preservation of collective aims meant introducing a considerable innovation which deeply changed the “monk’s time.” Labour in general, and farming in particular, became more and more a digression compared with the main function. The example that the Angel gave Anthony some centuries before, in the desert of Lower Egypt, south of Alexandria, had lost its centrality. In the Burgundy countryside, as from 910, the Cluny Abbey played a protagonist role in the great reformation of Coenobitic monasticism. In this context, oration became the core of everyday life and the centre of ascesis. The number of psalms recited daily increased five times compared to the original Benedictine Rule (Duby 1979). The Cluniac monk used to spend nine hours in reciting the different hours of the divine office (Le Bras 1979). If one considers that the remaining time was used for private Masses and for the reading of the Fathers, it is clear that the balance with material labour had been totally altered.

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It is certainly true that after the establishment of Cluniac monasticism “the monk and the priest should live […] by the ‘weariness’ of other men” (Bloch 1965: 70; [1939] 1982: 480–81).2 However, it is equally true that this did not coincide with a decay of traditions. The exhausting prayers in the choir and the extreme density of prayer activities,3 of meditation and reading was such that the lack of labour in the fields did not mean idleness at all, rather it went hand in hand with an immense expansion of liturgical duties. The primacy of oration and liturgy started in the European monasticism, from the Cluniac reform onwards, did not simply mirror an aristocratic prejudice, which considered the burden of farm labour as unsuited to the monastic habit (Duby 1976). It should never be forgotten that the main purpose was to take monasticism back to its original austerity, trying to stop the decline of traditions resulting from the involvement of monasteries in the dynamics of the local nobility’s interests. In fact, the Cluniac monks’ orations interiorized the ascetic tension, which was fuelled by an unlimited search for aesthetic beauty: “[in] the Cluniac style of monastic life – everything in it converged on the service of the Lord, the Opus Dei, the ceremonies embodied in divine service. All the modifications made by the ordo cluniaciensis in the text of the Benedictine Rule combined to magnify that function” (Duby 1981: 70). The duration and pace of prayer stretched to the limits. Benedict had already recommended this in his Rule, Chapter 19: “Let us therefore consider how we ought to conduct ourselves in sight of the Godhead and of His Angels, and let us take part in the psalmody in such a way that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.” At Cluny this intention was respected and extended to the full. Liturgy meant music. Eleventh-century prayer bloomed in the form of full-voiced chanting, in unison, by a chorus of men’s voices. It was pleasing to God to find such unanimity when his creatures sang his praises. Seven times each the choir of Cluniac monks went in procession to the church, there to sing the Psalms, and their singing embodied the features that distinguished the Benedictine style from Eastern monasticism: restraint, modesty, an interpretation quelling any incipient tendency toward individual fantasy. duby 1981: 72

2 This emphasis on the organization of everyday life is clearly related to the topic under discussion. The Cluniac reform obviously went much further; above all it was a return to the original rule of St. Benedict along with a return to monastery independence from the bishop’s power. At that time, this power was much more attached to the King than to the Pope (Duby, 1976: 84). 3 Suffice it to note that during the two weeks prior to Lent, in the morning monks used to recite the whole books of Genesis and Exodus (Lawrence 1989: 100 ff.).

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Cluny organized a liturgy that was at the same time a laud to God, inner ascension, and example of all the wonders of creation. Raoul Glaber, who wrote chronicles of that time, writes: “I am myself a witness that in this monastery it is a custom, made possible by the very great number of monks, that masses be celebrated constantly from the earliest hour of the day until the hour assigned for rest; and they go about it with so much dignity, piety and veneration that one would think they were angels rather than men.”4 Together with liturgy, the Cluniac reform also retrieved the importance of reading. Indeed, in the abbey of Farfa, for example, it is possible to find a list of sixty books that were issued to the monks at Lent in the middle of the eleventh century.5 These texts had to be returned by the following year; failing to read them or a partial reading would have been considered to be a sin, and therefore it should have been confessed. The list included authors such as Cassian, Gregory the Great, Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus, as well as historians such as Flavius Josephus, Eusebius and Livy (Lawrence 1989: 116). Peter the Venerable, who was abbot at Cluny from 1122 to 1157, affirms that the monk’s hands are more suitable to write letters on parchment using a nib rather than plowing the land. At that time, book copying was a crucial and time-consuming task, and books were precious items. Jacques Le Goff (1957, 1993) observes that books were considered as luxury goods, while Clifford Lawrence (1989: 117) points out that a full copy of the Old Testament was worth more than a country curate’s annual salary, and that a whole flock of sheep was required for the parchment of a single volume.6 Despite this, it is worth highlighting that manual labour was not totally abolished and that it was maintained because of its indisputable merits. However, it was limited to maintaining the vegetable garden rather than farming, as the latter was far more intrusive and persistent. As is generally known, the spirit of Cluny was the object of a historical dispute between Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairvaux. The pretext – represented by the appropriation of proceeds coming from the parishes situated on the abbey territory – was soon overtaken by a strong objection to the 4 Raoul Glaber was a monk, and the text was written during the first half of the elventh century (see Duby 1976: 65). 5 See Hallinger 1963: vol. 10, 261–64. Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, ed. K. Hallinger, Siegburg 1963 and Vol. X, 261–264. 6 Le Goff’s interpretation of the strictly instrumental use of books (which are defined as purely luxury objects, regardless of their content) should be considered as limited to his main thesis about the apparent Carolingian renaissance and about court customs. As discussed the following pages, it cannot be referred to the whole monastic universe.

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Cluniac life ideal (Pacaut 1986). The reduction of manual labour to an irrelevant dimension, to the advantage of opulent and wearying liturgies, was at the core of Bernard and William of Saint-Thierry’s attacks. The creation of the Cistercian order represented an explicit protest against the Cluniac style. The monks would go to work in the fields in the morning, unless this compromised the liturgy of the hours, personal prayer and meditation times. Work in the fields, which were often far away from the abbey because donations involved the farthest and least fertile estates, gave rise to the grange, namely a monastic and rural settlement which was built where the distance between the abbey and the fields was too long for the monks to be able to come back to the cloister after a working day in the fields. However, the Cistercians opened their doors to lay brothers (conversi), mostly illiterate lay people who took their vows even if they were not allowed to sing in the choir. These used to devote themselves to farming and resided in the grange when the activities in the fields required a full commitment. By accepting poor and illiterate lay brothers, who were often peasants’ sons, cloisters opened their doors to those social classes that up to then had been kept on the fringe of consecrated life. Within eleventh century religious fervour, cloisters ended up being visited as much as pilgrimage routes and the roads to the Holy Land. The percentage of lay brothers grew dramatically and exceeded considerably that of the choir’s members. “At Rievaulx at the time of Abbot Ailred’s death in 1167, his biographer tells us that the lay brothers numbered five hundred, as against one hundred and forty choir monks. Pointigny at the same period housed three hundred conversi, as against one hundred choir monks. At Himmerod in 1224, sixty choir monks were outnumbered by two hundred lay brothers” (Lawrence 1989: 178–79). The lay brothers’ farm labour was integrated in monastic life as a particular form of ascesis, accessible to the illiterate and was blessed by miraculous apparitions, such as the one of the Blessed Virgin to Saint Anne, as well as Saint Mary Magdalene in Clairvaux or the Blessed Virgin in Himmerod.7

Approaching the Modern World

When observed from the perspective of monastic life, the coming of the modern world seems to coincide with the perception of a forthcoming end of times. From the Desert Fathers to Cistercian spirituality, the vocation for a life 7 These episodes are mentioned in Strange 1851(v. 1): 24, 340. Dialogus miracolorum, edited by J. Strange, Cologne, 1851, Vol. I, pp. 24 and 340.

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of perfection was still linked to the notion of a declining civilization, of a world that was running out of its living force. This traditional image of a declining world was extremely clear in Benedict of Nursia in 529 and was still vivid in the sermons by Bernard of Clairvaux during the first half of the twelfth century (Lawrence 1989: 184), and then received a further boost with the spread of heresies. This introduced some substantial changes: the world that was going to be abandoned appeared to be more and more in need of religious preaching; the development of ars predicandi prevailed on the ascetic principles of early monasticism; mendicant orders began to be established. Considering the commitment for preaching as the real goal of religious ascesis, they set themselves against both hermits (who did not consider themselves as masters to such an extent that they refused to take religious orders not to preach) and Benedictine communities (who prayed for everyone’s salvation). Heresies, as well as the signs of decadence within the Church, were interpreted according to an apocalyptic key and thus considered as evidence of the end of times. As a consequence, Dominican preacher Manfred of Vercelli even exhorted wives to split from their husbands in order to free themselves from any tie before the judgement of God (Delumeau 1978). The apocalyptical perspective continued to disrupt heavily the religious universe up to the sixteenth century, when Martin Luther interpreted the Church of Rome’s corruption as a revealing sign of the end of the world, and Calvin took upon himself the role of the prophet of the last days (Séguy 1993: 93–115). The apocalyptic interpretation gave rise to a new series of attitudes, ranging from the sectarian drift to mysticism, from penitential angst to inner introspection (Séguy 1977). In particular, the latter acted in such a radical way that religious spirituality placed an increasingly greater emphasis on the desire for internal solitude against any other need. The main goal was to imitate Christ in his daily poverty, in his ordinary work as craftsman, in his meditation on the Holy Scriptures. De Imitatione Christi (probably written by Thomas à Kempis, who died in 1471) is one of the best known texts of the time. A close observation of one of the best known forms of that which has been defined as Devotio Moderna − that is the “Brethren of the Common Life” founded by Florentius Radewijns, a disciple of Gerard Groote(1340–1384) – provides some initial evidence to appreciate the future urban society of modern times. The last image under consideration is that of the work these early “city monks” did as book copiers and binders in Flemish and German towns in the late Middle Ages. Their day started with meditation, before singing matins. Then they worked until the first Mass. The brothers used to go to the parish church, reciting the third hour psalms on the way there and the sixth hour ones on the way back. As soon as they got back home they used to go back to work. They had a break only at ten for a meal and public reading. After their

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meal they used to retire to their cells and to sing the ninth hour, then returning to their work until Vespers (Iserloh 1968). As can be noticed, the importance of work prevailed over psalm singing, and the very distance between one hour and the other is now altered. Despite the attempt to achieve a work-prayer balance, the time allotted to psalms was actually subordinate to the time reserved to work and its needs. This is a profoundly different scenario, shifting from the isolated monasteries to city residences, from farming to handcrafting − i.e., a more flexible kind of labour with respect to location needs, as well as far less dependence on weather conditions and the inexorable cycle of seasons. However, the new rules proved to be even more stringent than the previous ones. In the Netherlands’s towns, the watch replaced the bell tower, which is clear evidence of the establishment of a more precise way of measuring time. According to Jacques Le Goff (1977), this signals the affirmation of profane time, which is counted and meticulously measured in order to measure factories’ production. This has nothing to do with monastic time, which was necessary to indicate the beginning of the divine office, meditation and reading times. It would be far too easy to give in to such a dichotomy or simply notice that even Gerard Groote’s successors adapted themselves to what was going to become the scenario of the looming modern world. In fact, what remained unchanged at all was the importance attached to the space reserved to inner meditation. “What am I doing over here?” is the question that every day the Brethren of the Common Life had to ask themselves over and over again. This question clearly indicates the development of a personal ascesis that was constantly oriented to rediscovering and renewing the times and the reasons behind their choice, i.e., living an inner life closer to the fundamental figure of Christ. The dimension of inner life, which was already present in the Desert Fathers and which was fostered by Benedictine, Cluniac and Cistercian monks during their hours of silence, represents the most important legacy of monastic ascesis to modern men and women. Conclusions At the dawn of early modernity, and at the eve of the Lutheran and Catholic Reforms, monastic spirituality underlined the primacy of inner life, silence and meditation. The fourteenth century was marked by many changes, e.g. urban economy was fully developed and the new world opened its doors; the whole Western world started to distance itself from the aguish for the end of times. Congregations with specific duties were established, together

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with brotherhoods and secular spirituality. The Devotio Moderna, as well as Rhineland mysticism, rather than being the mere elaboration of a contemplative universe in crisis, represent the most updated result of inner introspection which started with the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries and was also strongly defended by the ad intra dissent against the relaxation of customs, the intrusion of secular local authorities, and disregard for inner life. Certainly, this sort of active ascesis started to gain ground to the detriment of the essentially contemplative ideal of early monasticism, which was harshly attacked by the Reform itself. The main characteristic of the new religious families was the primacy of active life. The modern world – fully embedded in the primacy of the immanent and rational State (Troeltsch 1977) as well as in the self-sufficiency of the immanent interpretations of the world – tended to marginalize all the space that centuries of spirituality had reserved to introspection and to conscience spaces. The Benedictine icon, along with the whole other-worldly asceticism, was relegated to archives for centuries. The topicality of this defence of the inner universe is a sign of how much modernity owes to the religious heritage that can be found in the European history (Troeltsch, 1977), regardless of specific contextual oppositions. Thereby, the phrase ora et labora (an invitation in imperative form) revealed unexpected meanings that might have gone unseen in the great number of instances in which it was quoted. Considering the examples analyzed above, it is possible to appreciate how difficult it was to implement this Rule across different ages, and to highlight its major purpose, namely to preserve the space of inner reflection and to defend constantly the right of every individual to protect it against any material, social or political need. References Abbruzzese, Salvatore. 1995. La vita religiosa: Per una sociologia della vita consacrata. Rimini: Guaraldi. ——  . 2000. “Sociologia della vita consacrata: disinvestimento sociale, spazi di plausibilità e integrazione sociale,” in Claretianum, v. XV, 43–73. —— . 2003. “Religiosi e società: elementi per una sociologia della vita consacrata,” in Vaccaio, Lucio and Claudio Stroppa. 2003. Ora et Labora: Le comunità religiose nella società contemporanea. Busto Arsizio: Nomos edizioni, 37–52. Attanasio. 1984. Vita di Antonio, edited by Lisa Cremaschi. Rome: Edizioni Paoline. Bloch, Marc. [1939] 1982. La société féodale. Paris: Albin Michel. ——  . 1965. Feudal Society: Social Classes and Political Organization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Brown, Peter. 1982. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cassian, John. The Twelve Books of John Cassian on the Institutes of the Coenobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. http://www.documentacatholicaomnia .eu/03d/0360-0435,_Cassianus,_De_Coenobiorum_Institutis_Libri_Duodecim _[Schaff],_EN.pdf. Colombás, García M. 1978. “Asceti e ascete.” Pp. 922–23 in Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione. De Certeau, Michel. 1987. La faiblesse de croire. Paris: Seuil. De Vogüé, Adalbert. 1991. “Prosternarsi con frequenza per pregare: Un invito alla preghiera continua.” Pp. 467–472 in Autori Vari, La comunità. Ordinamento e spiritualità. Bresseo di Teolo: Edizioni Scritti Monastici Abbazia di Praglia. Delumeau, Jean. 1978. La peur en Occident. Paris: Fayard. Duby, Georges. 1976. Le temps des cathedrals: L’art et la société 980–1420. Paris: Gallimard. ——  . 1978. Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme. Paris: Gallimard. ——  . 1979. Saint Bernard, l’art cistercien. Paris: Flammarion. ——  . 1980. The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined. London: University of Chicago Press. ——  . 1981. The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society 980–1420. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Durkheim, Emile. 1912. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris: puf. Guillaumont, Antoine. 1979. Aux origines du monachisme chrétien: Pour une phénoménologie du monachisme. Bégrolles en Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine. Guy, Jean–Claude. 1987. La vie religieuse, mémoire évangélique de l’Eglise. Paris: Centurion. Iserloh, Erwin 1968. “Die Devotio moderna.” Pp. 516–538 in Hans-Georg Beck. Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte Vol. V-2 Die mittelalterliche Kirche, trad. it. 1988. Storia della Chiesa, Vol. V-2, Tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, Milan: Jaca Book. Lawrence, Clifford Hugh. 1989. Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. London: Longman Group. Le Bras, Gabriel. 1979. Les Ordres Religieux, la vie et l’art. Paris: Flammarion. Le Goff, Jacques. 1957. Les intellectuels au Moyen Age. Paris: Seuil. ——  . 1977. Pour un autre Moyen Age: Temps, travail et culture en Occident. Paris: Gallimard. ——  . 1993. Intellectuals in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Blackwell. Leclercq, Jean 1978. “Monachesimo.” Pp. 1672–84 in Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione, Vol. V. Rome: Edizioni Paoline. Lialine, Clément. 1961. “Éremitisme en Orient.” Pp. 936–953 in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Paris: Beauchesne. Massein, Pierre 1952. “Le phénomène monastique dans les religions non chrétiennes.” Pp. 1525–36 in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 10. Paris: Beauchesne.

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Moulin, Léo. 1991. La vita quotidiana secondo San Benedetto. Milano: Jaca Book. Pacaut, Marcel. 1986. L’ordre de Cluny. Paris: Fayard. Regnault, Lucien. 1990. La vie quotidienne des pères du désert en Egypte au IV siècle. Paris: Hachette. ——  . 1999. The Day-to-Day Life of the Desert Fathers in Fourth-Century Egypt. Petersham, Mass: St. Bede. Séguy, Jean. 1971. “Une sociologie des sociétés imaginées, monachisme et utopie.” Pp. 328–54 in Annales, esc, mars–avril 1971, pp. 328–354. ——  . 1977. “Non conformismi religiosi d’Occidente.” Pp. 483–558 in Storia delle religioni 3 edited by H.-C. Puech (ed.). Bari: Laterza. ——  . 1993. “Messianismes et Millénarismes: Ou de l’Attente comme catégorie de l’agir social.” Pp. 93–115 in Action collective et mouvements sociaux, edited by F. Chazel. Paris: p.u.f. Troeltsch, Ernst. 1977. L’essenza del mondo moderno. Napoli: Bibliopolis.

chapter 2

Virtuosity, “Folklorisation” and Cultural Protest: Monasticism as a Laboratory of the Confrontation between Christianity and Modernity Danièle Hervieu-Léger It may seem strange to consider monasticism as the focal point of a study of contemporary religious modernity. This idea can even seem somewhat provocative, inasmuch as the golden age of Western monasticism appears linked with the existence of a Christendom long ago overshadowed by the historical development of secularization and the differentiation of institutions. Associating monasticism and modernity is certainly by no means obvious. Yet one can also consider that the monastery is a place where all the dimensions of the confrontation between the utopia of a Christian summum of individual and collective human existence, on the one hand, and the experience of the world no longer organized by religion, on the other, can occur. From this point of view, monasticism can be taken as a sort of laboratory of confrontation, as well as of the restructuring of the relationships between Christianity and modernity. The objective of this chapter is to point out several directions of research liable to initiate such a programme. It is difficult, however, to venture along this path without stressing the paucity of interest that sociologists have shown for many years in this monastic reality,1 a reality that played such an important role not only in religious history but which also engendered economic, political and cultural repercussions with great force. Even though things are doubtless in the process of changing (as the present volume testifies), this reticence appears even more troubling as ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary historiography offers, by contrast, a rich harvest of works of reference on the religious and monastic orders. These works emphasize the civilizing contribution of these orders and their role in the paths of Christianity in the East and the West. How is it that sociologists should appear – at least until a very recent date – so little inclined to take over this dossier? One will note, first of all, that the embarrassment of researchers echoes that of the monks themselves when 1 With the notable exception of the founding article of Jean Séguy, on monasticism as a utopia, an article which, incidentally, concerned more the historical forms of monasticism than contemporary monasticism; “Une sociologie des sociétés imagines: Monachisme et utopie,” Annales 1972: 328–54 (translated in the present issue). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_003

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asked to define their condition; to those who are plunged existentially inside, “monasticism” does not inevitably appear as a reality that can be clearly defined. Even ad intra, the “monastic identity” has been the object of different approaches, depending on whether the accent is placed on the specificity of a spiritual vocation, on the particular characteristics of a state of life, or on the membership of a given religious “family.” The uncertainty is first of all judicial: Canon Law contains no objective criterion allowing – within the general and clearly-fixed framework of the “consecrated life” – the identification of the subgroup specifically constituted by the monks.2 A monk is – generally speaking – one who belongs to an order defined by the Catholic Church as a “monastic order,” such an order being itself recognized classically by life in common, led according to a Rule, under the authority of a superior. The feeble power of discrimination of this description strikes one immediately in that it includes most religious orders, including begging orders and congregations with an apostolic vocation. The distinction, of a spiritual kind, between an “active” and a “contemplative” religious life does not help us much. Beyond the fact that this distinc­ tion is formally refuted by those who, in monasteries, as well as in apostolic congregations, claim a vocation inseparably turned toward both contemplation and action, the distinction does not constitute an operating principle of differentiation between the actual forms of consecrated life.3 Certainly the long history of Christianity testifies to the constant presence of monks, but the question “What is a monk?” nevertheless remains open. Or rather, the reply is part of the permanent task of self-definition through which those who embrace the monastic religious life produce – from their dispositions, interests, aspirations, and experiences – the “sense” of their experience, collective as well as individual. This production is not only part of the evolutions and revolutions in the ways of living and practising the Rule that punctuate monastic history: it nourishes, inseparably, the immense theoretical elaboration – historiographical and anthropological, as well as theological and spiritual – of the great monastic narrative, transmitted in writing from century to century. This historical dynamic is precisely that which can retain the researcher wishing to explore, as a sociologist, the monastic fact: “monasticism” is not a 2 In the case of women, however, the reference to “being cloistered” constitutes an objective criterion of Canon Law to characterize the condition of being a nun. 3 A point underlined by the Decree on the Adaptation and Renovation of Religious Life (Prefectae Caritatis) of the Second Vatican Council (Paris: Cerf, Unam Sanctam, 1967: 262–295).

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substantial reality, directly recognizable, which can be isolated in the vast empirical ensemble of social components connected with “Christianity.” This is, for Christianity itself, a question that is never closed. For that reason, the “monastic question”, as such, constitutes a formidable analytic for a sociology of Christianity: the richness of this field of analysis is no less today, in dealing with the confrontation of Christianity and modernity, than it is in understanding the civilizing work of Christianity in the formation of European culture. Let us add two concrete elements that contribute to reinforce the quasiexperimental dimension which the confrontation of Christianity and modernity assumes in the laboratory that is a monastery: The first is the autonomy specific to each monastery. This autonomy is par excellence a distinctive feature of the Benedictine Order, but it functions even in the case (as with the Cistercians) of a stronger integration of the monasteries within a congregation centralized around its Roman headquarters. Each monastery – due to both its canonical definition, its formal structure (and notably the distribution of power within its organization), of its way of life in practice (the separation from the world materialized by its “cloistered aspect”), and in many cases, the social dispositions of its members – is a place where community, political, economic, intellectual, and other dynamics evolve (which can, to some degree, be isolated for analysis), as if under glass – or as seen through a magnifying glass. The second element is the network that links these autonomous units among themselves and with the outside world. A monastery is in fact a nucleus connected in many ways to a dense system of different networks: the network of abbeys, priories and communities which they engender or from which they emerge, according to the logic of expansion which historically characterizes monastic foundations; a formal network of the congregation to which it belongs, but also a much vaster network of the “spiritual family” with which it identifies itself (thus the Benedictines, the Cistercians, the “TrappistCistercians” and others – all “sons of St Benedict”); institutional networks, defined by local, national and international co-operation, which maintain the community according to the activities that it implements; social networks of the oblates, regular worshippers, friends, and so on, which generate a circulation whose density is difficult to imagine for those who consider that “leaving the world” logically entails a lessening of social relationships; networks of kinship (even more powerful since the monastic recruitment of Benedictines until recently, in many places, was associated with noble European families playing a decisive role in the re-foundations of the 19th century); intellectual, artistic or political networks; scientific networks (who knows, for example,

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that several monasteries in France house or have housed units of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique or of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique?); and networks associated with the economic life of the monasteries. The monasteries, and in particular the great monasteries of monks which organized the cartography of the Orders, were and still are true crossroads of exchanges and meetings, in all registers of social activity. Historians are aware of what happened in ancient times. The phenomenon is also true for the contemporary period. The sociology of religion has shown almost no interest in this monastic material nor in the spaces that it organizes, a point of view at least as interesting, from the point of view of social and religious dynamics, as the forms of communalisation on which sociology has concentrated the main part of its work of description. And yet, the recognition of these connections and circulations offers a matter of prime choice to grasp, at different historical moments, the forms of these exchanges and interactions between Christianity and society. This heuristic efficiency of the reflection on monasticism can be illustrated in many fields. We give here one example: the way in which it can clarify the problem of the status of the “double ethic” proper to a “Christianity of the church-type” in the context of a now-accomplished secularization.

What Remains of the “Double Ethic” Principle?

In the ideal-type definition given by Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, the Christianity of the Church Type is characterized – among other traits – by a double regime of religious intensity: a weak regime of obligatory observances to which all the faithful are submitted on the one hand, and a strong regime reserved to a small number of those who commit themselves to lead a perfect Christian life on the other. This double regime is linked to a tension that accompanies the entire history of Christianity: on the one hand, the certainty that the Church, called to extend its empire to the extremities of the earth, testifies in itself to the accomplished presence of salvation in the world; on the other hand, the no-less-strong conviction that the Kingdom of Heaven which will bring about this plenitude, is yet to come. Those who submit to the instructions of the Church concerning beliefs and practices testify to the sanctity of an institution that embodies – after Christ ascended into heaven – the present efficiency of his work of salvation, through the preaching of the word and the administration of sacraments distributed by the ministers of the cult. Furthermore, it falls upon a small number of Christians, qualified by a specific vocation (the monks) to keep open, through the choice of a way of life radically

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separated from the world, the immeasurable distance that remains between the present reign of the Church and the Kingdom yet to come. What happens to this founding logic of the double ethic when the “sovereignty” of the Church over the world is condemned, due to the modern conquests of autonomy, to express itself exclusively in the form of a spiritual and moral proposition offered to voluntary believers? To what more perfect Christian accomplishment can the monk testify, if each Christian is – in a post-religious and post-Christian society – ordered to assume personally the evangelical demand of “being in the world as if one were not part of it”? The question posed here obviously pushes to the limit a tendency which spread and has continued to spread through different ways following national historical contexts. Even in Europe, often considered as the only cultural area (with Quebec after the “Quiet Revolution”) truly propitious for an analysis in terms of secularization, Christianity in its Catholic and Roman form has not become (or at least not everywhere) a purely private religious option, nor a minority condition for those who embrace it. The Church even remains, in a certain number of European countries, a political, economic and cultural power that still efficiently conserves the regime of socio-religious positions prescribed by the double ethic. Nonetheless, what has now become optional status of religious adhesion is a fact common to all modern societies and can be considered, with good reason, as the starting point of all secularization (Taylor 2007). The slackening of the obligatory character of observance within the religious institution has logically followed the movement of this political and cultural repression in the private sphere. Generally, the lessening, not of belief but of religious affiliation, makes all those who still proclaim their active membership of the Church plunge into a certain form of “virtuosity.” This virtuosity is certainly very different from monastic virtuosity, for it stems more from an assumed cultural dissonance rather than an ascetic exercise. But it contains no less a form of social distancing and a certain cost for the individuals. These are led to consider – joining in that an ancient protestant problem – that the Christian life exposed in the world, such as it is, constitutes a less spectacular, but certainly no less demanding, “way of perfection” than that of cloistered life of a monastery or a convent. This tendency is powerfully reinforced by the contemporary affirmation of the right of each individual to express his own subjectivity as far as belief is concerned, in conformity with global requests of “psychological modernity.” It manifests itself, in particular, in the Catholic sphere as in the whole of the Christian world, in the way that the definition of a “true” believer varies everywhere from the figure of the faithful observer – the “regularly practicing

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member” who inherits his identity and respects the obligations assigned by the institution to its faithful – to the figure of the converted – the one who “chooses” his religion and personally proclaims his membership (Hervieu-Léger 1999). The increasing process of the affirmation of the Catholic faithful as a subject accompanies the general movement of the modernization of identities: a movement on which the Roman Church itself has been led to confer a positive spiritual sense in valorising, more than it has ever done (even if it assigns limits), the capacity of the faithful to express personally their authenticity as believers. The contemporary individual is considered as an autonomous individual, required in all domains (conjugal, family, professional, religious, and so on) to conduct himself or herself as an authentic subject. The acceptation of this double imperative of autonomy and authenticity finds itself, at one stroke, placed in the heart of a compromise that the Roman Catholic Church is led to make with contemporary culture and politics in order to preserve the plausibility of its own message. In this context, the difference traditionally established between the “simple faithful” subject to the obligations that are the elementary guarantee of membership and the “committed faithful” or “converted” who personally testify to their faith, loses an important part of its religious legitimacy ad intra and of its social significance ad extra. From this point of view, one can moreover ask oneself if the intensification of religious competition, which characterizes a certain number of regions in the world, does not produce, in a totally different way, similar and convergent effects to those of the process of secularization, in the European manner, by favouring equally, at the same time as the valorisation of the figure of the converted in all religions of the Church type, the militant display of religious commitment and the intensive mobilization that the believers are led to make, in this competition, by a virtuoso demonstration of the superiority of the faith that animates them and of the proof of their distancing themselves from the values of the world. The expansion of a Catholicism of conversion – of which the “new communities” which proliferate in African, Latin-American and Asiatic Catholic areas, in reaction to the offensive vitality of the Evangelical and New Pentecostal churches give us a good illustration – also contributes, in its own way, to questioning the traditional forms of religious virtuosity organized within the framework of the double ethic. The general promotion of the religion of personal choice – a choice to be expressed publicly, imposing a distancing from the dominant values – contributes to make the logic of the exceptional vocation which distinguishes the monks from the common run of the faithful more ordinary. Let us say, to sum up this proposition, that each Christian is from now on expected, to the extent that he is socially and

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subjectively obliged to assume that he is a voluntary believer, to construct his religious identity, as least up to a certain point, as a virtuoso identity. This situation profoundly transforms the meaning of the very roots of monastic life, which (we should not forget) cannot only be defined, no matter the epoch, in terms of ascetic performance, accomplished individually or even collectively. If this performance, which can take on different forms, is valorised, it is as the real testimony that it brings to the more fundamental decision of living according to values other than those of the world. Over many centuries, Christian monasticism has inscribed this “distancing oneself” as a permanent invocation of the Kingdom to come, in the fabric of a society whose culture is globally impregnated with Christianity. Obviously, this does not mean that this society has been completely Christianised or subjected to the Church’s control, but simply indicates the fact that Christianity meant something to everyone – devout believers, evasive believers, detached individuals or those resolutely without religion. The present hollowing out of the Christian cultural mould thus creates a new situation: at the same time that the “convert” takes precedence over the Christian by birth in the scale of the qualification of belief, it is the commitment of each Christian that is progressively laden, at least to a certain extent, with a virtuoso quality. This transfer of intensity, from the monks to the set of Christians who expect to assert their religious dissonance in a post-Christian society, can be seen particularly well in the communities called New which have flourished in the Catholic landscape over the last forty years. The attraction of the model of monastic organization, with its Rule, its vows, its prayer rhythms, and even its specific system of law has been much remarked upon among the mixed communities joining lay couples and families as well as single men and women or priests – living and working in the world. One has less remarked that these communities of Christians living together as the small remnants of the faithful in a world that has become foreign to Christianity contribute powerfully, in the other direction, to the dissemination of the virtuoso ideal within a Catholicism which has become the religion of a minority in a post-Christian society. The monks themselves interiorize this transfer by unanimously refusing the ancient ways of talking, within Catholicism, of monastic life as a more perfect way, spiritually superior to life in the world and more apt than the latter to bear witness of the Kingdom to come. With only a few exceptions, all insist to the contrary on the equal dignity of the Christian ways of life in the midst of a post-Christian world, and on the demands that all these ways of life elicit for those who undertake to follow them. It is important, in this perspective, to recognize the diversity of the “calls” addressed by God to each one and the difference of “the ways” corresponding to these calls, rather than establishing

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among them some sort of a hierarchy. The “double ethic” that once powerfully organized the relationship between the Church and the World, is thus dissolved, at least as a tendency, in the recognition of the plurality of the spiritual vocations within the Christian people.

Contemporary Monasticism and the Danger of its Becoming Folkloric

If religious intensity is, as a tendency, the general condition of those who assume and claim a Christian identity in a post-Christian world, if the disruption of the regime of double ethic brought about by the process of secularization blurs the traditional definition of virtuosity – what sense objective and subjective – today takes on the choice of a monastic life? The monk questioned about his vocation very often replies by invoking the singularity of a call personally received – a call that he has ascertained, whose radical nature he feels in his own life, and about which, finally, he has no more to say, if not to associate this call with an affinity felt regarding a particular spiritual family and (often) with a particular place. The ample mobilization of the repertory of the vocabulary of love – the resorting in particular to the metaphor of “love at first sight” – to describe, as well as possible, the nature of this “call” leaves the problem of the meaning of monastic life in contemporary society untouched. Those concerned agree with this all the more readily as they are confronted in many cases with the real problem of the scarcity of new vocations, which can go so far as to put in danger, in the middle and even short term, the survival of an important number of communities. One could easily imagine that the impression, often expressed by monks and nuns, of constituting the “small remnant” of a world in the process of disappearing from the social, cultural and even religious horizon of those very societies where the important spiritual families precisely took shape, could be somewhat compensated by the realization of the fascination that monasteries and convents nonetheless provoke in these same societies: things are less simple. Monasteries today are indeed in the hub of an impressive network of circulation. The hostels and welcome services are no longer sufficient to satisfy all the requests for accommodation and for the crowds of tourists who flock to listen to liturgical chants, to perceive these silent men (or women) living the thousand-year old rhythm of services, and to buy in the shops products labelled “monastic tradition” – cheeses, wax, pottery, fruit jelly, and pious souvenirs – from which these communities make their living. The traditional public of the monasteries – those on spiritual retreats, regular worshippers or pilgrims – are

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submerged, above all during the summer months, in this great flow of casual visitors, whose spiritual expectations are often vague and inchoate, but rarely completely absent, even if only in the background. Beyond seeking for the aesthetic and a desire to visit one’s heritage, many of these visitors refer to, in one way or another, the attraction of the peace, the equilibrium and harmony that they attribute to monastic life in a community. A life of which they know nothing or nearly nothing. This “ignorant gratitude” from which the monks benefit can be measured by the success of films that are supposed to allow one to have some idea of the secret of cloistered life. One thinks less here of the formidable success of Yves Beauvois’s film on the drama that cost the life of the Cistercian monks of Notre Dame de l’Atlas at Thibirine than the extraordinary audience realized by the documentary film of Philippe Gröning Le grand silence, shot in the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse (in the Isère departement) and shown on French television (TF1) in 2007. For many of our contemporaries, non-believers as well as believers, monastic life offers, first of all, a testimony to a kind of “art de vivre” governed by a quality of wisdom opposed in every way to the traits of frenetic and exhausting modernity. This art de vivre cannot, of course, be imitated, and no one, allowing for exceptions, thinks of committing oneself permanently; but this momentary contemplation can procure beneficial and expected results: a breath of life, a suspension of the onward march of the world, bringing everyone, if only fleetingly, back to oneself. This paradoxical success, in circumstances marked above all by the reduction in numbers and the ageing of the communities, does not constitute a source of unadulterated satisfaction for the monasteries. A certain number of monks view this passing craze as a disturbance, difficult to deal with, even as a threat. Certain communities protect themselves by reinforcing the rigors of the cloistered aspect. Most of them try and adapt to this situation by organizing their own physical living spaces and mobilizing their forces as rationally as possible to meet this invading demand. The argument of economic survival, linked in many cases to the sale of monastic products, means they have to – up to a point. Beyond the diversity of the offers of welcome and services made by the monasteries to visitors and passers-by, this adaptation, nonetheless, involves an often difficult task of re-elaboration of the fundamentals of monastic life, a task which the monasteries (or a part of them at least) have to undertake to control the danger of becoming simply elements of folklore – a risk felt by all. For, beyond the specific question of the fashion of monastic tourism, it is the whole of monastic life – this secluded life, “in community according to the Rule and under the authority of an abbot” – which is trapped between the risk of trivialization that its strangeness to contemporary culture brings about

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and its own values, and the mythologizing projections caused by its exotic character, within the same culture. This notion of becoming “folkloric” should be considered in the perspective outlined by Michel de Certeau, when he evoked, in an interview with JeanMarie Domenach, the contemporary process of the aestheticizing of Christianity: The corpus of Christian scripture and rites is perceived, that is to say employed, as a collection of beautiful, poetic, evocative works of art: churches, texts, liturgies that propose a matter for theatrical creation, secret poetics of reading, new compositions of social imagination. They are no longer testimonies of a Revelation, the signs of a truth given to Christian faith, but the wonderful ruins of a symbolic system opening to all the possibilities of invention and expression. The decline of the perception of belief can be measured with the advance of the aesthetic perception. Malraux said long ago: of the Christian Middle Ages all that remains is a people of statues. Since the recordings of Gregorian chants sold by hundreds of thousands in Japan right up to the death of Jesus, an evangelic poem taken up by dozens of theatrical troupes, the Christian language is spoken by non-Christians, as a text which shows their itineraries and no longer its own truth. A religion is transformed into an experience other than its own. de certeau 1974: 11–12

These shifts in meaning are made possible by the disintegration of the institutional system that anchored the beliefs, symbols and all the apparatus of Christian discourse in recognizable and stable practices. Henceforth, fragments in a floating system: The church constellation disseminates as its elements leave their orbit (…). Each sign follows its own route, drifts, obeys different re-uses, as if the words of a sentence dispersed on the page and entered in other compositions of meaning. Of a system of expression of Christian faith, there remains a glossary of which certain elements are used to express new interrogations. In particular, the religious repertory is used to express the problems caused by the distancing of the traditional society: the refusals and anxieties, reassuring reinterpretations or blasphemous ruptures that accompany this detachment. It assures the transit from one social structure to another. de certeau 1974: 11–12

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More than forty years later, this analysis remains surprisingly acute and clarifies the complex signification of the “monks’ success,” and beyond this helps to reflect on the process of “going folkloric” that concerns Christianity as a whole. Down the centuries the figure of the monk has taken its place coherently through the principle of the double ethic, in the Christian institutional system – and more specifically the Catholic system. It entered, with that of the priest and that of the ordinary believer, in a stable configuration of positions and significations that constituted in itself the system of expression of Christian faith. Partially disengaged, even completely “taken out of orbit” from this system, the figure of the monk tends to become, through different re-investments of which it becomes the object, the screen on which are projected a whole cluster of expectations, hopes and nostalgia feeded the inexhaustible wealth of the utopian repertoire of monasticism, including its linguistic elements. This power of monasticism on the contemporary imagination can be seen in the abundance of the solicitations made on monks and nuns to bear witness in public to their vocation, because of its extraordinary character, and this when the common Christian culture is collapsing and when vocations in monasteries have become very rare. From this point of view, this “monastic theatre” can be seen as the privileged place of a virtual altercation between a Christianity radically withdrawn from the world and installed in a supposed ahistorical permanence on the one hand, and a social world ruled on the contrary by the imperative and often brutal constraint of mobility and innovation on the other.

Conclusion. Monasticism Reinvented: New forms of Christian Cultural Protest

To say that society projects its aspirations and worries on the alternative screen presented by the monastic world is, however, not entirely satisfactory if the formula suggests that the figure of the monk, deconstructed and recomposed by the investments of which it is the object, passively picks up the reflection of the refusals and hopes that such change creates. This phenomenon of projection also transforms, and often without their realising it, those whom it concerns, by making them individually and collectively take on new roles on a social, political and economic or religious stage. The displacements proceed only partially from external pressure of which the figure of the monk is the focus. Admittedly, one can easily quote cases of direct manipulation of

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monastic folklore: from the most trivial, the label of an important abbey extolling the qualities of a brand of beer or of a cheese fabricated outside its walls – to the most perverse, draped in the virtues of the “testimony,” such as the discographic productions of such and such a choir of nuns, urged to involve themselves – quite naively one can imagine – in the wake of the Crooning Priests, consecrated by the box office.4 The phenomena, and more widely the spectacular development, of the circulation of the monastic economy, illustrate the inevitable dependence of monastic life – whether desired or not – on the market economy (Jonveaux 2011), at the same time as the tendency of the market economy to incorporate a symbolic and aesthetic dimension is likely to reveal new centre of profit. But this tendency, although only concerned marginally with the definition of monastic experience, nonetheless forces it into a caricature of itself with a “monastic style” which has become a sales ploy. The issue changes dimension when the requirements of the social environment reveal for the interested themselves, in a practical way, but also in the fields of spirituality or theology, new interpretations of their experiences, even renewed conceptions of the ideal of the monk: the work of re-adaptation of one’s own image (individually or collectively) aroused by the expectations of the social world is inseparable, in this case, from the perpetually renewed process of reinterpreting the meaning of the Rule. This external pressure causes the monastic experience to work on itself and to participate in its permanent redefinition. This phenomenon is rendered particularly visible today, both from the fact that there is the attraction wielded by the monasteries – perceived as enclosures spared from the vertiginous acceleration of the contemporary world – and the availability of the theme of suspended time for the renewal of monastic spirituality itself. It is at work in practice, for example, in the ways of appropriating the principle of hospitality (fundamental in St Benedict’s Rule) based on the “welcome of the other” suffused with the most recent approaches of psychological accompaniment. It affects the research carried out on the innovatory meaning that can be given to monastic frugality from an ecologically balanced conception of the relationships between human communities and their environment. It nourishes the psycho-spiritual in its rediscovery of silence and of fasting according to the dialectic between traditional justifications (the Rule) and that which concerns mental and spiritual health (De Vogué 1988). This work of continuous reinvention provoked by the expectations of an epoch should certainly be underlined. That this reinvention is at the cost of 4 “Les Sœurs,” a singing group constituted by the nuns of the Convent of Le Barroux.

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and sometimes through misunderstandings stemming from the re-inscription of the figure of the monk in configurations of meanings maintaining only an evasive link with the other-worldly anticipation of the Kingdom, is by no means the privilege of the contemporary epoch, reputedly particularly inclined to “do it yourself” procedures and the hybridization of meanings, of beliefs and of practices. In the 19th century, the Romantic infatuation of a Chateaubriand, of a Montalembert, of a Huysmans and of many others, for the civilizing, architectural and religious perfection of Western monasticism falls as much in the province of aesthetic re-invention, the political significance of which was transparent: the monks became, in this imagined scenario of a past Christianity, the witnesses of transcendence and of the continuity of a Christian order of the world, beyond political and cultural changes of the present where all foundations are being undermined. This mythologizing projection, nourished with more than doubtful medievalist references, contributed in return to inspire the re-founders of monastic life in the 19th century. The porosity and the exchanges between the exogenous interpretations of monastic life and the “believing perception” produced by the monks themselves is no less attested to in the past than now. But this is the very point of this dialectical argument – for it inscribes monasticism powerfully in the environment of time – that justifies making it a privileged analyzer of the relationship between Christianity and culture. References De Certeau, Michel. 1974. Le christianisme éclaté. Paris: Seuil. De Vogué, Adalbert. 1988. Aimer le jeûne. Paris: Le Cerf. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 1999. Le pèlerin et le converti. La religion en mouvement. Paris: Flammarion. Jonveaux, Isabelle. 2011. Le monastère au travail. Le Royaume de Dieu au défi de l’économie. Paris: Bayard. Taylor, Charles, 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press.

chapter 3

Female Monasticism in Italy: A Sociological Investigation Giovanni Dalpiaz Christian monasticism is both individualistic and pluralistic. Every monastic finds himself or herself in a complete state of being where “nothing is as important as the love of Christ” as postulated by St. Benedict in Chapter 72 of the Rule, when defining the criteria and fundamental starting point of monasticism. Monasticism also became a search for God that manifested itself in a multitude of different orders and congregations, particularly rooting itself in local communities, which over the centuries resulted in a popular monastic experience integral to the reality of that community and woven into the fabric of everyday life. This was for centuries a strength of the monastic institution, ensuring its lasting through time. The monasteries attracted people called to a religious vocation from the local territory and its surrounding area. Cloistered life, which is currently regarded as peculiar because it affirms a condition of immobility and separation within an extremely mobile society, for many centuries meant that women led a religious life, despite the traditional constraints linked to being a woman. In terms of mobility and the chance of social relations, a cloistered nun experienced a condition not dissimilar to married life. In fact, in certain respects her life had more opportunities, especially if she was of humble origin, because she would learn to read the psalter as well as spiritual books and would be able to take on responsibilities within the monastic community as an abbess, prioress, administrator of the estate, or mentor. Moreover, not a secondary factor in a deeply chauvinist society, she would not have to serve and obey a husband. Of course, her existence would not have taken her beyond her place of birth or her valley of origin either, and socially her relationships would be marked, as for the majority of women, by family or neighborly relationships (Evangelisti 2007).

Cloistered Life as the Expression of the Monastic Space

We cannot look at cloistered life from the perspective of a globalized society or accept it unconditionally as described by cloistered nuns. Cloistered life stems

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_004

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and develops from the choice of a life lived in chastity, i.e., devoid of sexual relationships, in which the service of the divine (through individual and communal prayer, meditation on the Scriptures, and evangelization) takes priority. These two dimensions, service of the divine and chastity, envisaged and interpreted differently in the course of the centuries, are preserved by the cloister. Cloistered life is conceived and put into practice in relation to the exclusive dedication to God which according to both male and female Christian monastic traditions is the central point around which motivation drives toward the search of the “desert” as the archetypal place.1 It is in the desert that during the 40-year exile Israel meets God and achieves its purification from any tendency toward idolatry. Although in the initial Palestinian monasticism physical and symbolic space coincided, the “desert” became then the cave for Benedict2 or the brackish marshes for Romuald3 or the forest for John Gualbert.4 The Cistercian tradition applied a slightly different interpretation of “desert” to the wild space, the hostile place that had not yet been made hospitable by monastic work, whereby the environment is a metaphor for the ascetic commitment that transforms the monk hardened by sin into a person able to love God and his brothers.5 It was in those places outside civilization but not removed from it that the monks built their “place”: the monastery. It was set apart because the rules of social and political life did not apply: everybody was equally bound to the same work and liturgical commitments, regardless of their social origin;6 the monastic community rested on the teachings of the 1 The Eastern Christian tradition follows Basil’s rule, whereas the Western one Benedict’s. From the ninth century, the latter sets the prescriptive and spiritual rules for the majority of male and female monasticics. In Chapter LVIII it establishes the criteria for admission, one of which reads et sollicitudo sit, si revera Deum quaerit, si sollicitus est ad opus dei (Benedicti Regula 1977). 2 “Sed Benedictus…pro Deo laboribus fatigari…deserti loci secessum petiit…Vir autem Dei…in arctissimo specu se tradidit” (Gregorius the Great 2000:138). 3 Romuald (950?–1027) left the Classe monastery in Ravenna due to the moral laxity of the monks and joined the hermit Marino who lived in the uninhabited brackish lands near Venice. 4 John Gualbert (1000?–1073) spent a short time in the San Miniato monastery in his native Florence but left following a disagreement with the abbot, accused of simony, and started a hermit’s life in an alpine area near Florence known today as Vallombrosa. 5 This prospect also partially belongs to Benedict’s rule, in particular in Chapter LXXII where it says that “est zelus bonus, qui separat a vitia et ducit ad Deum…Hunc ergo zelum ferventissimo amore exerceant monachi…caritatem fraternitatis caste impendant, amore Deum timeant.” 6 In Chapter XLVIII of his Rule Benedict establishes that for all monks the working day be divided into times devoted to manual work and times devoted to spiritual matters: “Otiositas inimica est animae, et ideo certis temporibus occupari debent fratres in labore manuum,

36

DALPIAZ

Lord, the Gospel, on which the monastic rule was based and which represented the constitutional code. The ideal model of reference was the first apostolic community as described in the Acts 2:44: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need” and “all the believers were one in heart and mind” (Acts 4: 32). Viewed from this perspective, the monastery was a space which projected itself as alternative to the society in which it was set, as an environment where social needs were not denied but reinterpreted and redefined according to the evangelical message. It was for this reason that from Benedict’s time onwards, with varying degrees of success, the monasteries pursued the ambition of being self-sufficient7 in order to reinforce their total alienation from external influences.8 Seen in this context of the monastery as a separate place, the cloister was but an element in a wider strategy of protection from the corrupting influence of “worldly” customs, models and lifestyles as they were alien or in contraposition to the evangelical ideal. The second feature of the cloister was that it preserved and protected the chastity of the people who lived in the monastery from contact or behavior that may have affected its integrity. This was true, in principle, for monks and cloistered nuns alike, but in actual fact it was applied more attentively and precisely to the latter. This discrimination reflected the belief that women have an innate difficulty in resisting sexual urges as well as the realistic awareness that at times of widespread violence women were exposed to sexual abuse much more than men were. The monastery, for women in particular, was thus interpreted as the place where chastity was protected with the same attention and vigilance used in a fortress to check both on people needing protection and prisoners. As a matter of fact, the monastery gradually took on a more fortified appearance, characterized by high walls, small windows with strong iron bars, tightly shut doors, and grills that allowed people to communicate without the need for physical contact. However, the ecclesiastical regulations aimed at tightening and applying rigidly the rules concerning cloistered life ceteris iterum horis in lectione divina.” Some exceptions are allowed, but only due to the physical weakness of individuals, not their social provenance: “Omnia tamen mensurate fiant propter pusillanimes.” 7 “Monasterium autem, si possit fieri, ita debet constitui ut omnia necessaria, id est aqua, molendinum, hortum vel artes diversas intra monasterium exerceantur, ut non sit necessitas monachis vagandi foris, quia omnino non expedit animabus eorum.” Regula LXVI. 8 It is for this reason that the Benedictine Rule establishes that monks who must unavoidably and temporarily leave the monastery must not recount what they have seen or heard (“Nec praesumat quisquam referre alio quaecumque foris monasterium viderit aut audierit, quia plurima destructio est.” Regula, LXVII).

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were not enforced immediately or everywhere. The turning point in the relationship between female monasticism and cloistered life happened with the Clarisse experience.9 From the beginning, those nuns presented themselves as secluded, that is, permanently bound to the cloister (clausae manere). This model eventually imposed itself within the Benedictine tradition where in the course of time discretio had permitted, and still does, a degree of flexibility in the interpretation of the rules, including those about cloistered life, so that they could be complied with by those who were spiritually strong as well as by the spiritually weaker or wavering monastics.10 This meant that cloistered nuns were allowed to leave the monastery not only for spiritual (pilgrimages, processions, etc.), institutional (attendance of general chapters or ecclesiastical meetings, etc.) reasons, but also for personal reasons (visiting family, spa treatments, etc.). The Council of Trent marked the turning point that shaped cloistered life as we know it today. The 1563 Decretum de regularibus et monialibus reinforced the strict secluded life for cloistered nuns, but specifically it also stipulated that “nemini autem sanctimonialium licet, post professionem exire a monasterio, etiam ad breve tempus.” Progressively, therefore, the idea of the choice of monastic life as akin to voluntary imprisonment took shape. Following the Council’s decree, a very detailed set of rules was produced, which delineated in a generalized way, applicable also to its architecture, the image of the monastery as a locked place, where nobody enters unless they mean to stay forever, and which nobody leaves. In actual fact, though, this did not prevent the continuous flow of exchanges and communication between the monastery and its surroundings. It is important to remember that up until the French Revolution the monastery was considered as a “place” of social interaction, with its own wellestablished, known and esteemed religious identity. It played an important role as the place where young women who did not want or could not get married were welcome, but it was also the place where purity guarded the divine and appealed for its intercession. Entering a monastery did not mean removing oneself from society, but rather placing oneself differently within it. The monastery was not as a rule a privileged place or a space for sophisticated 9

10

The Order of St. Clare was founded in 1212. After an initial phase in which they accepted the Benedictine Rule, they formulated their own Rule, approved in 1253, whereby for the first time cloistered life featured as a legally binding obligation. Concerning the matter of how an abbot must rule the monastery, in Chapter LXIV Benedict expresses the hope that “haec ergo aliaque testimonia discretionis, matris virtutum, sumens sic omnia temperet ut sit et fortes quod cupiant et infirmi non refugiant.”

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DALPIAZ

spiritual experiences, but rather a sign of protection/blessing, or a close friendly presence, whereby the seclusion of the cloister did not alienate, because it was part of the culture, and its stabilitas − i.e., the existence of people and chosen lifestyles, made it easier for the notion to establish itself as it ensured continuity in strong, long-lasting interpersonal relationships (Abbruzzese 2003).

The Crisis and Re-establishment of Monastic Presence in the 19th Century

Drawing from the different congregational traditions, therefore, over time a monastic model characterized by a static rigid and repetitive relational structure came into being. This model became quite widespread nationally, reaching even remote rural areas, finding its expression within many communities. With the exception of some urban monasteries, they were generally examples of spiritually and culturally poor environments, where the strict compliance with customs and devotions made up for the weakness of the vocational motivation of applicants, who were often forced to enter by family or for financial reasons. This organization was effectively destabilized at the end of the 18th century, especially with Napoleon’s decision to suppress all convents and monasteries. In this respect, over a few years the distribution of religious communities changed radically across Europe. The argument against a socially “useless” religious life, as opposed to the “helpfulness” of charity and commitment to education, paved the way for a consensus over that suppression, especially with regard to the more closed orders. Proof of this is the fact that only the monasteries where the cloistered nuns ran boarding schools for young people, mainly from noble or middle-class families, were spared definite closure. Suppression also meant losing the monastic estates and assets that had guaranteed the financial independence of the communities. In many cases, the consequent reorganization of monastic communities caused the loss of a sense of belonging and the consequent resistance to or even rejection of the establishment of new bonds, as these were imposed rather than proposed. This explains why later, even under favorable political conditions, the restarting of a communal way of life proved rather difficult. Certainly, the loss of funds and of buildings, for the greater part already put to other uses,11 were no easy obstacles to overcome, but the communities still remained rather weak 11

It is interesting to note how many of the female monasteries were transformed into prisons, thus putting to secularized use a structure that in itself suggested seclusion, albeit on a voluntary basis.

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and fragile, also due to the fact that not all the formerly cloistered nuns were willing to go back to cloistered life. Moreover, despite the changed political climate, the polemic against monastic life still continued. Due to the lack of institutional coordination and to the low level of education, female monasticism failed to understand that the Napoleonic laws marked the end of an era where the communities could rely on widespread social acceptance and conspicuous financial privileges. The inability to realize that history had taken a new course led the monasteries either to wish for the return of the ancient régime or to try and re-build the communities basing them on that ideal of continuity with tradition and surrounding area that the political events and social changes had effectively devastated. In actual fact, however, this process developed as a re-interpretation, or in certain cases re-creation of tradition. That is how the current face of contemporary female monasticism took shape, although we sometimes forget that it is only one of the many identities that monasticism took on in its history. Within the framework of this return to tradition, cloistered life was elected as its distinctive feature and lifestyle, as it evidently showed isolation and seclusion as well as the potential for spiritual distinctiveness. The emphasis placed on this aspect did not derive solely from the desire to re-affirm a continuity with the monastic identity as defined by the Council’s laws, but also from the need to stress its difference from the new female congregations that had been successfully forming and establishing themselves socially since the end of the 19th century, thus defining a new model for a religious life distinct from monasticism. Rather than separation, this involved a direct relationship between small religious communities, made up of four or five religious women that interacted actively with their parish. The presence of these communities was widespread. They were committed to active charitable service (in hospitals, orphanages, retirement homes, etc.) and education (schools, parish recreation centers, etc.). It is thanks to this model of a flexible presence able to respond to the needs of a society undergoing deep economic and rapid cultural change that Italian religious life found new strength and was able to attract people with a vocation (Tables 3.1 and 3.2). This in turns supported the difficult recovery of monastic communities, which in the early 20th century could claim numbers that, despite being much lower than in the past, were still second only to Spain in terms of numbers of monasteries.12 12

In 2011 24% of female monasteries and 21% of cloistered nuns were still found in Spain; in Italy, 15% of the communities and 13% of cloistered nuns; in France, 6% of the communities and 8% of cloistered nuns. Overall, 62% of the monasteries and 57% of the cloistered nuns can still be found in Europe. Europe and North America together make up

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DALPIAZ

Table 3.1

Religious women in Italy 1861–2010. Variation in relation to 1861 (1861 = 100)

1861

1891

1901

1931

1951

42,664 100

28,172 66

40,250 94

112,208 263

144,171 154,790 338 363

1971

1991

2010

125,887 295

91,286 214

Sources: 1961–1931 C. D’Agata 1943. 1941–1961: Annuario Pontificio, Roma, Vaticana. 1971–2001: Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, Roma, Vaticana.

Table 3.2 Cloistered and non-cloistered nuns in Italy 1958–2010. Variations in relation to 1958 (1958 = 100)

Cloistered nuns Women Religious



1958

1988

1998

2008

2010

100 100

75 73

67 67

47 52

45 50

Female Monasticism and Issues Relating to Vocational Calling

In Italy there are currently 501 female monasteries (Annuarium, 2011) belonging to 28 Congregations, 38% of which relate to the Poor Clare tradition, 21% to the Benedictines and 21% to the Carmelites. Over the past fifty years the numbers of locations has not varied significantly.13 The number of cloistered nuns, however, had decreased from 12,863 to 5,828 by 2011, a decline of 55%.14 This means that the average number of cloistered nuns in a community has halved, going from 24 to 12 individuals.15 Specifically, 48% of monasteries are home to less than 11

13 14 15

68% of the communities and 68% of the cloistered nuns. Female Catholic monasticism comes across as a culturally European experience. All orders in Latin America, Asia and Africa stem from the European tradition. It is only a recent development that in Asia monasticism has become engrained into the cultural fabric in the wake of Hindu or Buddhist traditions (Dalpiaz, 2008). In 1959 there were 532 monasteries, Annuario, 1959. Over the same period of time the number of non-cloistered religious has decreased by 41%. The non-cloistered Institutes have responded to the lowering of vocations in a very different way. Following the 45% decrease of religious women, the number of communities has also been reduced (−48%), which meant that in the end the average size has remained quite stable, moving from 9.7 nuns to 8.3 nuns in 50 years.

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FEMALE MONASTICISM IN ITALY: A SOCIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

cloistered nuns (11% of them host micro-communities where at most 5 cloistered nuns are in residence), 42% are home to 11 to 20 religious women, while only 20% host more than 20 cloistered nuns.16 The scenario also includes tendentially small communities, with a high number of older religious women, 53% of which have not received any new vocations for the last ten years (Table 3.3). The lack of incoming human resources explains the gradual weakening of the communities. The lack of vocations for the last ten years concerns 70% of the smaller communities, with less than 11 nuns, 42% of medium-sized monasteries and only 20% of communities with more than 30 members. The larger communities are more “attractive” thanks to the wider and more meaningful learning opportunities, to their better resources in terms of theological development, spiritual and liturgical activity. The lack of vocations generally produces a sense of insecurity and worry about their future within the community. In many cases, this has resulted in a laxer application of selection criteria and poor judgment. We have an indication of this if we consider the age of admission. Until the 1980s, 30 or 40-year-old people applying to be admitted were an exception, and were often admitted with reluctance. It was felt that the change from a family and professionally oriented lifestyle would be too wide and deep to be accepted by someone who has already got a well defined personality. Nowadays, only a modest 7% of monasteries set, and claim they apply, age limitations for admittance. This does not mean that in the meantime the integration process has become easier, but rather that wider margins of autonomy and individuality are tolerated. The fact that most of the women who approach Table 3.3 Age of cloistered nuns relative to the number of monastics in the communities. Quantities expressed as percentages

Number of Age members 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60–69 70–79

80+

Total

1–10 11–20 21+ Total

28.5 24.0 16.6 23.3

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

16

2.9 2.7 5.1 3.3

8.0 12.3 13.7 11.3

11.9 14.7 16.9 14.3

8.9 9.1 12.3 9.6

16.0 15.2 16.2 15.5

24.1 22.0 19.2 22.8

47.7 41.5 10.8 100.0

The following data were gathered in 2009 through a questionnaire sent to all 515 Italian monasteries. Replies were received form 451 communities, which means that a suitably representative sample was analyzed.

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DALPIAZ

monastic life are over 30 years of age indicates that they are fully formed people, at least as far as professional and intellectual competences are concerned.17 Moreover, they are people who come to the monastery after a period, which may have lasted several years, during which they have been pondering and considered the choice they were going to make. They therefore bring with them precise expectations and motivations that take the form of a “project,” a conception of their life and of the reality they wish to join. Whereas in the past one would join a monastery to learn a spiritual tradition, nowadays people ask to join a monastic community in order to realize a personal calling to a spiritual life. Those who knock on the door of a monastery have already formed an idea of what to expect in terms of spirituality and lifestyle. In this sense there is often a pre-conception of the monastic experience, which only partially coincides with the actual life of the community.18 This may trigger a feeling of deep disappointment which will be directly proportional to how highly idealized the model of cloistered life was, which may eventually lead people to abandon the cloister. Despite this separation, one rarely questions one’s own vision of monastic life or its factual accuracy, as one prefers to highlight the inconsistencies or the inability of the communities to live up to that ideal. It is therefore understandable how cloistered life may claim a relatively higher number of novices compared to other charitable institutions (in 2011 in Italy there was 1 novice for every 37 solemnly professed cloistered nuns, compared with 1 for every 136 nuns), but the difference decreases when we compare the number of temporarily professed vows (in the same year the ratio was 1 temporarily professed for every 18 solemnly professed cloistered nuns, and 1 for every 23 nuns). However, abandoning the cloister is not the only possible outcome. As an alternative, there may be a search for space and a degree of freedom which go alongside, and not against, the rules of communal life, but which form an individual way of interpreting and living the monastic experience. The lectio divina, that is the meditation over some readings from the Bible, may thus combine with yoga meditation exercises or draw upon Christian texts as well as upon others from very different religious backgrounds (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufi, etc.) in one’s personal mystical reflection (Palmisano 2010, 2013). 17 18

At the end of 2008, 59% of novices and 52% of postulants in Italian monasteries were over 30 years of age (Table 3.2). Communities unavoidably experience relational difficulties, which at times the spiritual ideology of the cloister tends to hide. The 2009 questionnaire shows that in 19% of the communities some cases of psychological problem is present; 16% lament conflicts and tensions between younger and older cloistered nuns; in 16% of the communities individualistic tendencies undermine the solidarity of interpersonal relations.

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FEMALE MONASTICISM IN ITALY: A SOCIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

Monasteries are faced with two main difficulties: to find women attracted to monastic life, but even more importantly, to integrate successfully into the social fabric of a community which is realistically much poorer in human and spiritual resources than may be believed, even if this concerns only a small number of monasteries. As a result, several communities have tried to overcome the low number of people called to a religious life by welcoming young people from abroad, especially from Asia (34%), Eastern Europe (29%), and Latin America (22%). Forty-two percent of cloistered communities currently include foreigners. Overall (Tables 3.4 and 3.5), 14% of religious women in the Italian monasteries are foreigners.19 Considered separately, these figures are not high. They are in line with the average number of religious men and women and clerical staff of foreign Table 3.4 Composition of the communities relative to the status of the members and their geographical origin. Quantities expressed as percentages

Origin

Status

Total

Solemny prof.

Temporarily prof.

Novices

Candidates

Italians

88.4

56.1

75.3

67.6

85.9

Foreigners

11.6

43.9

24.7

32.4

14.1

Table 3.5 Composition of the communities relative to age and geographical origin. Quantities expressed as percentages

Origin

Italians Foreigners

19

Age 20–29

30–39

40–49

50–59

60–69

70–79

80+

39.8 60.2

68.8 31.2

72.7 27.3

81.8 18.2

93.1 6.9

97.7 2.3

97.8 2.2

The choice of welcoming vocations from abroad applies not only to Italy but also to other European countries, although it is difficult to document it. Only in Spain, where the monastic situation is similar to the Italian one, are there accurate data, according to which in 2005 48% of monasteries had some foreigners, who added up to 10% of the members of monastic communities (Dalpiaz, 2008).

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origin who work and live in the different Italian dioceses. However, if we scrutinize closely the nature of this information, things are different. In fact, we will notice that 44% of temporarily professed nuns, 25% of novices and 34% of applicants are foreigners. This means that a diffused multiethnic identity will form the face of Italian monasticism in the future. Over the past years a shift has been operating from strongly localized monasticism toward a community where geographical provenance, cultural sensibility and spiritual expectations find it difficult to reach a balance. The question we need to ask is what motivations drive a young woman who is mainly or totally alien to Italian culture to leave her own country, despite the possible presence of monasteries there, in order to enter a cloister in Italy (or anywhere else in Europe), thus adding cultural difference to monastic seclusion, at least at the initial stage. To this we may add the still largely unexplored aspect concerning the ways in which the prospective candidates make contact with a monastery − considering that, as they live abroad, they have no direct knowledge of the communities. In a small number of cases the mediation takes place through another monastery located in the country of origin. In most cases the point of contact is a priest, a religious or at times a lay person. These are the people who have identified the prospective candidates for monastic life, have informed the monastery about it, and have taken care of the necessary paperwork for emigration. The answers of the 134 abbesses/prioresses who between 2000 and 2009 welcomed young women from abroad confirm that they felt that the motivation of candidates was weak and full of uncertainty, and that their decisions were influenced by the individuals’ precarious social situation rather than by a strong and deliberate spiritual and ecclesiastic reflection. Only a small minority of those young women (3%) was sufficiently aware of what monastic life was, 38% had a superficial awareness, 23% did not know the specific differences between monastic life and an “active” religious life. With respect to cloistered life, only 5–6% of applicants were aware of what it entailed. In actual fact, at the initial stage the communities had to face the obvious difficulties posed by language (46%) and by different dietary habits (36%), although the major difficulty was to integrate small groups of 20-year-olds into communities made up of elderly women with no middle-aged ones who could mediate. Ethnic and cultural divergences add themselves to generational ones, thus laying a groundwork for misunderstandings and friction. All these impediments can be overcome through willingness, meekness, a spirit of adaptation, openness to mutual acceptance. The answers to the questionnaire do not demonstrate an awareness that the young foreign women bring with them a vision of the world that may differ from the vision of it that native Italians have. Any difficulty is therefore justified in terms of personality rather than due to cultural

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differences. It may seem like a paradox that communities ignore the debate over multiculturalism while welcoming people from all over the world in order to maintain vocational continuity. The little emphasis placed on cultural diversity, which is perceived as a potential factor of friction or misunderstanding rather than as a stimulus or motivating force for openness, may be explained by the fact that often an underlying fear of extinction of the community more than anything else leads to the acceptance of foreigners. So, to exorcise that fear, fuelled by the lack of people called to a religious life, and possibly never even completely acknowledged, people are drawn in from anywhere in the world.

What Does the Future Hold for Monastic Presence?

The lessening of vocational callings raises questions and outlines scenarios to which the communities find it difficult to relate. This is due to two different reasons. First, there is a cultural and spiritual attitude that considers any planning − i.e., any thinking about the future – to be in contradiction to a full willingness to accept the future, which is to say: the project that God will want to propose. Twenty percent of the abbesses/prioresses who answered the questionnaire state this explicitly. Another factor is the objective difficulty of assessing the effects that a lack of generational change can have on a community. It is acknowledged that if nothing changes, the community will die out, but it is an idea that is kept at bay by placing it in an indefinite time, as one does regarding one’s own death: it is something unavoidable, but we behave as if that day will never come. So far, only a sensation of weighing down, in the sense of a greater tiredness or of a decrease in vitality, has been felt, but the breaking point has not been reached yet. This is a more pervasive feeling in medium-sized communities than in smaller ones, and in those which are growing older compared with those where over three quarters of the members are elderly women. Overall, there seems to transpire a degree of awareness of a static situation, centered around current issues and reticent to face a future which is perceived as rather problematic. Nonetheless, the future is never completely remote, as it find its roots in today. By observing the current situation of the monasteries, it is possible to outline fairly accurately the possible scenarios concerning their situations in 10–15 years’ time. We know the number of people preparing to embrace monastic life and the ages of the solemnly professed nuns, so it is possible to work out for each age range the death rate. Beside the decrease in number due to deaths, some will abandon the cloister after profession, which instead should have marked permanent integration. Over the last 10 years, about 1% of solemnly

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professed cloistered nuns have left. An estimated number of applicants must also be taken into account. This figure has been decreasing over the past years, but for the next decade it is reasonable to expect it to range between 130–160 individuals per year. Based on those figures, the number of cloistered nuns is expected to reach the figure of 4,000 individuals over the next 10 years. This means a decrease of one third compared to current numbers. This figure is in contrast with what ecclesiastical and lay literature claims with regard to the vitality of female monastic life in Italy. The explanation lies in a blanket application to all or to most of the communities of a situation which is only applicable to some, so it is not a question of a deliberate resolve to mask the data. As a matter of fact, there are about forty communities which have a good number of vocations of Italian origin, to the point that new monasteries can be set up. This is, however, a reality that concerns only 10% of monasteries, whose activity and vitality is widely advertised in the press, whereas the remaining 90% are overshadowed and experience a slow but steady decline. As a whole, the current female Italian monasticism is strongly biased toward older age ranges (Table 3.6). In extreme synthesis, the average age is 62.8 years of age, whereas 46% of cloistered nuns are over 70 years of age (Graph 3.1). Within the framework of this global picture of the structure of cloistered life we need to place a core of novices and postulants, which counts for only 5% of the individuals present in the monasteries. The age of the majority of these (57%) ranges from 20 to 30, which is the portion used to publicize the young face of monastic life. It needs to be taken into account that at the time of the survey 53% of monasteries included exclusively solemnly professed nuns and no people undergoing formation.20 When analyzing the period 2000–2008, 26% of Table 3.6 Age distribution of cloistered nuns and novices as of 12.31.2008. Quantities expressed as percentages

Status

Solemly and temporarily prof. Novices Postulants

20

Age 20–29

30–39

40–49

50–59

60–69

70–79

80+

3.3

11.3

14.3

9.6

16.0

22.7

23.3

41.0 47.6

31.1 35.0

16.7 15.0

5.6 0.8

5.6 1.6

– –

– –

Monastic formation is divided into three stages. It begins when a candidate becomes a postulant. This stage lasts for about a year, during which time the individual familiarizes

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monasteries did not receive any applications at all during that time. Over the same period, a further 27% of communities did receive applicants, but none of them joined them permanently. Finally, 47% of communities received a steady number of people called to a religious life. The generational change is therefore slow as well as inconsistent: 16% of cloistered nuns made their profession between 2000 and 2008, compared with 51% before 1968. This latter figure allows us to understand better the resistance within female monasticism with regard to the issue of how the values and spiritual styles embodied by the model of a cloistered life can be experienced and given testimony. Most cloistered nuns were trained before the call for renewal that came from the Vatican Council II. We need also bear in mind that at that time, like today, the training took place in the monastery, and it basically consisted of learning to reproduce the existing community life model. This meant compliance with the rules, i.e. their literal application. Nowadays, the question of formation and training is still an unresolved issue. The autonomy enjoyed thanks to the sui juris (self-government) explains why 67% of the communities feel that the training should be undergone solely

average age 62.8 years 653 557 372 296

427 338

309

367

606

649

371

259

165

128 29

0

25

20 /

24 /2 9 30 /3 4 35 /3 9 40 /4 4 45 /4 9 50 /5 4 55 /5 9 60 /6 4 65 /6 9 70 /7 4 75 /7 9 80 /8 4 85 /8 9 90 /9 4 95 /9 9 10 0

56

Graph 3.1  Italian cloistered nuns. Age distribution as of 12.31.2008

himself or herself with monastic life, but without making any formal commitment. Then, he or she becomes a novice for 1 or 2 years, during which time the novice participates more intensely in monastic life. Simple profession, also referred to as temporary profession, is a period during which the individual takes vows (poverty, chastity, obedience, and in some monasteries. cloistered life), which are binding only for a limited time span, generally ranging from 3 to 6 years. Finally, the person takes perpetual vows or solemn profession, which means a definite lifetime commitment to honor the vows.

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within the monastery.21 However, only a small number of individuals are likely to belong there, as 48% of communities have at most 10 cloistered nuns (Table 3.3), and in 52% of them over half the number of cloistered nuns are over 70.22 This indicates a rather static situation which keeps replicating itself due to the age and the training received. Therefore, even in the face of the more varied social and cultural provenances of candidates, who are between 18 and 60 years of age (Table 3.6), only 18% of communities envisage training geared to the individual, compared with 50% believing that no changes are necessary.23 The new face of Italian monasticism, if there is one, is therefore reduced to a matter of calendar age, based on those two cloistered nuns out of ten who are under 40 years of age. In other words, there is no effort to conceive the monastery as the place whose identity is based primarily on a particular Christian way of experiencing prayer and the search for God and, additionally, isolation through cloistered life. There are many reasons for this, beside those mentioned above. The answers to the questionnaire show that in a minority of cases the present model of cloistered life responds to specific individual expectations. Those who enter are looking for an environment of prayer, but they expect it to be marked by deep spirituality (39%), silence (22%), isolation from the world (17%), even though, possibly surprisingly, the main expectation of candidates is to find a sense of sisterhood (75%). Another factor that plays in favor of immobility is the contents of training programs. The limited number of people called to religious life and the difficulty in organizing quality theological and biblical courses leads inevitably to a low level of education. Finally, the expectations projected by the external environment outline a social and ecclesiastical image of female monasticism based on a cloistered identity removed from either its social context or from history. In this sense there is a cloistered ideology that, using a game of smoke and mirrors between the 21 Sui juris, taken from Roman Law, means that a monastery is self-governing, in the sense that it enjoys full legal internal autonomy, although it is under the authority of the Holy See (usually in the figure of the local bishop for female monasteries). This means that the sui juris monastery is an independent community which can receive and train people to monastic life and which has the financial means to support itself. 22 Aging also affects, inevitably, the levels of governance. Thirty-six percent of abbesses are over 70, and overall the average age of Mother Superiors in Italian monasteries is 63. 23 However, if we analyze the trend of the answers depending on whether there are people undergoing training in the monasteries, we note that 42% of communities where there are people in training wish there was training geared specifically to the individuals, but this figure decreases to 18% in those monasteries where there are no people called to religious life.

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monastery and its surroundings, builds up a type of monasticism that basically ignores, or pretends to ignore, the factual situations of the communities. The latter, conversely, have to measure themselves up against the realistic issue of continuity, which is becoming increasingly uncertain and precarious, rather than with an abstract cloistered identity. As it has already been pointed out, the starting point of the crisis is not of a spiritual or moral nature, as it has been at other times in history, but can be found in the low number of people called to religious life, which has been affecting the institutional Christian dimension as a whole. For a growing number of people, particularly in Europe and North America, a direct relationship with God is conceived and realized without, if not in reaction to, the mediation of the churches. Entering a monastery or joining a religious community means accepting an institution as mediator, as guardian and guarantor of a tradition and experience. And if the opportunity of joining an institution should arise, it would be embraced for the sake of convenience. One would join it because it allows the individual to achieve the spiritual objectives one has set for oneself and which are felt as important to oneself. The insufficient number of people called to religious life originating from within the Italian ecclesiastic reality cannot be compensated by bringing in from abroad people called to religious life. As a matter of fact, the overall number of prospective cloistered nuns is steadily declining and, consequently, so is the number of temporarily professed ones . Therefore, the overall monastic presence will continue to decrease over the next years and there may probably be a steeper decrease on account of the increased death rate, considering the average age distribution (Graph 3.1). Of course, there will also be monasteries that will continue to receive a good number of applicants, as it is the case today, whilst others may receive occasional applications, but for the main part the lack of people called to religious life will persist. These are snapshots which compose a scenario of an increasing number of precarious communities made up of a decreasing number of cloistered nuns who will be increasingly older. That is, a prolonged struggle for survival heading for the inevitable end. All this opens a completely new and unprecedented chapter in monastic history which finds the ecclesiastic institution virtually unprepared as to the strategies to implement.24 The communities prefer to ignore the issue, which is particularly destabilizing and heavily anxiety-inducing for people who long 24

Canon law prescribes laws for the setting up of a self-governing monastery (sui juris), but there is no proviso with regard to the procedure for the limitation of their autonomy, except the general rule which establishes that a religious community is such only if there are at least three members.

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years of cloistered life have accustomed to a life within the enclosed space of a building. When looking at their future, 28% of monasteries expect the current situation to remain virtually unchanged in the next few years. 22% avoid the issue altogether by enthusiastically asserting that the future is in the hands of God, so it makes no sense to talk about it. 16% believe the situation is likely to worsen, especially with regard to the care given to cloistered nuns and the maintenance of buildings. Finally, faced with a growing number of problems, 16% hope for wider collaboration between communities. However, the shared vision is one of mutual help between monasteries belonging to the Confederation, as only a limited number of monasteries are open to the idea of merging monasteries.25 There is an objective difficulty in renouncing the autonomy given by separation. The only concession that 79% of monasteries are willing to make is to remain members of a monastic confederation, with the proviso, expressed unequivocally by 53% of communities, that the federal structure must not acquire greater legal weight and power. Only 42% of member monasteries hope for a more active Confederation which can coordinate initiatives of mutual help and support. We therefore come to a standstill: on the one hand a growing number of communities are experiencing the weakening of their operational abilities. (Help is needed to look after elderly sisters, to manage physical spaces oversized in relation to the actual needs of an ever-decreasing group, and in finding financial resources), but on the other hand there is a resistance to go beyond an institutional culture that is not able to conceive of monastic identity outside the legal boundaries of the sui juris and isolation through cloistered life. Despite a situation requiring collaboration, flexibility in exploiting and coordinating in the best possible way the (limited) human resources available, there is an impossibility, or inability, to re-think the relational monastic model so that it does not revolve around the axis of autonomyisolation; as an abbess puts it in the questionnaire, “without sui juris and seclusion we would no longer be cloistered nuns but ordinary nuns.” This explains why 63% of monasteries assert that cloistered life must be preserved in the same form as it is today. This standpoint is widely shared among the different Congregations and does not display great differences between large or small communities. The 32% that hope for an institutional review do so principally (46%) for practical reasons (more flexibility of movement, 25

Unlike the Congregation, the Confederation is not a regulatory authority. It is a collection of monasteries that preserve their self-government but who try to find solutions to shared problems together; hence, if they believe it necessary, they can, for example, put one community in charge of the training of all new entrants.

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greater opportunities for interaction with guests, etc.) while, as a secondary concern, 25% believe the idea of isolation itself should be reviewed. The reason why 15% envisage a change in the present organization of cloistered life is to improve and structure more effectively the training. Laws, tradition and expectations are obstacles that hinder the transformation of an institutional and legal model whose supporting pillars are selfgovernment and independence. In the past they were the factors that supported the growth of monasteries deeply engrained in the social and religious fabric in which they were geographically located. As nowadays from a religious point of view that fabric has fallen apart the monasteries are increasingly isolated, to the point that they become alien and removed from the territory where instead they should stand as testimony to the pervasive presence of God. All this heightens the elements of fragility and the problematic aspects within many communities. However, the prospect of collaboration between neighboring monasteries belonging to the same spiritual tradition stirs perplexity and is met with resistance instead of being perceived as logical and effective. Precisely because of the lack of experiences of collaboration, autonomy has turned the monasteries into independent entities focused only on themselves. Then, realistically, apart from the question of aging congregations, it is difficult to make people collaborate when they are reluctant to admit that they need help. Ignoring this fact results in an attitude of distrust toward initiatives that by relating two or more weaknesses will create an even more unmanageable situation. Therefore, while there is widespread acknowledgement that the current situation presents limitations and uncertainty, there is no corresponding strategic approach in order to identify enforceable alternative solutions. A further element contributing to the precarious situation of monasteries is their financial assets (Jonveaux 2011). Although 80% of monasteries claim not to have problems with regard to subsistence, their vulnerability lays in the fact that their subsistence is based, only marginally, on the production of revenue through a specific economic venture, and more heavily on two rather unreliable factors: State pensions for elderly people and contributions in exchange for hospitality. Sixty percent of monasteries welcome individuals and/or small groups seeking a time of silence, prayer, personal contemplation. The income produced by this activity is, however, variable inasmuch as in 90% of these cases there are no fixed tariffs, meaning that the contributions are left to the generosity/financial means of the guests. In about 30% of communities, however, some activities are carried out that are potentially revenue-producing. They consist of crafts, restoration, production of hosts (communion wafers), embroidery, iconography, or preparation of

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confectionery, which are linked to the abilities of individual cloistered nuns and are an expression of the traditional way of conceiving monastic work as an activity that runs alongside prayer, which is the actual and authentic occupation of a cloistered nun − we may even say her “professional identity.” These activities certainly contribute to the creation of income but, with some rare exceptions, are not designed as business ventures that could engage all the human resources of the community around one shared project. It is also true that where these activities have not been already established there are practical difficulties posed by the lack of financial means as well as by the limited number of employable cloistered nuns. In the end, in many communities, the occupation that absorbs most of the time and energies is the day-to-day running of the monastery (meals, cleaning, etc.). Everything points to a decline of monastic presence in Italy. The model whereby monasticism as a search for God and cloistered life as the experience and guarantee of relational isolation, spatial isolation and spiritual intimacy are tightly linked. That connection was possible in a context of a social and religious culture which secularization first weakened and is now destroying. It is therefore significant that, as we saw, 36% of communities raise the question of a review of cloistered life, not of monastic life. This is only a minority reflection within monastic congregations, although there have been instances of a different interpretation of separation from some who take monastic tradition as their point of reference even though they do not recognize themselves fully in the institutional structure and legal bounds of monasticism as we know it (Chiurato and Palmisano 2012, Palmisano 2010, 2013). It is a varied landscape which includes experiences ranging from hermit life to communities where organizational models are undertaken experimentally − that is, models that are more flexible and inclusive compared to those of historical tradition, based on the separation of men and women, virgins and married people, permanent members and external individuals (Turina 2003, Zarri 2000). In thirty or forty years’ time, which on a social history scale is but an instant, the Italian monastic landscape, but presumably also the European one, will have undergone deep changes. It is already possible to foresee some of the likely future features by looking at the present monastic situation: aging, lower number of communities, extinction of monasteries, multi-ethnic origin of some of the cloistered nuns, a review of the sui juris principle. Others will emerge as the process develops, depending also on the type of effort that the monasteries will be able, or willing, to make. The transition that is outlined here points to the end of a monastic model that started in the eleventh century and was formally confirmed after the Council of Trent, as is evident today from the slow but steady consumption due to a lack of people called to religious life.

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It is difficult to foresee in which direction Italian monasticism will eventually move. It is possible that the unmovable affirmation of cloistered life as the identifying trait will lead to a monasticism that is consciously, as well as willingly, limited to a minority status that is proud of its isolated position. Nevertheless, based on some current experiences, it is possible to foresee a transition toward a spiritual identity which accepts history as a place of the presence of God. The privileged standpoint of cloistered life still preserves the richness of a tradition in which the mystical dimension of the search for God has removed its members from a presence and involvement in social events, thus expressing not a rejection of the world but rather the need to achieve a vantage point from which to see and understand history in its entirety. This is what Gregory the Great expresses, in brief, when he says, as he narrates the life of St Benedict, that on the eve of his death an ecstasy carried him to a vision whereby “the whole world was held before his eyes, as if brought together in a single ray of sunshine…yet it is not that heaven and earth were drawn into any lesser room than they are of themselves. The soul of the beholder was more enlarged, rapt in God, so that it might see without difficulty that which is under God.”26 References Abbruzzese, Salvatore. 2003. “Religiosi e società: Elementi per una sociologia della vita consacrata,” pp. 37–52 in Ora et labora. Le comunità religiose nella società contemporanea, edited by L. Vaccaro and S. Claudio. Milan: Nomos. Annuario delle religiose d’Italia. 1959. Rome: Paoline. Annuarium statisticum ecclesiae. 2011. Rome: Vaticana. Benedicti Regula. 1977. Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky. Chiurato, Chiara and Stefania Palmisano. 2012. “Nuove Comunità Monastiche: La reinvenzione di una tradizione.” Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa 5: 217–239. Dalpiaz, Giovanni. 2008. “La presenza ecclesiale del monachesimo femminile in Spagna.” Sequela Christi 2: 82–94. D’Agata, Carmelo. 1943. Statistica Religiosa. Milan: Giuffrè. Evangelisti, Silvia. 2007. Nuns: A History of Convent Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gregorius the Great [Gregorio Magno]. 2000. Dialoghi (I–IV). Rome: Città Nuova. Jonveaux, Isabelle. 2011. Le monastère au travail: le royaume de Dieu au dèfi de l’èconomie. Paris: Bayard. 26

Gregorio Magno 2000: 206–207.

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Palmisano, Stefania. 2010. “La vita e la regola: Una ricerca organizzativa sulle nuove comunità monastiche in Piemonte.” Vita Consacrata 6: 578–602. ———. 2013. “The Paradoxes of New Monasticism in Consumer Society,” pp. 93–112 in Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers and Markets, edited by T. Martikainen and F. Gauthier. Farnham: Ashgate. Turina, Isacco. 2003. I nuovi eremiti: La fuga mundi nell’Italia di oggi. Milan: Medusa. Zarri, Gabriella. 2000. Recinti: Donne, clausura e matrimonio nella prima età moderna. Bologna: Il Mulino.

chapter 4

Ethnography of Cloistered Life: Field Work into Silence Francesca Sbardella The world of Christian female cloistered life within the European context has usually been studied by scholars on the basis of ancient and modern texts, together with narratives by the nuns who actually experience that world and do not allow others to enter it. Cloistered life is a form of coenobitic monasticism, in which a group of persons is characterized first and foremost by their seclusion. Monasticism (a term derived from Greek monachos – i.e., solitary person or living alone) is a way of life that involves abandoning social relations and renouncing worldly pursuits, with the aim to devote oneself fully to spiritual work and come into closer contact with the divinity. The separation from the world can imply partial or total isolation (i.e. anchoritism) or living in a secluded community (i.e. coenobitism). The two terms indicate a group-based spatial condition: anchoritism derives from anchorite, from old Latin anachoreta, Greek anachoretes and anachoreo (“to withdraw”); on the other hand, coenobitism derives from the old Latin word coenobium, the Greek term koinobion, composed of koinos bios “shared life.” Against this background, cloistered life stands as a form of group-building and living together characterized by extreme isolation and closed to the external world. In Christian female cloistered life, the boundary places a restriction on access for both men and women. As mentioned by Emile Servais and Francis Hambye, cloistered group-building forms are fully-fledged institutions and are characterized first and foremost by a particular construction and appropriation of space, which is redesigned in accordance with the intimate and religious purposes pursued by the interested subjects (Servais and Hambye 1971: 29). The restriction on access has often resulted in scientific research works based on indirect experience, as field work is practically non-existent in such an uncommunicative meeting environment. In fact, from an anthropological viewpoint, it is only through field work that it is possible to get closer to the other’s concrete life practices by means of direct experience and sharing. Investigating everyday life can help researchers understand how mystical and devotional aspirations translate into behavioural strategies. The aspiration to meeting the assumed divinity should be acknowledged as a social practice, and it is expressed in different physical (i.e., corporeal) and mental forms.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_005

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According to what Marcel Mauss (1936: 45) suggested – subsequently also mentioned by Pierre Bourdieu (1982) – when the mystic state is considered, following Max Weber (1968: 547), as an experience of inner contemplation of the “holy” and of its unity beyond logical and discursive thought, it is based first and foremost on specific body techniques. By “technique” I mean a “traditional effective action”1 (Mauss 1936: 35): it is “traditional” because it belongs to the cultural background of an individual as a member of a group – in our case a cloistered group – and thus it can be learned and passed on to others; it is “effective” because it is considered functional to the aim established by its users. From an anthropological viewpoint, it is interesting to take a closer look at the critical issue of being inside, investigating on the one hand how the religious individual is construed, as enacted by the nuns themselves and, on the other hand, how the resulting group is created and experienced. Monasticism should be investigated not only through the relevant literature (e.g. the monastic Rules, the history of the orders, the texts by the founding fathers or mothers, life stories, the chronicles and the groups’ registries), but also as a way of life, looking at the habits, gestures, movements and daily actions involved (Albert d’Haenens 1985: 17). In studying monasticism, the field, as traditionally intended by the research community, is eventually misrepresented however. Whenever access is not granted, any type of encounter in the social actor’s daily life completely disappears, the only exception being the one that is mediated and controlled by the grating, leading to a fictitious relational situation. This controlled and binding situation takes place in a recreated border area, i.e., the parlour, which is not a living place after all: when access is granted, one has to deal with a unique field due to both the obligation to maintain silence, which is typical of these places, and the participatory conditions imposed by the nuns themselves (time restrictions, behavioural obligations, acceptance of certain dictates, community rules and so on).2 In the former case the anthropologist, who must be a woman for obvious reasons, is forced to work in a non-field mediated by the words of the interested subjects and deprived of intersubjectivity, whereas in the latter case she would find herself in an extremely restrictive situation, without the possibility to use a fundamental part of her traditional research tools (i.e., listening and speaking). The case of cloistered life, as well as monasticism more generally, reveals that eventually such tools may prove to be intrusive in certain situations and ineffective from a research perspective. 1 My translation of “acte traditionnel efficace.” 2 The term parlor refers to a kind of reception room in collective dwellings (e.g. convents, schools, detention centres, barracks and so on) designed for meeting and talking to external visitors.

ETHNOGRAPHY OF CLOISTERED LIFE: FIELD WORK INTO SILENCE



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Into the Silence

My investigation into monasticism (Sbardella 2006, 2012) started from an ethnographic study based on observing participation (and not just participant observation) inside two Carmelite convents in France. Its main focus is on concrete ways of life. By sharing the nuns’ time and space it was possible to enter the daily life of these women and to address some of their group-building dynamics. In my analysis I will attempt to outline and document in detail the problematic issue of being inside, illustrating both the construction of the religious subject and the repercussions on the figure of the anthropologist, who, in turn, is forced to reconstruct herself.3 All these dynamics place the anthropologist, first as a person and then as a scholar, in front of her interlocutor and vice versa (Wachtel 1992: 27). This kind of footing is always linked to identity policies while leading and building the research endeavour itself. Being admitted to experience cloistered life directly for research purposes meant that I was granted access as if I had been a postulant, i.e., she who, as established in Canon Law, after expressing her desire to enter a religious order is admitted for a trial period, called postulancy. In this stage, the postulant starts her life experience in the convent for a short time (one or two months) before deciding whether or not to serve her novitiate. This allowed me to take on the rights and obligations that are normally required of a postulant and to follow the learning stages through which these women, acting upon themselves, construe their religious being. The first learning stage consists in deconstructing the social representation of the female person to replace her progressively with another one. In order to take part fully in everyday life, both in praying and in working, I was assisted by the so-called ange gardien, i.e. a nun in charge of explaining appropriate behaviour and helping. In fact, the possibility of entering the convent as a scientific researcher had already been discarded by the nuns themselves, since they rightly pointed out that such a presence, with its excessive number of questions and investigations, would have altered the ordinary course of life in the convent. Similarly, it would have put the researcher in the position of a mere observer, which would have been impossible to fulfil being inside the convent. Entering cloistered life implies right from the beginning that a person has to face a dimension of extreme silence, which has a total and strong impact on the individual. The typical monastic day is designed around the management of silence, or rather by the regulated alternation of sound, voice and speech. 3 This chapter develops further some of the issues concerning cloistered silence discussed in Sbardella (2006).

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Time is structured on the basis of the Liturgy of the Hours, i.e. the full set of psalms, hymns, prayers and readings that members of the clergy, monks and religious subjects (of both sexes) must say throughout the day, according to the canonical hours (lauds, the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, vespers, and compline). Around this core set, there are other moments, both religious and devotional ones (e.g. Mass, recitation of the Angelus and silent individual prayer) and others for work activities and recreation. All the different religious activities are performed collectively in the church choir.4 Every day is intense and rigidly structured, without the possibility to opt for any other occupation or individual movement: time is structured into regular and seamless sequences with no interruptions or breaks.5 Every single behaviour, action and activity are perceived by the nuns as prayer; in other words, according to the definition by Di Nola, they are to be intended in a wider sense, as a form of ritual through which the individual or the community establishes a relationship with the extra-human forces with the aim to express a request, glorification and dialogue (Di Nola 1993: x). Even work activities are interpreted as prayer by the nuns, i.e., as an action wanted by and dedicated to the divinity. In this sense, fulfilling one’s tasks meticulously and attentively is a way to pay tribute to and be grateful for the gifts of life, including the ones used in ordinary activities. The various activities follow a sequential order and integrate one another. They make up a fixed and repetitive community framework, thus creating a dense and fast daily routine. Talking is not permitted during the entire day, as nobody is allowed to speak to anyone. All the activities, including meals and working, are carried out in silence. No verbal exchange is allowed other than for reciting prayers and chanting within the Liturgy of the Hours. Free speech is possible only during two short breaks. To quantify the actual time at stake, let us consider some specific figures: A cloistered day lasts 16 hours and 45 minutes (from 5.45 am to 10.30 pm), i.e., 1,005 minutes in total. Throughout the entire day, there are 75 minutes available for any possible free sound verbalization, 4 The choir is located at the end of the nave and is reserved for nuns only. 5 For the sake of clarity, the following is the exact schedule of an ordinary Carmelite day: 5.45 rise, 6.25 Angelus and silent individual prayer, 7.30 lauds, 8.00 breakfast, 8.20 spiritual silent reading in one’s cell, 9.15 prayer of the third hour, 9.30 work, 11.45 Mass and prayer of the sixth hour, 12.40 Angelus and lunch, 13.45 recreation, 14.15 prayer of the ninth hour, 14.40 free time in silence, 15.30 work, 16.55 silent individual prayer, 18.00 vespers, 18.40 Angelus and dinner, 19.30 recreation, 20.15 Compline or last evening prayers, office of Readings, 21.45 retire into one’s cell, silence, 22.30 rest. On occasions of significant religious events, the time for praying and silence may be extended, detracting time from periods of work and recreation. Each convent may vary its times and/or time intervals between activities, but the structure remains basically unchanged (see Sbardella 2006: 114).

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i.e,. approximately 7.8 percent of the time when the nuns are awake. However, the focus here should be put not only on the duration of silent moments, but also when speaking is actually possible. The cloistered context imposes specific speaking time and speech forms. In addition to the time limitations, it is also necessary to consider that free time is imposed: there are only 75 minutes allotted to free speech, and these are confined to specific moments with no individual options. Being able to control one’s emission of vocal sounds, and consequently of speech, is a long and demanding personal endeavour, which is part and parcel of a novice’s spiritual apprenticeship and which is to be faced for the rest of her life. In such a context the voice is almost cancelled, and each moment of the day is structured on the basis of the relationship between words for communication and words for praying, which are linked to acts of devotion. The former, which is what is normally used by ordinary people, enable individuals to establish an interactive relationship and to communicate among each others, with the aim to exchange information, let other people know and disclose mental or spiritual contents, as well as frames of mind. The latter, words for praying, are considered to be directed toward the divinity, with the intent to praise, give thanks, request help, or ask forgiveness. The different silences are linked to the presence/absence of these two communicative conditions and to their mutual interaction. Verbal exchanges are reduced to a minimum within the framework of the cloistered day. From a relational perspective, community life provides the individual with a communicative device geared to assuming the role of speaker in relation to an invisible and absent interlocutor. On an emotional participation and/or mental level, every nun tries to establish a dialogue in absentia. Therefore, except for recreation time, what could be considered as a sort of horizontal communication among the nuns seems to disappear to the benefit of a form of vertical communication, which is exclusively directed toward the divinity through prayers and psalms, hymns and chants. The words for praying are sometimes spoken and voiced, while other times they are expressed in silence, as in silent prayers and spiritual reading. However, these words are strongly controlled and channelled: they are read in the prayer books or they are the text of prayers remembered by heart. Silent praying is performed through thinking. Even if this is sometimes stimulated by some reading, it is directed toward meditating on the divine presence and attempting to simulate a dialogue. Therefore this action is directed outwards. On the other hand, spiritual reading is a personal action. It is self-referential and it is inwardlooking – directed toward the individual. Although the subject that is mentioned in the words is always the divinity, the words are implicitly directed to oneself, as a thoughtful attempt to warn and listen.

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Limited Bodies

Silence includes the absence of voices and words, but more generally it is lack of sounds and noises. The nuns put their bodies and movements under forms of motor control. Movements are limited to the bare minimum and performed with great awareness. The nuns learn how to control their movements, perform them quickly and, above all, to weaken them. When going from one room to another one, they walk calmly, without rushing, and there is always an attempt to maintain a soft or reduced sound level. Even a mild sound due to, for instance, someone walking fast, opening a door in a hurry or performing an unnecessary movement, if produced by all the inhabitants of the convent may immediately generate noise, or at least a lack of silence. During the first week of field work, I happened to make noise all the time, thus disturbing the usual quietness: the nuns could hear when I would open and close the doors, go to the bathroom, go upstairs, walk through the corridors, move from one room to another one, enter my cell and leave it. Very soon I decided not to wear my shoes anymore and to use slippers instead. I even considered walking barefoot if I had been allowed to. I spent the rest of my stay wondering how the nuns could walk without making any noise, even wearing their shoes, while I was still recognisable even using slippers. It is a matter of body techniques and control skills. As Mauss (1936) recalled, the body is the main technical device available to an individual. To achieve a physical goal, adaptation, training and practice are needed. In order to act and pray without making any noise, it is necessary to acquire specific techniques. Due to distraction or habit, often individuals do not control the small movements they perform in everyday life and are not aware of the actual noise produced when they act. In fact, the very movements and noises establish and characterize their space. In cloistered life, movements are fully under control, thus making it possible to preserve silence in a convent where twenty women live together. This is supplemented by the acquisition of listening skills. In order to avoid noise, it is also necessary to be able to listen perfectly. By remaining all day in silence, every minimal sound can be heard – even sounds that are so feeble that they cannot be heard outside monastic life because they are covered by other sounds. It is only when these sounds are actually perceived that one can avoid making them, thus contributing positively to achieving the desired condition of silence. During their spiritual course, the nuns have to deal with the acquisition of postures, action modes and techniques, and at the same time, they have to enhance their listening skills. In time, the sensation of silence becomes fragmented and is split into minimal sequences. This leads to a dilation, which

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refines the perception of increasingly shorter time intervals. For the nuns, avoiding noise comes first and, consequently, the way they move around should be adjusted accordingly. It is important to stress that behind this quest for silence there is a longing for the divinity, the supernatural perceived as inexpressible or, as Rudolf Otto (1917) put it, unreachable and inaccessible to human understanding.6 From a Christian perspective, the condition of silence helps the individual communicate with the divinity and, as reported by the nuns themselves, establish a contact with it. It is interesting to note that the “research tool” (i.e., silence) used by the nuns to reach what is considered unspeakable and total “otherness” belongs to the same perception level of the objective to be achieved. Thus, a kind of homeopathic process is implemented. At a social level, silence is a kind of behaviour that is passed on, learned and acquired as an approach to be adopted in certain circumstances, that people should know how to use to reach their goals. For example, in political or professional settings it is often used as a tool to exert power or to identify roles. Whenever it dominates a speaking subject or an important sound, hierarchical and disciplinary situations arise. Silence control is a sign of self-control and, at the same time, subjugation. With reference to contemporary Western society, David Le Breton studied the absence of silence and analyzed this issue from the point of view of noise. The issue is addressed in terms of identity structure. He pointed out that identity affirmation is achieved through shouting and noise, which are often imposed and sought at all costs (Le Breton 1999: 24). Making oneself heard provides a tangible sign of one’s presence in the world and establishes communication channels that can be easily implemented. Similarly, for the cloistered nuns, silence and the conduct of movements implemented to obtain it are modes of subjectification, i.e., fundamental elements in the construction of oneself as a subject. Giving shape to one’s role of

6 One of the nuns involved in the study declared: “I believe that silence is a condition for union with God. Without silence, without a silent atmosphere, the noise would disperse, whereas silence concentrates. […] It is part of our path toward God, a condition of our life of prayer, in that silence is at the basis of our life with God. Therefore, if there is lack of silence, something would be missing in the accomplishment of this endeavor” (sister P, 27 April 2006) (My translation of “Je crois que le silence est l’une des conditions de l’union à Dieu. Si on n’a pas le silence et le climat de silence, le bruit disperse, alors que le silence concentre. […] C’est une partie de notre chemin vers Dieu, une condition de notre vie d’oraison, puisque le silence est la base de notre vie avec Dieu. Donc, si le silence manque, c’est quelque chose qui manque à la réalisation”).

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nun and highlighting one’s own spiritual aptitude could be based on the ability to use silence. As opposed to what happens in the external world, the nun restates and communicates her own presence (almost shouting at times) stretching her choice to the limit, through the creation of a situation of speech and sound emptiness. As Georges Didi-Huberman (2006: 13) put it, with a poetic touch, the right word – incisive and performative – is not the one claiming that it “always tells the truth,” but the one that the social actor can construct by stressing it. It is worth emphasising that control should not be considered just in a passive sense, i.e., as abstinence from most movements that are made in an individual’s everyday life; it should also be considered in an active sense, i.e., as the ability to produce other gestures, have specific postures and, in some cases, maintain these postures for a long time. The term ability does not refer to the fact that it is difficult to perform those gestures, but to the fact that they are performed voluntarily and under control, within a repetitive, methodical and sometimes extended pattern of actions. As Ingold (2000: 150) pointed out, individuals can become part of their environment by using a set of specific skills, to be intended as implicit and embodied know-how. By enacting modes of posture and movement based on composure and limitation, the nuns perform gestures of reverence for both the divinity they believe in – considered as a presence – and the images or statues that represent it: making the sign of the cross, often accompanied by taking holy water, bowing, genuflecting, gazing. These are performed every day in the same way and characterize the various situations of monastic life, both structured religious and devotional ones, and those linked to everyday life, e.g. moving from one place to another inside the convent. Let us consider some concrete examples.7 During the day the nuns go to the church choir to pray, and every time they enter the ante-choir a bow must be made, i.e., they bend their body as a sign of obedience towards the image of Saint Teresa of Ávila, the holy water is touched lightly and the sign of the cross is made; on some occasions, which are linked to specific devotional events, the entrance to the choir is performed as a procession, with the nuns forming two parallel lines. When moving from the choir to the refectory, which in many convents are located on the first floor and on the ground floor respectively, to have lunch or dinner, the nuns walk in procession forming two lines; along this way, when the nuns walk in front of the Virgin Mary statue they gaze at her. When entering the refectory, the nun lined up to the left slightly touches the 7 This brief list of examples is far from being exhaustive, as the monastic day is full of gestures, actions and postures that are similar to those mentioned here.

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holy water with her hand, turns towards her sister to the right, passes some water to her, they both cross themselves, then they move on toward the crucifix hanging on the wall and bow, trying to perform all their movements in unison. Before starting to eat, the sign of the cross is made once again. While praying in the choir the nuns remain seated or standing straight, depending on the prayer stage. While seated, the nuns should not cross their calves and must keep their feet close to each other and in parallel. The breviary or any other book being used must be held in a certain way. During the prayer the nuns kneel down and sit on a low wooden seat, which is empty inside (approximately 40 cm long and 20 cm high). Let us now focus on two specific postures. When the nuns pray and are in a seated position, they must keep the book on top of their hands while these are on top of each other; the hands almost touch the legs and there is an attempt to keep a minimal distance between the hands and the legs. In order to reach the position required for praying, the nuns kneel down, grab the small wooden seat, place it on top of their legs (these remain within the legs of the seat itself) and then they sit on it. My field work experience can be helpful to give a clearer picture in this respect. During my entire stay in the convent I had difficulties in holding the book still on my legs, keeping an upright standing position for a long time and avoiding changing my position continuously – surely, this is also due to the fact that I do not play any sport on a regular basis. During the prayer cycles my arms would always hurt. I wished I could have changed my position and sometimes I would make some noise while moving or leaning accidentally on the armrest. I would get to the end of silent prayer time, assuming that I was able to reach that stage, with my legs aching and feeling numb. I would stand up clumsily, and I would always make some noise with the small seat. Thus, the ability to perform these actions and postures requires the acquisition of specific techniques, the mental determination to be willing to perform them silently, full body control, and surely a lot of practice, not to say training. The pace of cloistered life is determined by the repetition of well established actions and postures, which are embedded in the framework of silence. These are performed with precision and accuracy. They become part of daily life and are acquired throughout time. It is clear that there exists an incorporation process at the basis of these practices, which eventually become part and parcel of the movement itself. To appreciate better the meaning of these routines, it is worth emphasizing that they are present and essential in any cultural system. Jean Pierre Warnier (1999: 16) explains that every person tends to incorporate the objects and tools she or he learns to use while these, in turn, also shape a person’s social and motor conduct. The object is incorporated through the acquisition and memorization of specific conduct of movements.

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These are series of gestures that are performed easily and rapidly, thanks to repetition, producing a positive outcome. The individual becomes an integral part of the object, which is then part of the action. In the case of nuns, their gestures are devotional and are seldom accompanied by objects (e.g. the small seat or the book). The interesting aspect here is that these religious gestures are also incorporated as is the case with objects in general. Sometimes these small gestures are so much embedded in the nuns’ body techniques – which are essential and reduced to a bare minimum – that it is not possible to perceive them individually, and they can be hardly discerned. Rather than mere devotional actions and gestures, they become conducts of movement that are so integrated into the nuns’ presence in the convent, as well as in their way of moving and walking, that they tend to pass unnoticed by an external observer. They disappear when looking at the harmony of movements performed by the nuns, but they reappear with all their strength of devotional practice to be learned when one confronts them directly and when they have to be enacted individually. This is the reason why I made some noise with the seat when I tried to find the correct position for silent prayer. As I could not place the seat in a correct way, I would lose my balance and feel pretty uncomfortable. Similarly, when entering the refectory, I was not able to perform all the required movements confidently and rapidly, even if these may seem to be banal in some way: taking the holy water, passing it to the nun standing at my right side, making the sign of the cross, taking four steps forward together with the other nun and bowing before the crucifix. I was not following the correct pace. I was out of time and it looked like I was clumsily performing a role I did not study enough. In certain circumstances, the social actor or actress develops a form of incorporation not just of the object-tool, but “of the ‘dynamics’ s/he has ‘interiorized’ on the tool itself” (Lai 2004: 21).8 The nuns incorporate dynamics of movements and sequences of actions. If the latter are included in the dynamics of movement and, at times, it is not possible to distinguish them as they are devotional, according to the nuns they are characterized by a strong intimate and cultural connotation. Relational speech, i.e., the words spoken to simply inform on daily matters, seems to be almost non-existent (with the exception of the two short recreational breaks). The many words spoken out of habit, automatically but also for planning, disappear. For someone outside this community it is extremely difficult to repress even the expressions of welcome or greeting, e.g., good morning, goodbye, goodnight, when encountering other people in the corridor, gathering at dawn to start praying or retiring to one’s cell in the evening. 8 My translation of “della ‘dinamica’ che egli ha ‘interiorizzato’ sullo strumento stesso.”

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However, such a communicative level is not totally absent. Once again, it is expressed through the nuns’ body, particularly through their gaze and their face. For daily communication the nuns use their eye and lip movements, their smile and almost imperceptible signs of approval. In fact, these signs have greater visibility and stronger significance within the cloistered framework, which features a high degree of movement control and limitation. It is an interesting case of language replacement. The nuns’ relational communication is entirely based on the visual representational system. In this sense, during my field work experience in cloistered life I needed to go through a mind and gesture-based learning process of their way of life, trying to decode the signs and reproduce them. This system of meaning creation is accepted and acknowledged by the community, but it requires an extended time to learn. In these terms, my field work experience was a failure, as I did not manage to acquire the nuns’ discursive system, except for very brief moments that were more driven by intuition and imitation, thus I remained speechless, i.e., lacking both sounds and gestures, for most of the time.

The Silence of God and the Silence of the Anthropologist

Let us now focus on another kind of silence, which the nuns attribute to the assumed divinity. It is important to consider that in a mystic sense “silence, with reference to the creature is the abandonment of discourse activities in favour of pure contemplation; with reference to God, it is the sentiment felt by the praying subject that God does not correspond to men and women’s prayers” (Pozzi and Leopardi 1988: 745).9 The nuns highlight this aspect, attributing the practice of silence to the divinity as well. Just like them, this divinity is also considered to be silent: it does not respond, speak, or utter words, but it does exist.10 An active quietness is created, yet this silence denotes a presence of company, help and support. Clearly, this condition of silence is difficult to 9

10

My translation of “il silenzio, detto della creatura è l’abbandono dell’attività discorsiva per la pura contemplazione; detto di Dio designa il sentimento, provato dall’orante, che Dio non corrisponda alla preghiera dell’uomo.” One of the nuns said: “Anyway, God does not speak by means of words. Words belong to human beings. Apparently, God speaks in an eternal silence, but this silence is equal to words” (Sister cm, 19 April 2006). (My translation of “De toute manière, Dieu ne nous parle pas avec des mots. Les mots sont une chose qui appartient à l’humain. On dit que Dieu parle dans un silence éternel, mais c’est un silence qui est une parole”). The term God was written in the transcripts of interviews with a capital letter according to the writing mode used by the nuns themselves.

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manage, in that it implies the symbolic acknowledgment of somebody/something not visible that can hardly be conceptualized and concretely expressed. The gap between what is real and what is symbolic can actually be found in silence, i.e., the most representative practice of cloistered life, but also the most extreme and problematic one. It is in this practice that there is an attempt to establish a dialogue with the divinity, i.e., the silent “other” par excellence. Every activity in this community is justified and experienced by the nuns toward the function of possibly activating this dialogue. From this viewpoint, eventually each moment and meeting during the day is perceived as a moral and/or personal obligation. Whenever a nun finds it difficult to translate, into a concrete form, her relationship with someone who is not actually there – evidence of this kind was reported in numerous instances – it is possible to resort to the help coming from the presence of the other nuns. The individual nun’s uncertainty is quickly recovered and reintegrated thanks to the group. This shared choice makes it possible to both give meaning to an individual’s behaviour and to keep the group united while preserving its internal balance. This common determination becomes a unifying factor and reifies the model. Each nun can see the other nuns around her acting in the same way in the same place, presumably believing in what they are doing and managing to continue to do so. This provides personal confidence and feeds the sense of sharing in the community itself. This aspect was revealed clearly by some events that occurred during my stay. Some of the nuns thanked me a number of times for being there, particularly for my steady participation, as if I were one of them, in all the community activities, including those considered most demanding, such as the two hours in silent prayer. They admitted that my presence gave them strength. This was interpreted as evidence of the fact that another person, especially a nonreligious person, managed to share some precise forms of life (or at least attempted to do so), thus she was able to act in the same direction they were following. This sense of sharing in prayer and in daily activities enables the participants to feel that they belong to a group, outline its features and make its objectives explicit. It creates a link between the actresses and, at the same time, it constantly feeds this very link.11 Praying according to certain modalities is certainly perceived not as an externally imposed obligation; rather, it is part 11

It is important to underline the collective and participatory dimension on which the group is based, as the social actors are not always aware of this (Mannarini 2004: 45). However, when discussing community-based and shared forms of living, even of a religious nature, a certain degree of difference and internal inconsistency is also involved.

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of the aims established by the nuns and that are considered to be functional to the achievement of their objectives. One of the sisters gave me a truly explanatory example: The difficulty I was experiencing in following the time schedule of their standard day was said to be similar to the difficulty she would have experienced if she had had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed a baby. Just like waking up very early or remaining on one’s knees for silent prayer, feeding a baby at night is a burden that a woman wants to bear or is obliged to do so because of certain life choices she made or her intention to develop her way of being a woman as a mother. Time management, framed within more or less wide spatial boundaries, builds and determines our way of being and our life orientations. As pointed out by Jean Séguy (1971: 328), the monastic unity is influenced in its concrete realizations by the utopian process at which it aims, implicitly or explicitly, and tries to shape on a daily basis. The cloistered nuns’ everyday life is an attempt, at times a desperate attempt, to reify the mystic dialogue they establish with the assumed divinity, making it an integral part of the day. The presence of the divinity is perceived as real and tangible, so much so that every personal gesture is influenced by it. The lack of speech by the nuns and by me had a strong impact on the field work experience discussed in the present work. During my stays in the convents I had to comply with the rules of the community, refraining from speaking and trying to conform to their behaviours and movements as much as possible. Living together with the nuns implied piloting my academic interests and learning, day after day, the appropriate movements and attitudes. Initially, this did not spare any time for theoretical thinking or for careful observation of the situations going on. I needed to learn, as I had to live in accordance with their regulations. I used my time and energy to experiment with and implement in first person the instructions I was given from time to time and I was committed to follow. Kneeling down on the floor and keeping the correct position for one hour require commitment and attention first toward oneself rather than the others. To put it simply, during my stay I barely had the time to experience the whole setting, let alone attempt to understand it – this was actually possible only at a subsequent stage. In order to be in tune with the nuns, thus getting closer to their way of thinking, I found it necessary on a personal level to retrieve my Catholic background, reflect upon some aspects and try to put into practice the religious feelings of faith with which I had the chance to be familiar in my family life. To make sense of what I was experiencing and find some sort of logic, I had to resort to my religious education, trying to implement actions and practices that apparently did not belong to me, but I was able to find them in my personal history. Remaining one hour before the

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image of the divinity or a cross while trying to establish a real contact with that representation of the otherness, even if it is not recognized as real in one’s own life, is different from performing the same gesture while thinking about something else. That means recovering a kind of feeling most similar to what the nuns define as faith and that each and every person may experiment with several times in very diverse forms and not in a traditional sense. As highlighted by Loring Danforth and Alexander Tsiaras (1982), as long as one does not come to terms, on a personal level, with emotions that are similar to those felt by the interlocutor, it would be impossible to fill the gap between the two of them. In this sense, field work may lead the researcher to question herself as a person. Participation is not a strategic footing, nor is it a role play game to be considered as an ethnographic pretence. What is at stake here is a comprehensive identification with that role, though this would last for a determined amount of time. Such a role needs to be lived to the full, without pretending, and implies a direct involvement in making some decisions as if it were truly a moment of one’s own life, acting with no pretence, evaluating the others’ needs and one’s own needs in relation to the actual circumstances more than the field dynamics. In some ethnographic situations this seems to be a methodological necessity in order to get to the core of the matter. Doing research inside cloistered life led me to reconsider the footing of the anthropologist in relation to the notions of “emotional involvement,” as a form of “non represented emotional involvement”12 (Jeanne Favret-Saada 1990: 3), an active and not simulated participation, which entails going through a transformation and taking a specific stance. This is used by the anthropologist to participate as a real actor in the group’s dynamics under study, leaving aside for a moment her investigation-driven behaviour. For the researcher this means not only taking on the role acknowledged (and sometimes imposed) by the others, that she is willing to accept for research purposes, but it also means entering the field’s dynamics as if that moment were actually part of her life and being carried away (Pétonnet 1982). To clarify this point, we can draw on Marc Augé’s remarks on the field itself. The French anthropologist points out that the “relationship” between the anthropologist and her informant “is twofold by definition, because even if they are in the same research situation and deal with the same topic, they do not talk about the same thing” (Augé 1994: 71).13 In other words, their relationship 12 13

My translation of Jeanne Favett-Saadal’s “affect” and “affect non représenté” (1990: 3–4). My translation of “la relation est par définition duplice pour autant que, dans la situation d’enquête elle-même et alors qu’ils traitent du même sujet, ils ne parlent pas de la même chose.”

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involves two different discourse modalities: the subjects under investigation talk about the situation with real interest in that the situation in question for them is their life, and every decision they make or behaviour they put in practice has a concrete impact on their daily life; on the other hand, anthropologists are driven by the field, trying to put together the pieces of information they receive and confirm the possible interpretations. However, what goes on is not directly relevant to them because sooner or later they will return home, back to their life. Although this logic is what is usually implemented consciously or has to be faced in field work, one of the possible ways to overcome, even for a short time, the time gap between the emic and the etic dimensions can be found in the emotional participation, provided that it is possible to implement it successfully. Clearly, while this sort of experimentation can be used to understand the needs and sensitiveness of those to be investigated, this research approach is open to a somewhat uncomfortable and contradictory subjectivity. Furthermore, not all fields can be approached using the same methodology: together with fortuitous favourable circumstances, there is the need to have truly open social actors, who must let the researcher operate in an active way. That is the time when, all of a sudden, the field becomes part of one’s life and transforms itself, as Favret-Saada puts it, into a “personal endeavour, which is to say, the opposite of a job” (1990: 5).14 References Augé, Marc. 1994. Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporains. Paris: Aubier. Bandler, Richard and John Grinder. 1979. Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Pragramming. Moab ut: Real People Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire: L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Paris: Fayard. Danforth, Loring M. and Alexander Tsiaras. 1982. The Death Rituals of Rural Greece. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press. D’Haenens, Albert. 1985. “Quotidianità e contesto. Per un modello di interpretazione della realtà monastica medievale nei secoli XI e XII.” Pp. 38–50 Centro di Ricerche e Studi Storici: Monachesimo e Ordini Religiosi nel Medioevo Subalpino. Bibliografia degli studi 1945–1984: 17–56. Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2006. Gesti d’aria e di pietra: Corpo, parole, soffio, immagine. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis. Di Nola, Alfonso Maria. 1993. La preghiera dell’uomo. Parma: Guanda. 14

My translation of “une aventure personnelle, c’est-à-dire le contraire d’un travail.”

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Favret-Saada, Jeanne. 1990. “Être affecté.” Gradiva 8: 3–9. Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Lai, Franco. 2004. “Trasmissione e innovazione dei saperi locali.” Pp. 17–30 in Fare e saper fare. I saperi locali in una prospettiva antropologica. Cagliari: cuec. Le Breton, David. 1999. “Anthropologie du silente.” Théologiques 7(2): 11–28. Mannarini, Terri. 2004. Comunità e partecipazione: prospettive psicosociali. Milano: Angeli. Mauss, Marcel. 1936. “Les techniques du corps.” Journal de Psychologie 32(3–4): 27–45. Otto, Rudolf. 1917. Das Heilige. München: Beck. Pétonnet, Colette.1982. “L’observation flottante: L’exemple d’un cimetière parisien.” L’Homme 22(4): 37–47. Pozzi, Giovanni and Leopardi Claudio. 1988. Scrittrici mistiche italiane. Genova: Marietti. Sbardella, Francesca. 2012. “Abitare con la divinità-dio. Processi di rappresentazione e di costruzione di senso.” Pp. 99–118 in Rappresentare: Questioni di antropologia, cinema e narrativa, edited by A. Destro. Bologna: Clueb. —— . 2006. “Silenzio abitato: pratiche di comunicazione controllata.” Pp. 112–134 in Antropologia dei flussi globali, edited by A. Destro. Roma: Carrocci. Séguy, Jean 1971. “Une sociologie des sociétés imaginées: monachisme et utopie.” Annales, Economie, Société, Civilisations, 26: 328–54. Servais, Emile and Francis Hambye. 1971. “Structure et Signification: problème de méthode en sociologie des organisations claustrales.” Social Compass 18: 27–44. Wachtel, Nathan. 1992. Dieux et vampires: retour a Chipaya. Peris: Seuil. Warnier, Jean Pierre. 1999. Construire la culture materielle: L’homme qui pensait avec ses doigts. Paris: Puf. Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. New York: Bedminster Press.

chapter 5

Redefinition of the Role of Monks in Modern Society: Economy as Monastic Opportunity Isabelle Jonveaux Fewer and fewer young people today wish to become a monk or a nun. The scarcity of vocations is now taken for granted in Roman Catholic Church, and some communities in West Europe are searching solutions to avoid closing. Does that mean that secularized society no longer needs monasteries and “administrators of salvation goods” as Max Weber (1995) put it? At the opposite of this decline and marginalization of consecrated life as lived out by the pro­ fessed, we notice a growing interest in monastic life through more and more people who come to monastery for a visit, a retreat or only to buy monastic products at the shop. The problem is not so much that monastic life is out­ moded but rather that monks and nuns are less and less present in society as religious professionals, as though religious virtuosi are no longer plausible in secularized society. In this chapter I will seek to investigate the renewed role of monasticism in a society that is no longer interested in eschatological salvation. In this effort, I choose to enter monastic reality through economics, and I will seek to dem­ onstrate in this chapter the pertinence of this approach. After having explained in a first part the place of economy in monastic communities and what its study reveals about monastic life and its evolution, I will discuss the new com­ mercial activities of monasteries and the new role that they may give to mon­ asteries in a secularized society. My contribution is based on field inquiries and interviews with monks and nuns carried on between 2004 and today in male and female monasteries in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. The communities that I studied belong to Benedictine, Cistercian and Trappist orders.

What Does Economy Reveal About Monastic Life?

It is obvious that monasteries are not primary groups of economic action oriented toward a performance in this sphere. But monasteries neverthe­ less “engage in economic activities” and are, according to Max Weber,

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“regulatory groups…whose norms regulate the economic behavior of the participants and whose organs do not continuously direct economic activi­ ties through participation, concrete instructions or injunctions” (1978: 339–341). Because monastics live together and live out all aspects of their life in the same place, hence are in this sense “total institutions” (Goffman 1961), monastic communities are also confronted with the economic aspect of existence, even though they originally aimed to free themselves from earthly conditions. Before I explain how commercial activities could give new opportunities for monastic communities to conserve plausibility in secularized society, we have to pay attention to what economy means in a monastic context. It particularly has to be placed in the perspective of tensions present in monastery between religious life and economic activity.

Economy and Religious Life: A Long Story

It would take far too long to explain the whole history of the topic of work and economy in monasticism, but I will briefly mention the key points of this debate. From the very beginning of monasticism, work and economy generated deep tensions within religious life. As Christian men and women wanted to go out of the world and give themselves totally to prayer and con­ templation, monks at first thought that they did not need to work: God would provide for their survival. The works of the Desert Fathers, for example, include stories of monks who received their food directly from angels (Guy 1993), but the Desert Fathers also quickly realized that they could not live as angels and that work was a necessity for their material or biological survival. Subsequently monastic work was institutionalized through rules such as that of Pachomius (†346) and later, of course, the famous rule of Saint Benedict (†550) which even integrates work in the definition of monk: “When they live by the labor of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks” (Rule: Chap. 48). Nevertheless the tension between work or economy and prayer life did not disappear with the redaction of rules or institutio­ nalization of communities in defined monasteries but continues throughout the whole history of monasticism. More particularly, this question has often been the cause of reforms or creations of new monastic movements. The balance between manual labor and prayer often produced a genuine economic rationalism that led to a famous paradox underlined by Max Weber (1948: 334):

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The ascetic monk has fled from the world by denying himself individual property; his existence has rested entirely upon his own work; and, above all, his needs have been correspondingly restricted to what was abso­ lutely indispensable. The paradox of all rational asceticism, which in an identical manner has made all ages stumble, is that rational asceticism itself has created the very wealth it rejected. Temples and monasteries have everywhere become the very loci of rational economies. It is for this reason that the Cistercian reform of Saint Bernard, for instance, was a reaction against the enrichment of Benedictine abbeys like Cluny in France. But the Trappist reform that occurred five centuries later – the strict observance with the Abbé de Rancé at the end of the 17th century in Normandy − was also a reaction against the new enrichment and decline of asceticism in Cistercian abbeys. Economy is therefore a very delicate question in monasticism in order to retain the balance between prayer life and work life. A monastery that was extremely poor could not achieve a quality religious life. When monks are daily worried about their material survival, they cannot have a deep contemplative life. It is for this reason that Pope Pius XII wrote in 1950, after having observed that a lot of female monasteries were in a critical situation after the war, the apostolic letter (Sponsa Christi) in order to denounce the excessive poverty of some female monasteries and encourage them to find productive work. At the opposite end, when economic life is too successful, it can take too large a place in religious life, and history shows us that when monks no longer need to work because other people do it for them (lay brothers, salaried workers or servants), the quality of religious life has also declined. So Patrice Cousin claims : “la richesse a été continûment malfaisante pour les moines” (1956: 531). Max Weber also writes: “In fact, the whole history of monasticism is in a certain sense, the history of a continual struggle with the problem of the secularizing influence of wealth” (2003: 174).

Monastic Economy Today: Toward Production Activities

In most European countries today economic activities have become a first necessity for monasteries that have lost their traditional sources of incomes. Donations are no longer enough for the subsistence of communities. Moreover, dowries have been abolished in female monasteries, which were a main source of their income. Additionally, many monasteries lost their inheritances in the troubles of monastic history. In France, for instance, they did not recover these

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possessions after the Revolution, and since 1979 they have been required to pay social contributions to the state. Hence, autarchy is no longer possible for French monasteries which have to produce money in order to pay contribu­ tions to the state and also have to find other sources of income, such as agriculture. The economic situation of monasteries nowadays can be very different according to the society in which the monastery is located. Nevertheless we can maintain that a large part of monastic communities today live thanks to the direct work of monks. In France, for instance, work incomes represent between 28 and 45% of total monastery incomes − or between 41 and 58% if we also include incomes from the monastic guest house.1 In this case we can maintain that the economy of French monasteries is really based on the monks’ work. Although Austrian monks do not have the same economic activi­ ties as the French, incomes of these abbeys − as I will show later − also come for the most part from the work of monks who are active in parishes (hence paid by the diocese) or schools (hence paid by the state). At the opposite extreme, Belgian monasteries principally find their incomes in royalties they receive for its marks they give to beer or cheese. For instance, these royalties represent 46% of the income of the Benedictine Abbey of Maredsous. In this case, a great part of monks are active in non-rentable activities such as intel­ lectual ones. In general, three main patterns can be found in the modern monastic economy: a direct economy of work where monks directly work for their subsistence, an assets economy where incomes come in major part from land possessions or investments, and finally an economy of exterior employees where lay people work for monks and operate economic activities. The most relevant questions for monks and nuns today is indeed to find an economic activity that can be productive for the community but which also can be integrated into a coherent religious system. Following Jean Séguy (1971: 331), we can describe monastery as a utopia which is “a complete ideological system aiming to transform radically the existing global system implicitly or explicitly, by appealing to an imaginary vision of the world or by applying it in practice.” In this sense the monastery is an entirely religious institution that theoretically admits in its framework only activities that can help it to reach the religious purpose of the institution. That is why economic activities have to be justified by monastics in order not to challenge the religious utopia. Then justifications of work and economy give rise to various strategies that can be briefly listed here. The first one would be denying econ­ omy by creating alternative spaces for gift and barter, but monks are aware that 1 For four French abbeys studied between 2004 and 2009, where I was able obtain figures.

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they cannot live solely with this alternative form of economy. The second one is a process of externalization, which consists in withdrawing monks from eco­ nomic activities and replacing them by lay people or to extract a manufactory from the enclosure. The last stage of this externalization is the sale of the monastic trademark to a lay company from which monks receive royalties, as in Maredsous for instance. A final strategy consists of giving religious significa­ tion to the economy, which in this case will no longer be opposed to religious life. It is obvious in case of religious products like hosts or icons, but arts and crafts or even ecology can also give rise to new redefinitions of the religious activity (Jonveaux 2011a).

European Differences in Monastic Activities: A Statistical Approach

The principal aim for this chapter is to explain how new commercial activities of monks toward society can paradoxically help them to find a renewed place in a putatively “secularized” contemporary world. Nevertheless, the situation of European monasteries can be very different from one country to another and activities monastics are developing in the early twenty-first century are still deeply connected with the particular history of each country over the last three centuries. Austria is a good example of this. A quick statistical study of monasticism in Austria shows how much we can still observe the heritage of “josephinism” from the eighteenth century (Jonveaux 2014). In the framework of the Enlightenment, Emperor Joseph II, the son of Maria Theresia, following the theories of the French economist Quesnay, enacted a law to eliminate all religious communities which had no “useful” activity for society. As a conse­ quence, monasteries opened schools and developed work in parishes, while they also received more parishes from the State. Statistical data about monasti­ cism in Europe still perfectly shows these differences in monastic history, especially through activities of monks and nuns. For instance 60.9% of Austrian Benedictine monasteries have a shop as contrasted to 78.6% for French Benedictine monasteries. This difference can be explained through the fact that Austrian monks have other activities apart from the production econ­ omy, hence they do not need a shop to sell their products as do French monks. The major part of the activities of Austrian monks take place outside the mon­ astery in parishes or schools. For instance, 63% of the monks of Kremsmünster – a Benedictine Abbey in Upper Austria – work outside the monastery, and 54% of them were or are active in a parish. The same can be observed with the

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monastic guest house. Meanwhile 73% of all contemplative monasteries in France have a guest house, while only 42.6% of Austrian monasteries have one even though it is very important for Benedictine spirituality to receive guests “as they would welcome Christ Himself” (rb Chap 53). At the opposite end, 30% of Austrian monasteries have still a school, although we cannot find any in France for over 50 years.2 This particular episode of Austrian history also explains why female contemplative monasteries are not as widespread, while we can always count more female monasteries than male monasteries in Italy, France or Belgium. There are indeed only seven female Benedictine monaster­ ies in Austria and eighteen male Benedictine monasteries. As they could not have activities in parishes or schools because of their impossibility to access the priesthood and their strong papal enclosure, most female monasteries were cut off. Religious history in European countries still therefore leaves its mark on the situation of monasteries nowadays, and we can read this history through monastics’ activities. In sum, we can argue that economy is a pertinent point for entering the monastic reality and to carry out a sociological study of present monasteries. Because the economic dimension is the most important junction point between monasteries and society, it is also the major place to observe muta­ tions in monastic life which are influenced by social evolution. As a proof of that, the history of monasticism shows us the relevant weight of economic questions in evolutions, crises or reforms of monasteries. This historical back­ ground has also to be taken into consideration when we want understand the situation of European monasticism today. This study of economic dimensions of religious life fills furthermore a gap in the sociology of religion and also eco­ nomic sociology.

Diverse Positions of Monasteries Toward Society

Economic activities of monastics are a necessity to provide for keeping of their community functioning, but as we will see, monks also try to insert them in their global religious project. The reason I chose to explain the economy of monasteries in order to study the redefinition of the role of monastics in late 2 Throughout this chapter statistics for Austria were made from the ss. Patriarchae Benedicti Familiae Confoederatae, Atlas osb, Editio II, 2004, the Direktorium 2012 and 2013, and Websites of monasteries. For the case of France, especially thanks to the Annuaire pratique des lieux monastiques, Fondation des Monastères, 2007. All statistics were calculated using spss.

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modernity is because economic activities bring a lot of new opportunities to monks to find a new place in a society that is no longer interested in its escha­ tological salvation. In spite of the decline of interest about monasteries for their religious function, we notice nowadays a growing interest for nonreligious activities of monasteries, which are most of the time also commercial activities.

Are Monks Still “Administrators of Salvations Goods”?

My choice to discuss primarily the economic aspect of monastic life does not mean denying the main goal of a monastic institution − which is indeed a reli­ gious one. Monks and nuns are theoretically defined by their religious role which, according to Max Weber, would be the administration of salvation goods. This can be better understood if we place the origin of monasticism in a society which is waiting for the end of the times. “Sans l’attente ferme d’un retour proche du Seigneur, suivre Jésus est invivable; sans l’espérance que les temps sont raccourcis, c’est insupportable” (Metz 1981 : 61). In this context eschatological salvation was a very precious good for which people were ready to pay in order to obtain it. Monks were those who prayed for society as it has no time and no qualification to do so in a relatively rigid division among social classes. The French “three orders of society” described by Georges Duby (1978) is a good example for this. Society could then pay monks to pray for their salva­ tion while it was working on the daily functioning of society. But in a modern society of mass consumption and now one of satiety, eschatological salvation no longer makes sense. Salvation today is in earthly happiness, satisfaction of desires, eternal beauty and youth. As Peter L. Berger (1971: 202) says, “ce qui est le plus important, c’est que la théodicée de la souffrance, caractéristique du Christianisme, a perdu sa crédibilité et que la voie a donc été ouverte ainsi à diverses sotériologies sécularisées.” Furthermore, with the individualization of religious practice and the decline of religious authority, this division of religious work no longer makes sense. What can monastics do for this society? If the traditional role of monks no longer interests society, why do so many people go to visit monasteries? It means that monks found a new kind of role, and the economy seems to be the right place to observe it. It does not mean that monks did not previously have a relevant role in society through activities other than religion. We all know perfectly well the dominant role of monaster­ ies in the economic and social development of Europe in the Middle Ages, for example, but what we can now observe is a transposition of social and economic development by removing it from the religious role.

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When Necessity of New Markets Brings New Publics in Monasteries

Ideally monks would like to insert their economic activities in the religious utopia in order not to disturb religious coherence, but they come up against the necessity to find markets in order to sell their productions. First, agriculture, which was a traditional activity of monks, is no longer possible in respect to most French monasteries because they lost their posses­ sions centuries ago. As a consequence, they have to find other production activities. We could think that monks enter into economic activities that have a direct religious sense, for instance the production of religious items or hosts. These products are still present in monastic productions nowadays but they are not the most widespread. For example, in French monasteries, religious products represent 24% of monastic productions, while in Italy they are 18%.3 While these products do go together well with the religious aims of monasteries, they are not able to open onto a larger market. In a society where traditional religious practice is fading, these typical religious products find less and less costumers and almost entirely restrict demand to Christian customers. Monastics understood this perfectly, and this is why they diversified their activities, especially into productions which have a commercial purpose even if they are not directly useful for the monks. Some data can be useful here to consolidate this impression. For instance, foods represent 27% of French products, cd’s and cards are 15%, and decora­ tion is 10%. We also can find in monastic productions cosmetics, foods supplements, toys and so on. The necessity of finding new markets to provide for the subsistence of the community leads therefore monastics to non-religious productions which can create new opportunities to bring a new larger and more diverse public into monasteries. The same can be observed with other commercial ventures of monasteries which are now more and more numerous to reach different kinds of audiences. From icons to the Bible, from yoga to prayer and dance, from chant to stress management, the announcements of monastic sessions on the homepages of monasteries concern a wide range of possible activities. These sessions therefore widen the range of publics who come to monasteries. Because they are no longer solely devoted Catholics who expect a religious service, this permits as a consequence a monastery to increase the variety of both the people whom they serve and the revenue streams they generate. 3 These statistics were constructed from the Catalogue “Monastic 2006” for France and the Guida ai monasteri d’Italia 2004 (G.M. Grasselli and P. Tarallo. Monferrato: Piemme Spa).

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New Publics and New Sources of Incomes

Retreat in a monastery is the traditional religious activity for Catholic people who want to take time for themselves and to find God. But if we spend some days in a monastic guest house today, we can immediately notice that people who are there are not all Catholic churchgoers, and we often can meet people who are not believers at all. A short typology of different kinds of publics who come to monasteries could help to understand the new role of monasteries in the secularized society. The first kind of “monastic consumer” is the Catholic churchgoer in search of religious tradition who comes to the monastery for the solemn aspects of the office or the Gregorian chants. His consumption is essentially religious, and he rarely goes to the shop or restaurant. Another way of consuming at monasteries is participation in various sessions or other monastic presenta­ tions (as, for example, musical), especially in connection with major events within the Christian year. This public can be more varied in the sense that people can come with a religious purpose or without. A spiritual aim is almost always present, but it would be difficult to define this expectation in an insti­ tutional way. A final kind of public is tourists who come to visit of the abbey, but not explicitly motivated by religion at all. Such themes as architecture, history, artwork or music are possible. They often buy something in the shop, especially when a monk is doing the visit, because of the folkloric aspect. Belonging to these two last types we can also find a special category of intel­ lectual people who will appreciate the monastery because of a “pure taste” which is based, as Bourdieu (1984: 486) writes, on “a fundamental refusal of the facile” (Bourdieu 1984: 486). The taste for monastic architecture, Gregorian chant, but also traditional monastic products refer to this “refusal of the facile” in appreciating this realty from an esthetical point of view freed from the religious function. A tension for monks takes place therefore between the necessity of having more clients to increase their incomes and the imperative of protecting the monastic sphere in order to allow a real life of contemplation. We can indeed cite some religious communities such as in Hautecombe, France, which left the historic abbey and built a new smaller monastery in the mountain (Ganagobie) in order to flee from the hordes of tourists which came to visit the abbey each summer. I have myself observed the same at the Abbey of Heiligenkreuz (Austria) a few summers ago. There were no less than five tour­ ist busses in the parking when I arrived. Furthermore monastics have to man­ age the cohabitation of different kinds of public in order to ensure a silent atmosphere for people who come for a retreat.

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A monk of Camaldoli said me, for instance, they do not accept families with children when they organize retreats in silence, and correspondingly, they advise people who do want to come for a retreat against coming during sessions for families. If monks are selling now the monastery and monastic life as “brand,” this also has as a consequence that they have to manage the new cohabitation in the monastery between “customers” and “faithfull.”

Toward a Monastic Hedonism?

Although symbolic religious goods which come from traditional institutions find less and less customers, monastic products are more and more successful: How can we explain this success? If we pay more attention to certain monastic products, we can note that they present a renewed image of monastic life and monastic spirituality. According to Danièle Hervieu-Léger (2003: 133), a “vision du catholicisme indif­ férent (ou même hostile) à la recherche de bien-être de l’individu traverse sourdement l’opinion et les médias.” Because of their ascetic reputation, monks appear in society as “virtuosi of renunciation,” which includes refusal of all earthly pleasure. This would not be wrong indeed if we refer to the Weber’s assertion that the aim of monastic asceticism is “the destruction of spontane­ ous, impulsive enjoyment” (2003: 119). But some monastic products seem to present a new rapprochement toward life and bodily enjoyment. Cosmetics are a good example of this. As I observed it in an earlier article (Jonveaux 2011b), monks and nuns who produce cosmetics seem to encourage wellness and pleasure in the description of the product. Three percent of French mon­ asteries produce cosmetics or so-called “hygiene products”, an expression used by French monks who are reluctant to say “cosmetics” for the negative connotations this word might engender in the monastic arena. When nuns praise in their catalogue a bath loofah with an endorsement such as “we use the bath loofah daily for a moment of intensive pleasure and relaxation,” does that mean that they are no longer ascetic? The word “pleasure” is indeed often present in the description of monastic cosmetics although it had for many centuries a negative moral connotation in the monastic arena. It would seem curious that nuns openly make products that would be contrary to their values. The only explication for this is therefore to consider a new approach to cosmetics and pleasure of hygiene in monastic life. It is obvious that nuns do not produce these creams or shampoos for themselves, and most of the time, they do not use them. Nevertheless if nuns market it, this means that they no

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longer condemn women who do use them. Otherwise it would mean that nuns encourage them to sin! Although asceticism was considered as denying all pleasure in life, and espe­ cially bodily pleasures, some monastic products do not seem to correspond to this traditional view of ascetic discipline. Does that mean that a new kind of spirituality appears in European Catholic monasteries? There can be no doubt that monastic catalogues show a new interpretation of a relationship to one’s body through the vocabulary used to describe foods or hygiene products. This can be also observed in other commercial monastic endeavors such as Marienkron, a Cistercian monastery in Austria, which has a wellness house offering therapy according to the Kneipp method.4 In this house people can receive a massage or water jet therapy, take a qi gong or aquagym course, some of which are given by nuns themselves. Many monasteries, for instance the female Benedictine Abbey of Jouarre in France, also now offer yoga sessions or some courses that integrate bodily expression and prayer. The spirituality monks present to people who come to them is therefore no longer only the traditional one with strong asceticism and denial of the body, this traditional kind of asceticism is also no longer lived by monastics themselves (Jonveaux 2011c). For people who come to monasteries and who are not necessarily either Christian churchgoers or believers, this refers indeed more to a spirituality than to an institutional religion. “Spirituality, in this perspective, highlights the personal, intimate and subjective aspect of the relationship between human beings and God, a relationship that also involves the body” (Giordan 2009: 230). That is not to say that monks and nuns officially propose a new kind of hedonistic spirituality, but people who are expecting that can find it in monas­ tic products and different commercial propositions.

Monasteries as “A Chain of Memory”5

In the face of this observation, a question comes to mind: Why do people recognize competencies in spirituality of hic et nunc wellness by monastics who are also known for their strong asceticism and mortification? 4 The Kneipp method is a natural therapeutically method invented by Sebastian Kneipp, a German priest. It is based on the natural action of plants and water. This method is made of five pillars: hydrotherapy with water hosing and pool, phytotherapy, bodily exercise, diet, and a healthy way of life. 5 Religion as a Chain of Memory is the English translation of the title of Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s book: La religion pour mémoire.

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Monks are traditionally holders of a specific charisma. Following Max Weber (1978:241), “the term ‘charisma’ will be applied to a certain quality to an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional power and quality.” Monastic charisma is especially a religious one which also permits monks to be virtuosi of asceticism − that is to say, they are able to live a kind of asceticism that normal people cannot. An ideal type of this, for instance, is the first monk Antonius or Symeon Stylites who spent more than 15 years at the top of a column. But these extreme exercises of mor­ tifying the self are no longer plausible in modern society. Do monks and nuns today still have a kind of charisma? In monasteries which have a therapeutic activity, monastics often said to me during my field work, that “people come here after having tried a lot of things which did not work” and many customers of monastic shop explained to me that they find there something they “do not find elsewhere.” It is for this reason that companies try to use the monastic image on their products in order to benefit from the reputation of monastic products (Jonveaux 2011d). That shows a specific and inimitable charisma of products “made in a monastery.” In this context, a monastery is more than a place to find answers to new needs of spirituality that integrate the body. It is also a place of memory. According to Maurice Halbwachs, “since all the rest of social life is developed within the passage of time or duration, it stands to reason that religion with­ draws itself from it. This is the source of the idea that religion transports us into another world, that its object is eternal and immutable […]” (1992: 92). Religion is, especially in a society which has entered a “culture of change” (Gauchet 1997: 186), what does not change, and monasteries − which would be the “tradi­ tion” within “the religious tradition”  −  can all the more take charge of this memory role. A patrimonialization process is at work in western European monasteries (Jonveaux 2013a), when people come in order to “consume tradi­ tion.” Visits to the abbey for tourists, cd’s of the Gregorian chants of monks, or foods products from a “thousand-year-old receipt” take part in this process which becomes also a commercial one. Monastic tradition becomes a commercial product such as Michel de Certeau explains it for religion: “La religion est un spectacle qui s’exploite comme les autres objets de consom­ mation. Elle est commerciale et rentable. Comme ‘légende’, elle suit les che­ mins du loisir” (Certeau 1987 : 177). As Benedictine monks are living according to a 14-centuries-old rule and in historic buildings, people often think they are still living as in the Middle Ages. The film “Into Great Silence” (2006) made at the Grande Chartreuse with Carthusian monks was a very good example of this. The totally romantic

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presentation of Carthusian life corresponded exactly to what people expected. While we are seeing an old monk who is hardly working in a small snowcovered vegetable garden, we are not told about the liquor factory which monks possess in the valley and with which they stay in contact. Expectations of society toward monasteries are ambiguous. On the one side, people expect that monks are now living as they did in the Middle Ages, without electricity or media. But on the other hand people expect that monastics have a homepage to find the hours that the monastery’s shop is open, or whether or not there are is bathroom in each of the guest rooms. Monasteries are therefore playing in an ambiguous role of immutable realty in society which has also to fit into the needs of the time.

Do Monks Still “Protest”?

Through their economic activities, monasteries can therefore find a new place in their social environment. Bernhard Eckerstorfer, an Austrian Benedictine, writes in an article about monasticism in Austria : “In Austria for their regions they have been for centuries significant cultural and economic centers, with considerable ecclesial status and influence. This is also changing. Their eco­ nomic importance is marginalized, their cultural significance limited to his­ torical dimensions, and their societal role denied” (2012: 285). In this context what kind of role have monasteries in Europe today or have they even one? Even if monasteries no longer have the same economic role in modern society such as in the Middle Age, they can find through their commercial activities a new kind of position in the secularized society. As society is looking for a “wellness salvation” for body and soul, for responses to insecurity of life especially through foods or a badly balanced life, monks can bring to society what it needs. In this sense monks can be active in the context of a traditional religious institution but also as in proposing of an alternative way of life. But these new activities of monastics do not always meet with the assent of the Church. We can find nowadays more and more monasteries that propose session of yoga or qi gong. But these activities are not approved by Church, and some Catholic groups condemn them openly. For instance, the nun of Marienkron who proposed a session of qi gong and the Bible was criticized in a Catholic journal of Graz. The key point in this polemic would be to know if these practices are religious practices from a particular religion or meditation or bodily techniques that can be applied in other contexts without a reference to the oriental belief. According to Jean Séguy, “In their origin: every monastic creation first appears as a protest against a previous form of the monastic

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institution in the most general meaning of the term, against a state of the Church considered as unsatisfactory, against an ensemble of social relation­ ships (in the Church and in the global society) explicitly or implicitly rebuked by the new foundation”6 (1971: 338). It would be in the nature of utopia to be in conflict with existing institutions. In this sense this example proves that mon­ asteries are still a utopian system toward the Church. At the same time, engage­ ment of monks for an alternative economy or alternative way of life through ecological consumption and so on also appears as a utopian position toward society. Even if monasteries are losing plausibility concerning their religious function, it seems as if they would conserve or maybe reinforce their utopian position. According to Max Weber (1995: 260), a routinization of charisma occurs when the ecstatic or contemplative union with God becomes an object of achievement for many rather than the charismatic gift of few. But if we take monastic statistics now, we can observe the contrary process in contemporary monastic life. In Kremsmünster Abbey in Austria, for instance, there was between 1951 and 1959 an average of two stable vocations (people who are still in the monastery now) per year. This average declined to one per year between 1960 and 1980 and is now under 0,5.7 This is to say that the monastic vocation has again become a state reserved for a small number of individuals who have specific criteria. Using the vocabulary of Max Weber, it would mean that monks and nuns are more charismatic today because they are lesser numerous, that they are no longer recognized by society in their religious role and that they adopt some positions of protestation against the secular order. Conclusion A monastery is not limited to its religious dimension. As sociological objects its other dimensions have also to be taken into account especially in the present context where its limitation to its religious function could be make them appear as a residual reality. Economic, organization, the daily life of monks through work, bodily discipline, and so on are key points to understand where monastics really are today. The second risk for a sociology of monasticism would be to do an amalgam between the situation of monasteries and this one of the ecclesial institution. Each of them has to be explored in its own internal logic which can then show some dynamics belonging to each situation.

6 My translation. 7 Statistics made from the Direktorium 2012 and 2013 for Benedictine in Austria.

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In the present case, we can see that approaching present monasteries through economy proves pertinent as it explains a large part of the changes and movements in monastic life today. First of all, the economy often is an actor of change in monastic life and is so still in late modernity when monas­ teries have to find new sources of incomes. Thanks to their commercial propo­ sitions, monks also find in society a new way to be integrated into it and to conserve plausibility not only toward Catholics people. Although the ecclesial institution loses more and more credibility even toward believers, monks can conserve more plausibility because they not only use a religious grammar but have at their disposal a larger action “repertoire” than the Church (if we take the vocabulary of social movements by Charles Tilly). Thanks to their commer­ cial proposition which also bring a spiritual sense, monks go out of the strong framework of institutional religion which is precisely declining in western European society. Furthermore, monks and nuns also use economy as a new vector for evangelization because it brings to the monastery people who do not necessary have a link with religion (Jonveaux 2011a). Thanks to these activities, monastics remain for society as “administrators of salvation goods” even if they deal no longer with eschatological salvation. As a concluding question we could ask if monastics did manage their “recon­ version” in secularized society thanks to the economy. In the sense that they can remain plausible for society since more and more people come to visit monaster­ ies, the answer is yes. But in another way, if economic activities bring more and more customers – sometimes too much for the equilibrium of monastic life − it does not bring more recruits to the monastic life. This paradoxical dynamic leads monks to ask new questions about modes of monastic life in the future. References Berger, Peter. 1971. La Religion dans la conscience moderne, Paris: Editions du Centurion. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. The Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Harvard : Routledge & Kegan Paul. Duby, Georges. 1978. Les Trois Ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme. Paris: nrf Gallimard. Eckerstorfer, Bernhard. 2012. “Monastic Renewal from Austrian Perspective.” American Benedictine Review 63: 284–302. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2003. Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde. Paris: Bayard. Certeau, Michel de. 1987. La Faiblesse de croire. Paris: Le Seuil. Cousin, Patrice. 1956. Précis d’histoire monastique. Paris: Bloud et Gay. Gauchet, Marcel. 1997. The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Giordan, Giuseppe. 2009. “The Body between Religion and Spirituality.” Social Compass 56: 226–36. Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. The Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jonveaux, Isabelle. 2011a. Le Monastère au travail: Le Royaume de Dieu au défi de l’économie. Paris : Bayard. —— . 2011b. “Vergänglichkeit im Spiegel klösterlicher Kosmetikprodukte heute.” Pp. 47–57 in Vergägnlichkeit, edited by T. Heimerl and K. Prenner Graz: Grazer Universität Verlag. —— . 2011c. “Asceticism: an endangered value ? Mutations of asceticism in contempo­ rary culture.” Pp. 186–96 in Religion and the Body, edited by T. Ahlbäck. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 23: Åbo: Tibo-Trading. —— . 2011d. “Bière belge et image monastique: un exemple d’économie monastique.” Ethnologie Française. 41: 117–30. —— . 2013a. “La cultura rivisitata: i beni culturali monastici fra tradizione e modernità.” Pp. 493–514 in Monasticim between Culture and Cultures, edited by P. Nouzille and M. Pfeifer. Rome: Studia Anselmiana – Analecta Monastic. —— . 2014. “Mönchtum in Zahlen: Benediktinerklöster in Österreich im Spiegel der Statistik.” Erbe und Auftrag. Guy, Jean-Claude. 1993. Les Apophtègmes des Pères. Paris: Le Cerf Sources Chrétiennes. Metz, Jean-Baptiste Metz. 1981. Un temps pour les ordres religieux? Paris : Le Cerf. Séguy, Jean. 1971. “Une sociologie des sociétés imaginées: monachisme et utopie.” Annales e.s.c. 26: 328–354. Weber, Max. 1948. Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge. —— . 1978. Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, edited by G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. —— . 1995. Economie et Société. Paris: Pockett Agora. —— . 2003. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Penguin.

chapter 6

An Innovative Return to Tradition: Catholic Monasticism Redux Stefania Palmisano In this chapter I explore “New Monastic Communities” which have recently appeared in the Catholic world. Starting from empirical research carried out in the monastery of St Patrick, today Italy’s most important neo-monastic community, I attempt to show how, in its efforts to respond to accusations that have been levelled at contemporary monasticism of “being out of date” and “trivial” (Hervieu-Léger 2012), this community has become the interpreter of a process of the “re-invention of monastic tradition” (Palmisano forthcoming).1 I argue that this change has been fuelled by St Patrick’s utopian project (Séguy 1971), which disputes traditional monasticism’s inability to change by getting rid of past habits and norms. I then discuss the relations between St Patrick’s and the ecclesiastical authorities who are institutionally delegated to evaluate its authenticity. The subject of my research interest needs to be explained. It is well known that the Second Vatican Council created widespread contrast between innovative impulses and conservative reactions. In the context of consecrated life this conflict cannot be explained by a simplistic opposition between old and new institutions. It is more complicated: some institutions, both pre- and post-Conciliar, have instituted processes of renewal and reform experiments, whereas others have chosen more conservative directions. In the universe of monastic communities today, it is thus possible to identify: (a) “Classical” communities predating the Council (such as Benedictine, Trappist and Cistercian) which, more or less cautiously, adapted in conformance with its most institutional and least controversial directives; (b) Conservative communities which, distancing themselves from Vatican II – and at times openly contradicting it – perpetuated ancient liturgical forms and traditions; (c) New Monastic Communities (nmcs) which: Born in the wake of Vatican II, renew monastic 1 Respecting the privacy of the monastic community, I have used pseudonyms for the name of individuals, the community and specific locations. The empirical documentation which concerns this nmc was collected by means of interviews with the leaders and a dozen monks and nuns, as well as a documentary analyses of the rule of the community, the diary of the founder, and the books of prayers and those on spirituality produced by him and his collaborators.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_007

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life by underlining the most innovative and disruptive aspects which they identify in the Council, but also do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations, although they freely adopt and adapt their Rule of Life. Sociological research has hitherto paid little attention to monasticism, and even less to New Monasticism (Wittberg 1996, Baudouin and Portier 2002, Landron 2004, Oviedo 2010, Palmisano forth.). Some curial studies with prevalently practical aims describe nmcs as attempts – often borderline – at monastic life, founded by priests, religious and laypeople who are critical of classical monasticism, which is bound, in their opinion, by obsolete customs and rules. The most disturbing elements of these communities are perceived in the facts that: First, they are mostly “mixed” communities, which is to say consisting of monks and nuns living “under the same roof.” Second, they accept lay members, whether single, married or families, residing in private dwellings more or less close to the monastery. Third, they reject enclosure and contemptus mundi, limiting collective prayer time in order to increase that available for labor, evangelization and voluntary social work, often outside the monastery. Finally, they are actively involved in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, and harbor scarcely concealed sympathy with oriental religions, from which they sometimes adopt beliefs and practices. The numerous differences between new and classical monastic communities lead us to state that nmcs are not sic et simpliciter a reform of any preexisting monastic order but a new form of consecrated life marking out clear discontinuities with regard to the recent past of monastic history, dominated as the latter has been by the Benedictine tradition and the familiae which have branched out from it. As we shall see, the paradigm shift at the origin of nmcs can be traced to the space for opportunities and plausibility opened up by the Council’s ecclesiological turning-point. New anthropological and theological premises encouraged the founders of these communities not only to introduce important innovations but also to reinterpret and/or to abandon some observances which were typical of monastic life of every kind and in every age. After having described St Patrick’s history, I analyze the mix of re-interpretation, adaptation and breaks which distinguishes its monasticism, and finally, I discuss its relations with ecclesiastical authorities. In conclusion I outline some launching-pads for future sociological research on New Monasticism.

St Patrick’s: From Initial Insight to Success

By now the inhabitants of Zignano – some more, some less – are used to the clanging of bells which, since 1968, have measured the days of the St Patrick’s

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monks. They have also become accustomed to the comings and goings of the pilgrims who are deposited every day from the local bus in front of the only grocer’s in the village and who, following a pattern repeated both in summer and in winter, start walking toward the monastery. Reaching St Patrick’s has by now become in itself an act of devotion. The only train arrives in the county town at 9 a.m., and it is necessary to wait until 4  p.m. for the bus to the monastery. The long wait is compensated for by the spectacular view along the way of a great morainic hill. After twenty minutes the pilgrim arrives in Zignano, from whence she or he continue on foots, following the signs to St Patrick’s. A hundred metres from the destination, one meets the ichthus (fish) symbol of Christianity. Then there is a surprise: a group of recently-renovated orange-colored houses appear among the trees, the lawns, the fountains and the fields. After some curves, walking along a path softened by flowers, from which artificial owls peep out, you arrive at the entrance to the monks’ little village. No walls or fences or gates block your access. “Ring, come in, somebody will meet you” is the sign welcoming guests, cut into polished wood within sight of a single bell. You enter a small modern cloister around which open two rooms for conversation with the monks, a large hall for meetings and an open space with tables, benches and a soft-drinks machine. A shop opposite offers for sale the products of the monks’ work: books, icons, jams, honey, herbal teas and objects in stoneware and wood. In the center there is a stone amphitheatre surrounded by ornamental rosemary, lavender and roses. It is a place of the spirit where every detail, elegant and sober at the same time, transmits a conscious aesthetic quest; “The monk,” as the founder of this place often says, “is one who is enraptured by the beauty of God and has the task of embodying it wherever he lives, making it almost a worldly foretaste of the garden of paradise of the escathon” (Torcivia 2001: 32). On the other side of the cloister the church – great and solemn – rises up, but this too is of restrained magnificence in line with the Cistercian spirit. Here every day, three times a day, about seventy monks and nuns gather to sing the Divine Office. In spite of St Patrick’s current reputation, prestige and media visibility, its origins – like those of many other new communities introducing breakaway innovations – were tempestuous. The story began in the mid-1970s when Giovanni Acuti, a young student of economics (now in his seventies), set up a group of interdenominational male and female university students who met from time to time to “read the Bible, pray and celebrate the Eucharist.” These were the years of fervent post- Conciliar modernization and, after their studies, the desire for monastic life inspired the group to look for a site outside the city

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where they could live together. They chose Zignano, where they hired a farmhouse near an abandoned Romanic church. But, after a while, the young people who had demonstrated a monastic vocation dispersed. Although Acuti found himself alone, he decided to establish “St Patrick’s Oecumenical Brotherhood.” In order to survive his years of solitude, which were aggravated by the lack of electric light, running water, heating and sewage, he devoted himself to growing vegetables and translating articles from French for Italian journals. It was also a critical period because of his problematic relations with the local diocesan bishop who, worried about the constant to and fro of women and men, inflicted an interdict on the community, forbidding celebration of the sacraments and public liturgy. At the same time Acuti planned the birth of an ecclesial reality “which did not belong to the traditional Ordo Monasticus,” and having wished for a long time to fulfil his oecumenical desires, he visited important European monasteries, a decisive factor in his development. On Acuti’s return to St Patrick’s, the bishop confirmed the interdict and asked him to leave the place “quam primam.” Despite this request, he continued to live in St Patrick’s. Things changed abruptly in 1968. Three young people, including a woman and a Protestant pastor, expressed a wish to join him; meanwhile, thanks to the mediation of the archbishop, the bishop lifted the interdict and communal life – measured by silence, prayer, Scripture, reading and shared meals – began at St Patrick’s. Acuti, aware of the “evangelical risk” he had run in accepting a woman, requested and was granted the presence of a nun from a Swiss convent so that the community “could get off to a good start.” To survive, the members worked outside the community during the week, but at the weekends they welcomed all those – equipped with knapsacks and aware of the stringent conditions of the place – who wished to join them. The numbers of community members increased rapidly to the extent that, between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the ’90s, three further fraternities were established, two in Italy and one abroad. At the beginning of the 1990s, in order to stimulate economic production within the monastery, the community decided to restrict the number of those working outside. The professional activities which at present involve the monks and nuns include hospitality, the orchard and the vegetable garden, ceramics and icon studios, carpentry, publishing, printing, biblical research and catechetic. The monastery’s products are bought by the many pilgrims – estimated at 15,000 – who visit each year. In the following sections I use the categories of innovation, re-interpretation and rejection to analyse how St Patrick’s has re-invented some characteristics making up monastic life: rule, liturgy, asceticism, habit and enclosure.

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Rule of Life and Liturgy

In classical orders the Rule of Life is the text, usually dating back to the founder, which contains the community’s life plan; to give a shining example, Benedictine, Trappist and Cistercian monasteries all refer to the Regula Benedicti which governs the material and spiritual aspects of their lives. nmcs’ Rules, however, are designed rather as spiritual guidebooks in the sense that little attention is paid to operating and juridical features. The most radical innovation, however, has to do with their “composite” character. Although every Rule may be considered composite to the extent that it draws upon teaching and experience from different sources – usually selected within a single theological-spiritual tradition – those of nmcs are even more so. As Landron (2004) notes for the French, in many cases they combine Catholic sources (monastic rules, writings of the saints) with non-Catholic ones (Judaism, Eastern Churches, Pentecostal-Charismatics, yoga, zen and Transcendental Meditation), ignoring the theological dissonances that spring from mingling such different visions of the world, humanity and God. The Rule developed by the prior of St. Patrick’s confirms the characteristics described above: it is mainly a spiritual guidebook and, in harmony with the author’s interdenominational monasticism design, draws upon both Eastern and Western Christian sources. In particular, in addition to the Desert Fathers’ biblical allusions and apophthegms, it is inspired by the Oriental monastic rules of Basil and Pacomius as well as the Western ones of Benedict and Francis, upon which its identity and organizational principles are based. The primacy of the monk’s lay state – which is to say that he does not become a priest except in response to the community’s needs – was adopted from Pacomius. This choice is confirmed by the fact that the community, half a century after its founding, includes only a few priests – eight out of about 50 monks. From Basil is derived the style of leadership: the prior, who exercises authority, is not perceived as a hierarchical boss doing what he likes with the community using a vertical and abstract modality, but is rather seen as primus inter pares whose role is to watch over the behaviour of every member so that the whole can function harmoniously. In this regard St Patrick’s keeps its distance from the monocratic Benedictine model of governance: while the abbot, the “Vicar of Christ,” is the source of legislation accompanying or subordinate to the Rule, the prior is the guardian of good community relations and, as such, is subject to the monks’ appraisal. He can be metaphorically portrayed as “the eye of the community.” Despite these reservations, the Rule of St Patrick’s recalls that of St Benedict at many points: from the primacy of Cenobitic life to the centrality of prayer (opus dei), from the importance of work to the sacredness of guests.

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Finally, the tradition of the nun or monk continuing to exercise her or his profession before joining has been borrowed from St Francis. Sociologists of religion often claim that beyond emerging and existing religious markets, individual religiosity is increasingly following the logic of consumerism as the individual behaves as a buyer, choosing from the assortment of “ultimate” meanings as he or she sees fit (see Dawson 2011). From this point of view the Rules of nmcs reflect such a “consumer orientation:” picking and choosing according to subjective spiritual tastes and idiosyncratic concerns, their founders construct eclectic and ad hoc rules whose thematic heterogeneity has been legitimated by affectively determined personal priorities and preferences. While this criticism is sometimes applied to the Rule of St Patrick’s, it is worth remembering that when, thirty years ago, its author had to face accusations of “do-it-yourself” spirituality levelled by some “legitimate heirs of monasticism,” he justified his innovations in two ways: 1. The difficulty of observing already-existing Rules (“We did not feel mature enough to live monastic life as viewed by Basil or Benedict”; 2. The need for authenticity in the project which he was engaged in carrying out (“The Rule was written without reference to texts; I only wrote what we had experienced”). St Patrick’s liturgical life is also notable for its significant innovations. First, these concern prayer times: differently from the Benedictine opus dei timetable with its seven daily offices, St Patrick’s monks and nuns pray together only three times per day – in the morning (Lauds), at midday (Sext) and in the evening (Vespers). The interviewees support this rationalization of communal prayer times with two arguments which, in terms of sociological sensitivity, are exquisitely modern: (1) Not breaking up work time allows more efficient organization of professional activity, more marked attention to the search for innovation of products and processes, more harmonious alternation between work and prayer, and consequently, greater productivity. (2) Reduction of communal prayer time is accompanied by an increase of that available for personal prayer in one’s cell. This restores to the monastics a wide margin of discretion in managing both the time and the forms of their own prayer, and the solution has turned out to be more suitable for the life of the community in that it is fully in conformance with its interdenominational nature: In the morning instead of divine office we do individual lectio divina, everyone in his/her own cell. The time suggested is between 4.30 and 5, but if I need to sleep an extra half-hour I can do it later. …There exists a communal discipline, the lectio divina, but on the level of personal holiness, when you pray privately, using the prayers of Jesus, the Psalms, the Rosary, reading the Bible or whatever you like, the community is not involved.

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Secondly, the innovations concern the substance of the community’s rites. When the community was still in its infancy, the prior, in response to the need to get Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox praying together, wrote his own personal outline for the Liturgy of the Hours based on those being used in the (few) other European oecumenical communities. This text, updated and expanded with the help of the community, still today guides prayer in St Patrick’s. The main novelty of the Oecumenical Liturgy of the Hours, so called by its author, is that although the liturgical structure is the Latin one, its texts – litanies and orations – are drawn from the various wells of Eastern and Western churches in addition to containing references to Sufi and Hebrew prayers. While this interweaving is due to the community’s interdenominational nature, the prior’s translation of the Psalter from the Hebrew original had a different motivation: to modernize biblical language so that it would be more comprehensible to people today, a leitmotif inspiring all St Patrick’s work of re-invention of tradition. Neverthless, the most disturbing and traumatic liturgical innovations – at least in the eyes of Catholic observers – are the omission of daily Mass from the life of the community (the Eucharist is celebrated only at mid-week and on Sundays), Eucharistic adoration and collective recitation of the Rosary. Once again, these choices are motivated by the desire not to impose Catholic practices on members of other persuasions. However, interviews with Catholic monks also lead one to believe that, even if everybody were Catholic, the community would not celebrate Mass every day, nor would it hold Eucharistic adoration or say the Rosary together. The majority of the interviewees share the opinion that their own Catholic faith does not justify having to attend Mass every day or extra-Missam Eucharistic worship, conscious of the fact that the Code of Canon Law does not oblige this even for priests, and aware that the origin of the daily celebration of Mass can be found in mediaeval penitential practices carried on unquestioningly in monasteries up to the present day. Asceticism In building a spiritual discipline of the self, St Patrick’s monastics are inspired by the constitutive ascetic practices of monastic life in every place and age. An analysis of this discipline reveals a tendency in progress in most European monasteries (Bosgraaf 2008, Hervieu-Léger 2012, Jonveaux 2010), which may be summed up as a quantitative decline in traditional practices. Yet the most important changes at St Patrick’s concern the degree of asceticism – that is to say, since the quantity is not imposed by the community, everyone works it out

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for him or her self according to personal inclinations, sensitivity and aptitudes – and the re-interpretation of those practices and their meanings. Fasting – freely-chosen postponement of the natural satisfying of hunger – is the first practice which I analyze. As in other European monasteries, fasting in St Patrick’s is limited to Fridays in Lent, and it is optional. Anybody wishing to eat on these occasions only has to write his or her name on a board, which helps the cooks plan the menu for the day, and may depend upon a simple but substantial diet, such as plain rice or boiled potatoes. Two related factors influence the choice of non-compulsory fasting: the risks inherent in the practice and the centrality of work in the life of the community. Interviews with monks show that in addition to the dangers of fasting already denounced by the Fathers of the Desert – pride in one’s own achievement and aggressiveness toward one’s brethren – new ones, subtle and insidious, appear – such as overworking during the time freed by not going to the refectory. In order to control these risks and to confirm the value of fasting as an act of confession of faith,2 on Lenten Fridays the community dedicates extra time to prayer by adding Nones (after lunch) to the usual Lauds, Sext and Vespers. Yet St Patrick’s differs from the majority of European monasteries by having abolished silence in the refectory. Even though many monasteries allow conversation in the refectory on special occasions, the St Patrick’s solution is noticeably different: speaking during meals is not only allowed but actively encouraged, on condition that monks and nuns make an effort to produce a “unitary conversation” which should involve all of the people present. One person speaks at a time, making sure to be heard by everybody present and to talk about subjects of general interest. This practice, as the interviewees make clear, is part of the community’s “incarnation” and “humanization” pedagogy objective. In this framework, asceticism does not aim to dehumanize the monks, but to train them to grow in the fullness of virtue. This path does not exclude satisfying worldly needs and aspirations, rather it exhorts to modesty, moderation and conscious use of this world’s comforts and goods – in a word, to a sense of limits. For this reason dietary discipline does not simply aim at taming the appetite, but more generally at educating a person’s orality, which includes the nourishment, communication and emotional spheres. Although the sense of this teaching may be fully understood only in the context of the other forms of renunciation recounted by the monks, it may be useful to advance some considerations. Participant observation of monks’ work in the kitchen and sharing meals with them, interviews, and reading 2 “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4: 4).

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anthems in praise of the pleasures of food and wine written by the founder, reveal that the community, or at least its hard core, rejects the ideal of “holy anorexia” (Bell 1985), expressed by the formula “the more you fast, the holier you are,” which still prevails in some monasteries and leads the body to mortification, transcendency and alienation. On the contrary, emphasis is placed on the table as a place of meeting and celebration because, in the words of one interviewee, “the quality of the community’s monastic life depends above all on the quality of food and eating together, which is the most important locus for loving concretely.” Food becomes a special ceremony for listening, humanizing relations, and learning to love one’s brothers and sisters, or putting into practice the “incarnation” pedagogy: “Cooking, preparing food for a beloved person is the simplest and most concrete way of saying ‘I love you, therefore I want you to live, and live well, joyfully’.” Although there are some people in the community who view monastic life more austerely, the great majority of the monks are mistrustful of ascetic heroism – “This type of training has produced many neurotics and anorexics” – and, placing the mystical value of fasting in proportion, they warn young people against certain spiritualistic deviations which risk cancelling or degrading the humanity of the monks: “Those who become too ascetic…are made to lose the habit through good wine and good food!” The same thing can be said about keeping watch at night. From St Benedict on, the tradition of rising twice – monks, after having gone to sleep, wake up in the middle of the night to go to the chapel and pray – reigned in monasteries. At present, in line with many European communities, this tradition is not practised in St Patrick’s. After various attempts to put it into practice, the community preferred to abolish it because the monks – especially those who worked outside the monastery – complained about tiredness and the impossibility of concentrating properly on their work: When we tried to introduce the night office into the community, everybody was climbing up the walls. Nobody slept any more and it was impossible to organize because the people who worked outside – in cities, workshops and hospitals – could not do their jobs properly without sleep. Going to bed, getting up, going to bed again and getting up again was a torment. Thus the community chose early morning rising (4:30), when the monks personally read the lectio divina in their own cells. In conformance with humanization pedagogy – based, as we have seen, on particularly positive assumptions about human nature – there is no control over morning prayer and, as a consequence, no certainty that the monks do it every day at the required time:

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Instead of control we have total responsibility. In this way everybody may open his heart and say to his Master of Novices: “Listen, I’m having trouble praying in the morning…I pretend that I wake up at 4.30 but really I only turn on the light so that people who see the light think that I’m reading the lectio divina, but in truth I’m still asleep.” It is important that in the privacy of his cell, the monk should be alone with himself, alone with God. Analyzing these aspects, we learn that St Patrick’s monks also reject the idea according to which strict and sustained fasting, like unnatural rising in the middle of the night, is a superior means guaranteeing a “regime of checking desire” (Turner 1984: 166). On the contrary, they claim that self-vigilance, mastery and awareness – indispensable conditions for conversio morum – are reached by training oneself in attention-strengthening exercises which, no matter how unusual, uncomfortable or tiring they may be, ought not to be either against nature or antisocial. The prior’s wish is that nothing artificial or inhuman should contaminate the community’s life and that asceticism should not consist solely of heroic gestures which are an end in themselves, but aim at opening up the monastics to their relationship with God and their neighbour. For example, the sense of waking is not so much to deprive one of sleep as to transform the spiritual state of the monk, who should be above all things a homo vigilans, which is to say attentive toward discerning God’s presence in events and in the community. If therefore we move from the ideal to the real plane, for these monks subjecting their own lives to re-evaluation is not the equivalent of willingly and strenuously opposing the natural stimuli of hunger and sleepiness, but to become accustomed to them by means of forms of renunciation which, as long as they do not imply artificially distorted practices, are nevertheless effective in leading to monks’ consciousness of subjects or actions upon which to meditate and work on themselves. On this basis, in the words of our interviewees, monastic life appears as “training for happiness.” One may be tempted to accuse the community of hedonistic asceticism, a mix of refined tastes and entrepreneurship leading to the success of their products on the market and of monastic tourism. However, this interpretation underestimates the influence of the form of asceticism which the monks consider most extreme and which they refer to frequently in their accounts: communal life or, in the words of one of them, “asceticism which is imposed on us by others.” Today relational life means – and not only for the St Patrick’s monks – true asceticism (Jonveaux 2010, Hervieu-Léger 2012). It is not so much renouncing economic independence, rather it is the management of one’s own time and private property which weary the monks as the dynamics

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of interpersonal relationships. The work of self-improvement that a monk carries out on himself is realized through the perception of himself in relation to others, accepting their fraternal corrections, recognizing his need for love and exercising charity. From this derives the hardest test: seeing one’s own humanity as others see it, examining it in comparison with that of Christ and reforming it in His image. From my point of view asceticism, if I make an effort, make sacrifices, exercise discipline, it is a function of relations with others, and it is not asceticism in the classical sense of the term. I do not think I am ascetic with regard to food. I fast little in Lent. I can’t stand fasting and all the talk about it…I’m not ascetic with regard to cold because I hate it; my room in winter is heated to 20 degrees centigrade. I’m not ascetic in the way I dress, nor am I ascetic in my relationship with money…If I practice asceticism it is to be a man in Jesus Christ’s image, which is not an abstract but a concrete idea of humanity, as real as the Gospels show it to me. I try to model my humanity on that…therefore I impose rules and limits on myself, I’m disciplined (G.). From the sociological point of view, asceticism understood in this way – not as self-abnegation, contempt for the body, or mortification of the flesh but as seeking virtue, life discipline, always living life to its limits – reaches out to consolidate an alternative life form which, being moulded on the renunciation of ownership, scheming, judging and prevarication, rediscovers a deep relationship with others and the world.

Mixed Gender, the Habit, and Enclosure

If mediaeval Doppelkloster, as modern historiography asserts (Andenna 2010), gathered nuns and monks together in the same community, then we cannot maintain that mixed life is an invention of New Monasticism. Neverthless, contrary to those far-off and isolated experiences, in many nmcs there is intense interaction between monks and nuns because they eat, pray and work together. In St Patrick’s they share their meals while conversing; they sing the Divine Office in polyphony; they cooperate in the monastery’s main professional activities, from hospitality to gardening and from cooking to printing. Only when they retire at night are they separate because the male and female cells are situated in opposite wings of the monastery. Of course, the rule that nobody enters another’s cell is always valid.

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From the beginning, cohabitation of monks and nuns “under the same roof” has been criticized by external observers (e.g. bishops, clergy, guests, single-sex monastery monks) who are worried about possible infatuation. Interviews with brothers and sisters, however, reveal that, rather than sentimental relationships, it is inter-gender-related tensions which threaten communal life. Monks and nuns do not attempt to behave as if they were genderless beings – “a third sex,” sacrificing their “natural” qualities to approach sainthood. On the contrary, convinced of the value of their sexuality and carnality in order to make them fully aware of their humanity, they allow their being male or female to shine through their everyday gestures.3 As in family life, so also in monasteries different sensitivities may conflict, to the extent that cohabitation between monks and nuns is often defined by interviewees as “expensive grace,” “squaring the circle,” “making the impossible possible.” Conflicts may break out in both the material and spiritual spheres. In the former case the casus belli can be found in the ordinary management of daily life, and analysis reveals the emergence of stereotypes of women as becoming more ruffled than men by sudden change but with greater ability in interpersonal relations and in listening.4 In the latter – spiritual matters – interviewees point out some basic differences that they consider the cause of misunderstanding, from the introspection of men, who are “more sober and reserved about spiritual matters” to women’s greater need “to measure themselves, for a longer period, against various aspects of their own life of prayer.” Although neither monks nor nuns try to gloss over the problems of cohabitation, most of them defend it to the hilt. They have three main reasons: 1. Total rejection of artificiality: “Normality today means being men and women together at school, in sport, at work.” 2. The balancing value of mixed life: “Sometimes the atmosphere in the refectory is strained, one doesn’t always want to talk, yet I have never seen conversation sink to the level of vulgarity which I have heard in many male-only monasteries, or women gossiping; even when mealtimes are somewhat boisterous, I have never seen the typical evils of the monosex male or female condition.” 3. Female claims to equality being supported and valorised by males. 3 In order to understand their positions we need to bear in mind that prior to the 1960s the prescriptive model of a “good nun” included such extremities as avoidance of eye contact with men or denial of sexual feeling. In the post-Vatican II years, convent rulebooks encouraged monks and nuns to become closer to lay people and rectify the negative stereotypes of convents as unworldly and restrictive institutions (Trzebiatowska 2010). 4 A curious stereotypical example of the difference between male and female attitudes is given by one of the monks interviewed. He asserts that if one tells a kitchen worker that today, because of an oversight, there will be 300 guests instead of the expected 150, a monk takes it in his stride, whereas a nun loses her cool.

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This last reason, expressed – naturally – by the nuns, needs to be illustrated. The development of St Patrick’s female group followed a trajectory which can be described as “from dependence to complementarity” (Gold 1993). The lack, from the beginning, of a female figurehead alongside the male delayed the consolidation of the nuns’ group identity. For many years, unable to identify a representative figure, they preferred to stay in the men’s shadow since the latter had a strong, unchallenged, charismatic leader. In recent years, however, the nuns have taken an important step toward autonomy from the male group by assuming important positions, thanks to the leadership of a young nun elected as group leader. If the role of women in managing the community has become complementary, this is due to the exercise of the power and space for manoeuvring which St Patrick’s nuns have won for themselves over the years, supported by the monks, and which is not normally possible for enclosed female-only convents. In primitive Christianity women dressed as monks to acquire freedom and respect (Abbot 1999). Today, in advanced modernity, nuns who live “under the same roof” as monks can aspire to previously unthought-of advantages and responsibility in this community such as giving spiritual direction to men and women, studying abroad and preaching sermons. Thus, in the case of St Patrick’s, female autonomy has not derived from resistance to and subversion of a male-dominated institution. Although cohabitation is the most striking aspect of St Patrick’s invention of tradition, the process of re-interpretation of classical monasticism is also pursued through the rejection of customs, practices and observances of monastic life which – consistent with the dissenting spirit of new monks – are considered passé, leftovers from a religious environment which no longer exists. St. Patrick’s founder defends the need to get rid of these “frills” in order to return, in the spirit of Vatican II, to the essence of monasticism: We need to agree to forget cosmetic and ritual observances which, although born out of a healthy demand for order, became clichés, monastic forms within which to embrace each new member of the community. The most elderly recall that, during their novitiate, they were even taught how to walk, or rather proceed, decorously. We should mourn what has been lost in order to return to the roots of monastic life and begin again from the original springs: re-embrace the Rule of St. Benedict and reinterpret it together with Eastern and Patristic sources. This desire explains why St. Patrick’s monks do not wear the habit, even though it is proverbially a distinguishing feature of a monk. Given that monks and nuns often relate to society – one group works outside, some preach in public,

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others purchase raw materials from suppliers, and yet others meet the many guests who stay in the monastery overnight – they fear that the habit could “inhibit their capacity for positive social interaction with people.” According to them, sacred dress is an obstacle to interpersonal relations because it is a sign of distinction, still linked today with the idea of religious life as a means of access to a sanctity superior to that of other people. Monks and nuns wear simple clothes which, as a rule, they owned before joining the monastery: men prefer dark sweaters and trousers, and women wear skirts reaching below the knee and pastel-coloured blouses; only during liturgical ceremonies do they wear sacred vestments, an alb which, for the women, has a hood added. Even if their desire not to distance themselves from lay society is the main motivation for refusing the habit, interviews reveal two further interconnected reasons. The first concerns the monk’s humanization itinerary: removing the habit, as with any formal gear, helps him to be aware of his “normality,” of his “sinful nature,” of his not being “holier than thou.” In sociological terms every identifying totem vanishes: “myths” are demagiced and “status” collapses (Trzebiatowska 2010). The monk is left alone with himself enveloped in his vocation: When we started to wear vestments during liturgical ceremonies, we asked ourselves whether or not they conferred on us a solemnity which is not ours, which is seen in the great monasteries and which is too much for us. Then we decided to accept them because they make sense theologically: before God, men and women, there is only one vocation, symbolized by the habit. An effect of adopting liturgical dress is that its discomfort has discouraged those who think they should wear it always, who feel the need of it as an identity marker, the habit which make the monk (A.). Secondly, refusing the habit means rejecting the ceremonial uniformity expected in pre-Conciliar convents and monasteries. Monks and nuns stress both their individuality and their distance from the Church. The garment is refused because it stands for their membership in the Church and thus for their social rather than personal identity. The interviewees also stress their gender difference: renouncing the habit increases self-awareness of their carnality and sexuality. According to the prior and his assistants, this consciousness should be encouraged because it helps them to deal with the fragility and rigidity which could obstruct their itinerary and cause tensions in the community. Another typical element of monasticism that St Patrick’s has refused, emerging from its initial description, is enclosure. Eliminating walls and grills which

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divide the monastery from society as a whole is a true revolution in the sense attributed to fuga mundi. Contrary to many European monasteries where, in order to promote the hospitality necessary for survival, enclosure has been understood metaphorically – “moral” rather than “mural” enclosure (HervieuLéger 2012) – St Patrick’s absolutely rejects it. The prior makes no effort to conceal his aversion to this institution, considering it anti-evangelical. Surprisingly, and decidedly counter to the most open and progressive monasteries, and thriving on the economic wellbeing which the community enjoys today, he encourages both brethren and sisters to leave the monastery occasionally for pleasure and relaxation. They are allowed monthly time off for recreation: a dinner, a concert or an exhibition to be paid for with their monthly “pocket money,” which they are free to use as they wish. This freedom is best expressed by monks’ and nuns’ taking a week’s holiday, alone or along with fellowreligious, in which case the individual proposes the destination to the prior, the only restriction being economic. The approach, as one of the people in charge explains, is part of an educational process making monks more aware of their responsibilities: Every monk and nun is entitled to €50 “pocket money.” It’s not much but if s/he wants to go to a pizzeria one evening, s/he does not have to go begging to the bursar: “Please let me have €20 for a Margherita and a beer!” It’s not much, but it does allow a certain amount of freedom. Is anybody going to go out with €50 to see a porno film? Then let them go and see a porno film [laughter]. I really don’t think that it would happen, but I’m certainly not going to check – if they see it, they’ll be properly fed up. I believe this approach combining trust and freedom is more productive (L.).

Utopia and Conflict in New Monasticism

This analysis demonstrates that, although “new monks” claim to be authentic heirs of monasticism, since they are not officially affiliated with the Ordo Monasticus they try to fit into that progeny by building an imaginary bond through choosing, rejecting, adapting or renewing specific liturgical practices, discipline and watchfulness. In this way, they creatively activate a re-invention of tradition which becomes an “innovative return to tradition.”5 This leitmotif 5 This expression has been taken from Finke (2004), according to whom religious groups sustain organizational vitality by both preserving core teachings and promoting adaptive innovations.

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contains the utopian germ of New Monasticism, which disputes traditional monasticism’s inability to change by getting rid of past habits and norms. St Patrick’s founder has frequently denounced the necessity for surviving monasteries to learn ars moriendi so that they can “mourn” ancient usages whose meaning is unknown to novices and the monks themselves have difficulty in recalling. Jean Séguy, in his interpretation of monasticism as Utopia, observes that every monastic foundation presents itself at the beginning as a protest against a previous form of the monastic institution. The new communities act in the same way. In re-inventing tradition – obeying their own Rule, re-interpreting liturgy and ascetic discipline, introducing the cohabitation of monks and nuns “under the same roof,” rejecting the habit and enclosure – they call into question the consubstantial elements of post-Benedictine monastic life, and this contestation is fuelled by the desire to return to the primitive monastic ideal. Neverthless, also in the case of New Monasticism, the primitive ideal is reinterpreted in the light of time-space and sociocultural co-ordinates which envelop the monks or, to cite Séguy (1971: 336), “in the light of the plausibility structures of a specific time and place.” Hermeneutical activity, by means of which they re-examine monastic history, enriches the re-invention of tradition. In St Patrick’s – in common with a decisive majority of new communities – the appeal to return to origins is understood above all in accordance with Council guidelines, particularly in its rediscovery of the Eremitical monasticism of the Fathers of the Desert and the Coenobitic tradition of Pacomius and Basil.6 However, the re-invention of tradition is not an impersonal, painless, pacific process that can be taken for granted. It is developed in the context of that Utopia which, as many scholars (Mannheim 1936, Séguy 1984, Bloch 2009) observe, threatens tradition because – whether implicitly or explicitly, appealing only to the imagination (written Utopia) or by passing onto practice (practiced Utopia) – aims at radically transforming the status quo. Meanwhile opponents – monastic, ecclesiastical or temporal authorities – try to obstruct novelty either by delaying or blocking it, sometimes both. They may even go so far as to prevent the realization of the project by rejecting the implied changes – which may result in a stillborn heterodox group – or by co-opting the novelty. In the latter case, the project’s innovation has to make the compromises necessary for its institutionalization (Séguy 1984, Wittberg 2007). 6 The rediscovery of Eastern monasticism is due principally to the labor of Vatican II, preceded by the work of those theologians who inspired its reformist tendencies and “returned to the study of Eastern Fathers rather than behaving like good Latin Catholics for whom the ‘omnivorous’ magisterium of Pius XII had to suffice” (Melloni 2006: 1063).

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These dynamics clearly illustrate relations between new communities and ecclesiastical authorities. nmcs’ invention of tradition excites mistrust not only among “monasticism’s legitimate heirs,” convinced that “monasticism cannot be invented but must be passed down from generation to generation,” but also on the part of ecclesiastical hierarchies. Although the history of nmcs displays numerous examples of faithful collaboration with bishops, it is much more common to observe non-existent – or superficial or tense – relations, which become conflictual when the communities request canonical recognition (Wittberg 1996). An analysis of the dialectics between nmcs and bishops cannot ignore the study of the compromises, negotiations and strains that characterize their rapport. These reveal that delays, feet-dragging and stalemates result not only from the controversial nature of the communities’ invention but also from the vast discretionary powers enjoyed by bishops. In this regard St Patrick’s history is particularly interesting, revealing how and why the community’s Utopian project has been translated into a practiced Utopia intra (and not extra) ecclesiam (Séguy 1971: 338). As has already been pointed out, the co-presence in the early 1960s of Christians of differing denominations, men and women, without either habits or enclosure, perforce aroused a lot of suspicion in the Church world which had not yet become used to Council teachings. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that the local bishop decided not to allow them to celebrate Sacraments. Yet, as is well known, although the Catholic Church is a monocratic authority, it permits many instances where different – even discordant – voices and tendencies bloom: the intervention of a high prelate, a personal friend of St Patrick’s founder, helped to prevent the community’s becoming a sect by obtaining the withdrawal of the interdiction. From that moment on, St Patrick’s began to collaborate with the local Church and more recently with the Roman Curia, thus earning prestige, consensus and legitimation. Although it enjoys great fame and considerable support among Catholic institutions – the prior is a wellknown figure on the national public scene, appearing on television, communicating with his own public by means of new media and social networks – the community has not undertaken the procedure for canonical recognition as an Institute of Consecrated Life, which is to say to become a religious order. It has preferred to be approved as a Private Association of the Faithful, the lowest step on the ladder of juridical recognition, which condition allows greater autonomy from the ecclesiastical institution. Furthermore, even if it wanted to, St Patrick’s could not aspire to becoming a religious order because it contains heterodox traits as far as Canon Law is concerned – principally the co-habitation of men and women “under the same roof” and Christians of various denominations. But this is not the reason that has been holding it back

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from institutionalization for about thirty years: the juridical periphery which it inhabits allows it to exercise the prophetic quality which fuels its Utopia. In this way the community can continue to survive as an alternative society or a life pattern distinguishing it from the world’s, and sometimes the Church’s, prevailing models. Conclusion nmcs cannot be interpreted as the reform of any pre-existing monastic orders because they make no claims to observe more faithfully the rule of this or that founding father, unlike the Cistercians or Trappists who denounced the degeneration of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Rather, moving in the furrows ploughed by the “great monastic tradition,” they embrace the fundamental insights of those monks and their Eastern precursors, refashioning them in a consistent framework in accordance with the spirit of today, with the intention of presenting an exemplary witness comprehensible to “today’s men and women.” As a result of their innovative return to tradition, nmcs take shape as a new form of consecrated life, marking a clear break in monastic history. Often their newness causes reluctance on the part of the ecclesiastical institution, faithful – as always – to the bureaucratic principle of the predictability of human behaviour based on rules. Thus they try to regularize the innovations by leading them back to prescribed canons. Although the Church has tried to meet them half-way by granting ad hoc recognition (Codex Juris Canonici 605), scholars of canon law point to an evident dichotomy between the law as promulgated and how it is applied. The inextricable interweaving of indulgence and reluctance which typifies bishops’ decisions in nmcs’ canonical recognition often leads them to grant “ambiguous legitimation,” or an extensive grey area where it is not easy to discern in their moves where the prudent support dictated by caution ends and reticent approval begins. A comparison of the canonical procedures of different nmcs shows up crucial aspects of how the “bureaucracy of the spirit” works in the Catholic Church, opening the door to one of the sociology of ecclesiastical organization’s most promising and intriguing research paths. References Abbot, Elizabeth. 1999. A History of Celibacy. Cambridge: Da Capo Press. Andenna, Giancarlo. 2010. “Uomini e Donne in Comunità in Età Medioevale.” Pp. 163–177 in Nuove forme di vita consacrata, edited by R. Fusco and G. Rocca. Rome: Urbaniana University Press: 163–177.

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Baudouin, Jean and Pilippe Portier. 2002. Le mouvement catholique français a l’épreuve de la pluralité Enquête autour d’une militance éclatée. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Bell, Rudolph M. 1985. Holy Anorexia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bloch, Ernst. 2009. Spirito dell’utopia. Milan: Rizzoli. Bosgraaf, Emke. 2008. “Asceticism in Transition: Exploring the Concepts of Memory, Performance and Ambiguity, in 20th Century Dutch Monastic Life.” Numen 55: 536–560. Dawson, Andrew. 2011. “Religion for Sale: Market Dynamics and Contemporary Religiosity.” Pp. 131–150 in Sociology of Religion, edited by A. Dawson. London: scm Press. Finke, Roger. 1997. “An Orderly Return to Tradition: Explaining the Recruitment of Members into Catholic Religious Orders.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36: 218–230. Gold, Penny S. 1993. “Men Helping Women: A Monastic Case Study.” Sociology of Religion 54: 43–63. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2012. “Tenersi fuori dal mondo: le diverse valenze dell’extramondanità monastica.” Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa 2: 217–239. Jonveaux, Isabelle 2010. “Asceticism: An Endangered Value? Mutations of Ascetism in Contemporary Monasticism.” Pp. 186–196 in Religion and the Body, edited by T. Ahlbäck. Äbo: Donner Institute. _____. 2011. Le monastère au travail. Paris: Bayard. _____. 2013. “La cultura rivisitata: i beni culturali monastici fra tradizione e modernità.” Pp. 493–514 in Monasticim between Culture and Cultures, edited by P. Nouzille and M. Pfeifer. Rome: Studia Anselmiana. Landron, Olivier. 2004. Les Communautés nouvelles: Nouveaux visages du catholicisme français. Paris: Cerf. Mannheim, Karl. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. London: Routledge. Melloni, Alberto. 2006. “Tre fasi nel rapporto tra Chiesa, episcopato e politica.” Il Mulino 55.6.428: 1056–1065. Moulin, Léo. 1978. La vie quotidienne des religieux aux Moyen Age X-Xve siècle. Paris: Hachette. Oviedo, Luis T. 2010. “Approccio alla realtà delle nuove fondazioni.” Pp. 163–177 in Nuove forme di vita consacrata, edited by R. Fusco and G. Rocca. Roma: Urbaniana University Press. Palmisano, Stefania. forthcoming. “Contemporary Evolution in Monasticism in Italy.” Pp. in Christianity in the Modern World: Changes and Controversies, edited by G. Vincett. Farnham: Ashgate. Rocca, Giancarlo. 2010. Primo censimento delle nuove comunità. Rome: Urbaniana University Press. Séguy, Jean. 1971. “Les sociétés imaginées: monachisme et utopie.” Annales: Économie, Sociétés, Civilisation 26: 328–354.

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_____. 1984. “Pour une sociologie de l’ordre religieux.” Archives de Sciences sociales des Religions 57: 55–68. Torcivia, Mario. 2001. Guida alle nuove comunità monastiche italiane. Casale Monferrato: Piemme. Trzebiatowska, Marta. 2010. “Habit Does Not a Nun Make?: Religious Dress in the Lives of Polish Catholic Nuns.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 25: 51–65. Turner, Brian S. 1984. The Body and Society. London: Sage. Weber, Max. 1999 [1922]. Economia e società. Torino: Edizioni di Comunità. Wittberg, Patricia 1996. “Real Religious Communities: A Study of Authentication in New Roman Catholic Religious Orders.” Pp. 149–174 in The Issue of Authenticity in the Study of Religions, edited by L.F. Carter. Greenwich, ct: jai Press. _____. 2007. “Orders and Schisms on the Sacred Periphery.” Pp. 323–344 in The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by J. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III. London: Sage.

chapter 7

New Spirituality in Old Monasteries? Kees de Groot, Jos Pieper and Willem Putman Against a background of diminishing interest in and commitment to the Christian religion, centers for spirituality seem an exception. Some of these centers are connected to convents and monasteries. These have always had an important function for their environments. Whereas the desire to enter a monastery has drastically declined, the wish to visit has only increased. We see this interest in monasteries in line with the interest in convents and other Christian spiritual centers. Both are part of the transformation process of religion and spirituality. Where religion seems to be “out,” spirituality is “in.” Christian spiritual centers consciously take advantage of this development. For this article we selected those data that refer to monasteries. However, thus far we did not come across striking differences with the larger data set. The first part of our research was an inventory of those Christian spiritual centers that deliberately gear their programs to those who are interested in new forms of spirituality. This has given us a global idea of what impression the centers themselves have of their visitors. In order to gain more insight into who exactly these visitors are and what motivates them to participate in the programs offered by the centers, we held a survey among them. We were interested in the following questions: Who are the visitors? What do they look for in the centers, and do they find it? What exactly is for them the relation between new spirituality and Christian tradition? How is this relation reflected in the visitors’ religious and spiritual characteristics? How is this translated into motives for, and effects of participation? The central question in our investigation was: In how far are the religious or spiritual characteristics of the visitors to Christian spiritual centers related to the new spirituality, and in how far to the Christian tradition? On a theoretical level our aim was to gain more insight into the relation between religion and spirituality, and on a practical level to find indications on how to handle this in pastoral care. A theoretical introduction to our investigation into spirituality is followed by a more empirical section in which we report on the methods and results of our research among visitors to monasteries that offer courses around spirituality. We will end with some preliminary conclusions.

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Spirituality and Christian Religion

Our focusing on spiritual centers points to what is by now a well-known shift in the religious landscape (Sengers 2005). Participation in what the church parish offers and identification with the Christian faith have for decades now been declining in Western society. At the same time, during the past years other forms of religiosity and spirituality have appeared on the scene. Alternative social forms of spirituality, such as spiritual centers offering workshops, events and courses focusing on Eastern religious traditions, psychology, and the body are on the rise; present-day spiritual authors, trends, and movements exert a notable attraction. The question informing our research was what role the Christian tradition may (still) play in this context. In order to find a sound answer it is sensible to first investigate what function Christian organizations are actually serving at the moment. How do Christian spiritual centers, especially those based in monasteries or convents, handle the phenomenon of “new spirituality” on the one hand, and the Christian tradition on the other?

New and Old Spirituality

There happens to be something interesting about the concept of spirituality. The phenomenon we call “new spirituality” is the outcome of two trends in the religious landscape: pluralization and de-institutionalization (cf. Aupers and Houtman 2008). By “pluralization” we here mean the increase in diversity of religions and worldviews; by “de-institutionalization” we mean the weakening of people’s commitment to fairly stable, binding, and authoritative religious institutes through which individual biographies are integrated into a system of religious convictions, values, and rules. These two processes—which have much in common but can yet be distinguished from each other—are stimulating the current interest in spirituality. On the one hand there is a transformation with respect to content: in the Netherlands, from Reformed and Catholic dominance towards greater diversity. On the other hand we note a structural transformation, from religion as collective identity (denomination) to personal interest. The interest in spirituality partly reflects diversity—in other words, the diminished dominance of the Christian religion—, and partly fluidity—in other words, a less binding and encompassing commitment to any institutional frameworks. However, the concept of spirituality was of course already known in the Christian tradition. Since the seventeenth century “spirituality” has been used,

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following French usage, in the religious context to denote the relationship between man and God, more especially its intimate, subjective aspects (Giordan 2007, 167). Since then various devotional traditions appear as, for instance, Carmelite, Benedictine, Franciscan, or Ignatian spiritualities. This was originally a pejorative term for elitist religious exercises (Possamai 2007, 36), a usage that is not the only notable parallel with the current, more general interest in spirituality. The importance of dogma and orthodoxy is currently called into question: people are open to what they may learn from other traditions, and in both the “old” and the “new” spirituality we find attention for the mystical unity of the universe, the abolition of the separation between object and subject, and a sort of “holistic” view of life (Bernts, Dekker and De Hart 2007, 120; De Hart 2011; Burgess 2008). It is no surprise that the modern interest in spirituality makes use of traditions both inside and in the margins of the Christian tradition. Traditional spiritual authors such as Meister Eckhart and traditional monasteries now appear within the wider, post-Christian spiritual milieu (Versteeg 2006). Thus, the question is how different from spiritual traditions inside or in the margins of Christianity the new phenomenon of spirituality actually is. There is both continuity and discontinuity. For visitors to Christian spiritual centers the concept “spiritual” may refer to the “old” as much as to the “new” spirituality. Quite possibly, the distinction is not even made.

Issue 1: Spirituality Instead of Religion?

One issue in spirituality research is the question whether religion is giving way to spirituality, the revolution thesis as put forward by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005). They expect religion—interpreted as an institution issuing rules about how to live from an assumed other world—to steadily lose ground to spirituality, which rather focuses on the subjective experience of one’s own life. “Life-as-religion” is here contrasted with “subjective-life spirituality.” Journalists and theologians usually agree with the theory, even though it is little more than a hypothetical extrapolation of the results of a local British case study. The British researchers Steve Bruce and David Voas (2007) tried to test the revolution hypothesis via large-scale research on the individual level, and have rejected it in favour of the secularization thesis. Their findings show that the crumbling of religious regimes continues; the so-called “new spirituality” is a marginal phenomenon, not particularly relevant to society at large; and of many of the phenomena grouped under this label (a Christian Taizé group on

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the one hand, a yoga course on the other) it is doubtful whether they are in the correct category. A variation on the revolution thesis is the hypothesis that the interest in new spirituality is not a separate phenomenon, but depends on the religiosity traditionally present. The results of a small-scale Dutch study seem to support this substitution or compensation hypothesis: interest in “alternative religion” is said to be especially strong among former church members (Bernts and Van der Hoeven 1998). If this were the case, alternative religion would exist on the basis of church religion, and therefore the interest in alternative religion would diminish along with the process of secularization. Our research was not intended to test these hypotheses—that would require a different study—but they did provide a heuristic framework. What light do our results throw on this issue?

Issue 2: How Different are Religion and Spirituality?

Let us return to the question of the differences between religion and spirituality. In previous research new spirituality, as opposed to the more traditional, Christian spirituality, has often been characterized by a lack of structure (Versteeg 2007), an orientation towards an internal rather than an external authority (Heelas and Woodhead 2005), and a low level of organization (Possamai 2000). Characteristics such as self-determination and autonomy versus heteronomy (Taylor 2007; Kronjee and Lampert 2006), and individualism versus a focus on community and communality (Meester 2008) also repeatedly come up. Heelas and Woodhead contrast normative, collectivizing religion with subjective, individualistic spirituality. Yet—how individualistic is that new spirituality, and how collectivist is old-fashioned religion? As to the first question: Woodhead (2007) notes a striking absence of doctrinal authority in the spiritual milieu. In line with a general perspective, she sees a great freedom of belief, which she links to less male dominance (Woodhead 2007). In an exploratory report of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy, we also find the image of “non-obligation” linked to the phenomenon of spirituality (Kronjee and Lampert 2006). However, in his field work in Nottinghamshire Matthew Wood (2009) saw the mechanisms at work that had earlier been described by Michel Foucault (1983) and Pierre Bourdieu (1985): in this milieu power is exercised differently, namely by positing and propagating the Self. In this way no detailed doctrine is imposed, but a service-receptive soul is implanted. It is true that, unlike what is usual in the religious field, there is a notably low degree of long-term “formativeness” (religious socialization),

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Wood says. But it would be wrong to copy the participants’ statement that in the spiritual milieu “everything is so individualistic.” Rather, the situation is that several sources of authority compete with each other on a more or less fraternal level, which results in people being socialized into the holistic spirituality. There is a parallel with monasteries in this respect, since in their case, too, religious virtuosi (Weber 1976 [1922], 327) exercise a diverse and/or weakly organized influence on their environment. A high degree of formativeness corresponds with the model of the parish, in which the faithful are initiated into a regulated way of behaving and believing. This conclusion already forms part of the answer to the second of the two questions above: religious believers are not as “collectivist” as the ideal type— and moreover judged by a specific orthodox norm—would have it. Qualitative research among Dutch Roman Catholics who make little or no use of the services of the parish (a growing segment) clearly shows “the loss or lack of a conservative-traditional church image, combined with an experimental quest for a modern-traditional attitude” [translation ours] (Bernts 2003: 192). For at least 30 years, since the 1980s, 25% of church members have no longer subscribed to traditional Christian statements (Dekker 2009). On the individual level one finds that religious believers, too, are engaged in bricolage; or rather, even people who feel connected to a specific tradition are attracted to certain aspects of other traditions, and sometimes the origins of ideas and rituals are unclear or irrelevant (De Groot 2009). Thus, for the sake of a clear analysis it would be better if we abandoned the distinction (both substantive and formal) between objective Christian religion on the one hand and subjective non-Christian spirituality on the other, and took a formal perspective on subjectivization processes (defining authenticity as correspondence with subjective experience, taking the self as authority) throughout the entire spiritual-religious spectrum, while not losing sight of the emergence of any new patterns that direct experience. This does not preclude that “religion” and “spirituality” are also emic concepts. For this reason we also checked what these terms have come to represent for our participants, without providing definitions beforehand. What indications do our research results provide about the relation between Christian traditions and new spirituality (spiritual revolution, secularization, or substitution)? What constructions of “religious” and “spiritual” do we find? Against this background the central question is: to what extent are the religious/spiritual characteristics, motives, and experiences of the visitors to Christian spiritual centers related to the new spirituality, and to what extent to the Christian tradition? To this end we have looked at the visitors’ social profile, the institutional base of their faith/spirituality, the level of pluriformity

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of their faith/spirituality, and the relation between self-centeredness and care for others. Methods Respondents We investigated the programs of a total of fifteen Christian spiritual centers that were connected with monasteries and communities of religious men and women. We looked at what they offered in the fall of 2010 and made a selection from the activities on offer. Where possible, we included all activities starting in the fall of 2010 and taking a reasonable length of time—a few weeks, or an entire weekend. In consultation with the centers we decided to leave the distribution of the questionnaires to the course leaders, who handed the forms to the visitors after the course and asked them to fill out the questionnaires. In two centers (a Carmelite community, and the monastery of the Congregation of the Benedictine Sisters of St. Lioba in Egmond) the staff did not manage to distribute questionnaires during the relevant period, which means that in the end our survey included thirteen monastic spirituality centers. These included two Benedictine (o.s.b.) abbeys; one Cistercian monastery (o.c.s.o.); two Dominican (o.p.) monasteries; a Capuchin monastery (o.f.m. Cap.); a Premonstratensian abbey (O.Praem.) and one of its priories (men) that cooperates with a community (women); a monastery of the Congregation of the Passion (c.p.); the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (C.Ss.R); a community of the Society of Mary (s.m.); a Franciscan Center for Spiritual Development (o.f.m.), and the Titus Brandsma Memorial/Center for Spirituality (O.Carm.). In some cases the forms were filled out immediately after a course and sent to us by the staff, in other cases the participants themselves sent us the questionnaires. This means that some questionnaires were filled out on the spot, others afterwards at home. 710 questionnaires were distributed, of which we received back 284, a response of around 40%. Measuring Instruments The questionnaire was divided into four parts and consisted of a number of standard instruments, plus some questions formulated by ourselves on the basis of the literature and discussions with the centers. Part I contained questions about visitors’ social characteristics such as age, education, gender, and their situations regarding life and work. Questions in part II were about the institutional embedding of faith and spirituality. We asked about religious socialization and commitment to the local and to the

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universal church. Part III addressed the content of faith/spirituality. In order to include as wide a content area as possible we used Glock and Stark’s five dimensions of religiosity (Glock 1962; Glock and Stark 1965). In short, religious views relate to the central tenets of a tradition; religious knowledge refers to the knowledge of the main documents of a tradition; religious experiences can range from profound mystical experiences to a simple faith in God; religious practices can have a private character (praying in bed), but can also be a communal event (attending services); ethical prescriptions relate to directives from the belief system about how to behave towards other people. These dimensions can also be used to describe spirituality. In this part of the questionnaire we were able to use a number of standard instruments. The Spiritual Attitude and Involvement List (sail) is a questionnaire developed in research on coping, intended to measure spirituality along broad criteria (De Jager Meezenbroek and Garssen 2007; De Jager Meezenbroek et al. 2012). It is suitable for religious as well as non-religious respondents and contains 26 statements on religious/spiritual views, experiences, and activities. Agreement was to be indicated on a 6-point Likert scale (Not at all, Hardly, Somewhat, To a certain extent, To a high degree, To a very high degree). A higher score indicates more agreement. The sail is constructed along seven subscales: Meaningfulness; Trust; Acceptance; Caring for Others; Connectedness with Nature; Transcendent Experiences, and Spiritual Activities. In order to measure ethical attitude we presented the respondents with thirteen statements measuring social engagement, largely derived from Schuyt’s Philanthropy Scale (Schuyt 2006; Schuyt, Bekkers and Smit 2010). For every statement a “yes” or “no” answer was required. The Philanthropy Scale measures to what extent people feel responsible for their fellow humans and for society. Finally, we ourselves formulated a number of items gauging the level of pluralism of participants’ faith or spirituality, and the level of transcendence versus immanence. Part IV addressed the effects of participating in the activities offered by the centers. On the basis of an earlier analysis of the centers’ programs we assumed effects on the body, the self, the other, and faith/spirituality. Results After describing the visitors’ social characteristics, we will present our results from three perspectives that play an important part in the discussion on the new spirituality: level of institutionalization, level of pluriformity of religious or spiritual life, and the relation between self and other.

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Social Characteristics of the Participants The average age of the participants was 59 (range 29–86), with a standard deviation of 9.961. The age represented most was 64 years; 25% of the visitors were male, 76% female; 40% lived alone, 60% were living with someone or were married. Average level of education was high: 24% have a university degree, 46% a degree from higher professional education, 10% finished pre-university secondary education, 15% have intermediate vocational education, 4% lower vocational education, and 1% primary education. (Of the Dutch population between 45 and 65 roughly 28% have a degree from higher professional education or university (Statistics Netherlands Statline)). 48% were still working, 52% were not, or no longer. The latter category is divided into 35% retired, 7% unemployed, and 9% home makers (M/F). Thus, the population in our survey is exceptional, especially as regards age, gender, and education (cf. Zondag and Maassen 2010, 209). Church Affiliation and Spirituality We investigated in how far participants felt committed to the church and their local faith community. We asked our participants whether, and if so how, their upbringing included any aspects relating to religion, spirituality, or worldview (Table 7.1). The vast majority of visitors (83%) were found to have been socialized into the Christian faith in childhood. The next question then is of course: what about the participants’ current commitment to a church in general, and a local religious community in particular? Our first question was “Do you consider yourself as belonging to a church or a community that holds a particular spirituality or worldview?” 46% of the participants answered in the affirmative. We have assumed here that for most people such an association means a religious denomination. A second question that we thought would throw some light on institutional embedding referred to the frequency with which people attend church services. Table 7.2 shows the results from our survey. Compared with the Dutch average, church attendance is very high; the average for the Netherlands is only 16% (“regularly” plus “(almost) every week”) (Bernts, Dekker and De Hart 2007, 17). A third question aimed at clarifying institutional embedding was about how much space people think the church offers for spirituality (Table 7.3). The statement was: “I experience too little space for spirituality within the church” A large category (35% of the participants) had no clear opinion on this. Of those who do have a clear view the majority found too little space for spirituality within the church. A small category (9%) does think there is enough

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NEW SPIRITUALITY IN OLD MONASTERIES? Table 7.1

Count % total

Religious socialization

Roman-Cath. Protestant Other faith Spiritual tradition

Humanism

None

Total

143 51%

7 2%

30 11%

278 100%

88 32%

8 3%

2 1%

Table 7.2 Frequency of attending church services

Count % total

(Almost) every week Regularly

Sometimes

Very rarely

Never

Total

78 28%

53 19%

47 17%

39 14%

280 100%

63 22%

Table 7.3 Too little space for spirituality in the church

Count % total

Completely agree

Agree

Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree

Completely disagree

Total

51 19%

98 37%

95 35%

19 7%

5 2%

268 100%

space. Next, we asked the participants in how far they felt committed to a parish, congregation, or other local religious community (Table 7.4). We noted that a majority of 61% feel committed (very much or somewhat) to a parish or congregation. Another question in the survey was about the extent to which people were active within their parish or congregation. The answers showed that 44% of participants were also active within the local religious community, of whom 22% strongly or very strongly, and 22% somewhat. Besides current commitment to parish or congregation we also asked the participants about any earlier commitment (Table 7.5). A reasonably large category (35%) no longer feel committed to a local religious community, but did in the past. Apart from these, the centers also attract people who have never felt such a commitment (12% of participants). The largest category (48%), however, is that of people who both then and now have

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been connected to a parish or congregation. If we add to these the category of 5% new arrivals, we find that 53% feels committed to a parish or congregation. The answers to this question indicate a slightly lower commitment than for the previous one (Table 7.4: 61% strong to moderate commitment). Regarding the question about de-institutionalization we may arrive at the following answer: the vast majority of participants have been socialized in the Christian tradition. Slightly over half feel committed to the local church. Slightly less than half feel committed to the church as an institute. Slightly more than half think there is insufficient attention to spirituality within the church. Pluralism The number one characteristic of the new spirituality is generally considered to be a pluralist attitude, also called syncretism, bricolage, or do-it-yourself religion (Aupers and Houtman 2006). Below we present several aspects that together sketch a picture of the level of pluriformity in the participants’ religious or spiritual life. 60% call themselves “religious,” and 74% “spiritual.” Following various studies in which attempts were made to mark the distinction between religiosity and spirituality (Kronjee and Lampert 2006; Zinnbauer et al. 1997; Shahabi et al. 2002; Marler and Hadaway 2002; Barker 2008), we have distinguished four categories on the basis of the answers to the questions relating to a religious or spiritual outlook (Table 7.6). The largest group are the religious and spiritual (47%). Research among the Dutch population has shown that in the Netherlands these four categories are distributed as follows: religious and spiritual: 25%; exclusively religious: 16%; exclusively spiritual: 19%; neither: 40% (the figures in parentheses in Table 7.6) (Berghuijs, Pieper and Bakker 2013). Thus, the visitors to our centers are both more spiritual and more religious than average, but slightly less exclusively religious, and slightly more exclusively spiritual. These self-definitions from our respondents proved to be meaningful when we linked them to the other data about our participants’ religious or spiritual life. We plotted the differences and correspondences between these four categories in relation to their scores on all other variables, and found that each category has its own profile. We are summarizing these spiritual profiles below. The religious but not spiritual are rooted in the Christian tradition, are strongly committed to the parish, and have a strong desire to deepen their faith. Many scores from the religious and spiritual tend towards the average because this is the largest category of participants. Yet, a clear profile can nevertheless be discerned. On the one hand these participants are still strongly

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NEW SPIRITUALITY IN OLD MONASTERIES? Table 7.4 Commitment to parish/congregation

Count % total

Very much committed

Somewhat committed

Not committed

Total

89 32%

79 29%

109 39%

277 100%

Table 7.5 Earlier commitment to parish/congregation

Count % total

Both then and now

Then, but not now

Never

Now, but not then

Total

133 48%

97 35%

35 12%

14 5%

279 100%

Table 7.6 Self-identifications: spiritual and/or religious

Spiritual Count % total % Dutch population Non-spiritual Count % total % Dutch population Total

Religious

Not-religious

Total

134 47% (25%)

75 26% (19%)

209 73% (44%)

36 13% (16%) 170 60% (41%)

39 14% (40%) 114 40% (59%)

75 27% (56%) 284 100% (100%)

part of the Christian tradition, both in an institutional and in a substantive sense; on the other hand they have also incorporated elements of the new spirituality into their views. This category is the most religiously and spiritually “committed,” and it is this category for which religion or spirituality are most alive, judging from the respondents’ excellence in transcendent experiences,

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religious activities, effects of participating in the programs offered, and the significance of religion/spirituality for daily life. The exclusively spiritual are relatively young, and this category includes many women. They are farthest removed from the Christian tradition, and have room for affinity with other traditions: Buddhism, new spirituality, and humanism. This corresponds to a high level of pluralism. This category is the least institutionally bound. Some used to be involved in a parish, others never were. People’s choices affect their daily lives; they report a relatively great number of religious experiences and religious activities. Their main focus is self-actualization. Those participants who are neither religious nor spiritual form a relatively “lukewarm” category, having no strikingly high scores on any aspect. They do, however, have strikingly low scores on many aspects: they have very little belief in a transcendent reality; they have few transcendent experiences; and are not particularly active in the area of religion/spirituality. It is possible that in this category the more secular humanists meet those whose connection to Christianity is mainly formal. Looking at the interrelations between the four categories we note that they are on a continuum. At one end there is the commitment to parish and Christianity (“religious but not spiritual”), at the other the adoption of new forms of spirituality (“spiritual but not religious”). In-between there is the category “religious and spiritual.” The category “neither religious nor spiritual” (14%) does not have a clear profile yet. In the study of the Dutch population mentioned above similar conclusions were found. Our results are also supported by the data from the Religion Monitor Survey, carried out in 21 countries: in several cultures those seeing themselves as both spiritual and religious score higher in all measured expressions of spirituality/religiosity than the categories of the exclusively spiritual or the exclusively religious. The latter two categories hold characteristic pantheistic or theistic patterns of religious expressions. klein and huber 2011

We also looked at the respondents’ current religiosity by asking for their preference in religious or secular movements: what movements do people feel closest to (Table 7.7)? Only 66.9% of the participants answered this question as intended, namely by choosing only one option. A large category of respondents checked two or more options. This may indicate that a certain amount of bricolage is not unusual.

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The majority of participants feel most closely related to the Christian tradition. The “spiritual but not religious” have a particular profile; they consider themselves (besides related to Christianity (26%)) related to Buddhism (25%), the New Spirituality (25%), Humanism (13%) or no movement (11%). We measured belief in a transcendent reality (Table 7.8) by putting the question: “Do you believe in God or a supernatural reality?” and the experience of an immanent transcendence by asking: “Do you believe in a deeper reality within yourself?” Peter Versteeg (2006) points out that in the new spirituality God is sought within the self, not outside it. Paul Heelas (1996) also argues that in the new spirituality the experience of the self—felt to be divine, spiritual, and sacral— is the starting point from which to attain an authentic life. Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005) speak of a divine core (the Self), which is linked to a universal spirit, energy, or life force. Many (67%) of the participants in our study believe in both the more traditional transcendent God and in the God “within” (immanent transcendence). Apparently the two concepts combine Table 7.7 Self-reported affiliation

R-C. Prot. Ecumenical Buddh. New Humanism None Total spirituality Count 63 15 % total 33% 8%

45 24%

26 14%

Table 7.8 Transcendence/immanence

Transcendent Immanent Certain Count % total Doubtful Count % total No Count % total

197 71%

227 83%

54 20%

40 15%

25 9%

7 3%

21 11%

11 6%

9 5%

190 100%

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perfectly well, and people see no distinction between theistic and holistic spirituality. As mentioned earlier, a pluralist attitude is seen as the number one characteristic of the new spirituality. In a more negative approach people speak of syncretism, bricolage, spiritual supermarket, do-it-yourself religion (Aupers and Houtman 2006). We used three statements by which to measure a pluralist attitude: – it is good to experiment with insights and practices from different traditions – there are many sources of wisdom we can draw on – you can combine different insights and practices into a philosophy that suits you. The answers to these three questions were to be indicated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from “completely disagree” to “completely agree.” By means of component analysis we were able to combine the three into one component. (Principal component analysis with varimax rotation, minimal eigenvalue = 1; loading > 0.40; explained variance = 75.2%; missing pairwise.) This component had a high average score of 4.2 (on the scale of 1–5). Another question, also intended to measure a pluralist orientation, was: “have you ever participated in an activity at a spiritual center of a non-Christian signature?” 39% had never done this, 61% had. Both results indicate a desire to broaden one’s perspective, but this desire is stated more often by the exclusively spiritual. Their score on this component is 4.4, and 79% of them visit non-Christian centers on occasion. Of the exclusively religious this is only 31%. We put descriptions of ten religious activities (Table 7.9) to the participants, asking them to state for each whether they engaged in that activity not at all; yes, sometimes; yes, often. These pursuits could be condensed into three components which we labelled Eastern, Christian, and paranormal. (Principal component analysis with varimax rotation; minimal eigenvalue  =  1; loading  >  0.40; explained variance = 58.6%; missing pairwise.) The Eastern and Christian activities are engaged in relatively frequently, the paranormal activities hardly. This means that the population we studied is totally different from the visitors to “paranormal” fairs (Jespers 2007). The Eastern and paranormal activities to some extent occur together (r = 0.28**). Self-commitment and the Other In the literature there is a discussion about the social engagement of religiously oriented versus that of spiritually oriented people (Aupers and Houtman 2008;

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Farjas and Lalljee 2008; Possamai 2000; Chandler 2010; Kronjee and Lampert 2006). Are spiritual people more focused on themselves than religious people? To find an answer to this question we confronted our participants with thirteen statements that measure social engagement, largely derived from Schuyt’s Philanthropy Scale. For every statement respondents were asked to indicate whether or not it applied to them: yes—no. Table 7.10 contains the results. The results indicate that our participants had a high level of social engagement. The sail also includes a component measuring social engagement (Table 7.11). Caring for others scores high: “to a high degree.” This also indicates participants’ high level of social engagement. We also obtained data about the effects of participating in the activities offered by the centers. These data also shed light on the relation between selfexploration and focus on others. We included 32 effects in the questionnaire, to be answered on a 5-point Likert scale running from “completely disagree” to

Table 7.9 Religious/spiritual activities

Eastern activities breathing exercises yoga mindfulness meditation average Christian activities praying bible reading fasting average Paranormal activities consulting a medium visiting a paranormal market consulting a horoscope average

No

Yes, sometimes

Yes, often

Total

28% 53% 57% 10% 37%

46% 30% 28% 50% 38%

27% 17% 15% 40% 25%

100% 100% 100% 100%

21% 40% 64% 42%

38% 38% 32% 36%

42% 22% 4% 23%

100% 100% 100%

86% 88% 70% 81%

12% 11% 26% 16%

2% 1% 4% 2%

100% 100% 100%

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Table 7.10 Philanthropy

Yes We have to make this world a better place for the next generation I donate to charitable causes The world needs responsible citizens People are part of the community I volunteer Society is in danger because people nowadays are less concerned  about each other I donate to charitable causes, no matter what the government  or the corporate sector does I perform informal care The global warming issue is exaggerated I don’t feel familiar with people on the other side of the globe I don’t feel responsible for society’s well-being I often think: tomorrow can take care of itself It is hard for me to support causes I do not benefit from

87% 84% 78% 77% 68% 63% 52% 35% 5% 4% 3% 1% 1%

Table 7.11 sail: subscale “caring for others”

Subscale score* It is important to me that I can do things for others I want to mean something to others I am receptive to others’ people suffering I try to make a meaningful contribution to society Average

4.8 4.8 4.8 4.5 4.7

* 1 = not at all, 6 = to a very high degree

“completely agree.” In order to gain insight into the relations among and the exact significance of the effects we looked for basic effects. We ran a principal component analysis with oblique rotation. On the basis of the scree plot we chose to extract three components; loading > 0.40; explained variance = 60.8%; missing pairwise. This yielded the three components shown in Table  7.12.

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The table also contains the scores. Percentages are those for “agree” and “completely agree” added up. This solution yielded three easily interpretable components, in which all effects found could be accommodated. The first component, Self-knowledge and self-actualization, contains a whole range of effects indicating an increase in self-knowledge, and development of psychic and mental powers. The second component, Deepening faith, is explicitly about the development of spiritual and religious life, which also entails a better embedding in the local religious community. In this variable the Christian tradition seems the main point of reference. The third component, The other, is about commitment to and care for the other.1 The average scores of these three components range from 40% to 50%. Effects on the self are largest. The components have been converted into variables, with Cronbach’s α 0.96, 0.82, and 0.89, respectively. There are strong interrelations: between Self and The other: 0.73**; Self and Deepening faith: 0.60**; Deepening faith and The other: 0.54**. Thus, there seems to be no opposition between a focus on the self and commitment to others. Conclusion Those participating in the programs offered by the spiritual centers connected to monasteries make up a specific category. They do not conform to the Dutch average, but neither do they represent the new spirituals. Their education level is high, they were socialized within the Christian tradition, and they are usually involved in a local religious community. This means that our results cannot offer a conclusive, universally valid answer to the question whether we should see spirituality as replacing, or as intensifying religion or religious understanding. However, if the provider is a monastery and the participant is strongly committed to the church, spirituality appears to be intensifying, rather than replacing religion by these centers and their visitors (cf. Zondag and Maassen 2010, 215). Moreover, there are great differences between the participants regarding the way in which they position themselves in relation to religion on the one 1 Cf. Majoor and Sonnberger 1999. In the study on “week-end conventuals” mentioned earlier the researchers also found three coherent dimensions after a factor analysis of judgments on specific goals (Zondag and Maassen 2010, 210–211). The first two, self-contemplation and deepening faith, correspond to the components we found in our study. The third dimension in that study (one item) is “participating in rituals.” We did not specifically ask our participants about this; the third component in our study was social engagement.

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Table 7.12 Effects of participating

(Completely) Agree Self-knowledge and self-actualisation  I feel closer to my inner self  I feel more calm and quiet  I gained insight about myself  My mental health increased  I better accept myself for what I am  I became a freer person  My body and mind are more in balance  I became more intuitive  I am more relaxed now  I accept life more as it is  I am better equipped to solve my problems  My faith in life has grown  I am more sensitive  I am more inspired  I became a more loving person  My health increased  My life is more meaningful now  I developed more wisdom of life  My awareness expanded  I discovered and developed my hidden talents  I reflect more on my life Average

70% 61% 72% 56% 54% 51% 52% 36% 55% 55% 36% 54% 41% 63% 33% 25% 45% 67% 55% 33% 59% 51%

Deepening faith  I feel closer to Christianity  My relationship with God/the mystery/The Other deepened  I feel more connected to my parish/congregation  My faith/spirituality/worldview deepened  My interest in spirituality has grown Average

24% 52% 13% 62% 53% 41%

The other  Now I can be of use for other people  Now I can contribute more to society  I developed more empathy

38% 31% 47%

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(Completely) Agree  I learned to better express myself  I feel more part of a community  I feel more connected to other people Average

39% 41% 60% 43%

hand, and spirituality on the other. We distinguish four categories. Half of the participants are in the Christian tradition and wish to develop their spirituali­ty. Roughly 25% are farther removed from the Christian tradition and draw from several spiritual sources. Roughly 14% see themselves as neither religious nor spiritual, and another 13% call themselves religious, but not spiritual. This last category is strongly committed to the parish and seeks a deepening of faith. It is clear that the transformation process around religion and spirituality does not stop at the church doors. Church members, too, are affected by this process: we see forms of bricolage among them as well. Within official church bodies this development is often frowned upon, but the people involved seem to have no problem with it at all. There is a growing attention for one’s own spiritual growth, subjective experience, social engagement, commitment to the church, openness towards what other religions and spiritual movements have to offer, the combination of transcendence and immanence—all this is mixed together without “believers” batting an eyelid. This population wants to have control over their own spiritual nourishment and growth—in fact following what has by now become a broad trend in all layers of Western culture. In this respect is it significant that a small majority of our participants indicate that they feel spiritually short-changed within the church, criticizing the institute more than the local religious community. This critical distance from the institute we also find in the “new spiritual” milieu (Van IJssel and Putman 2011). The fact that these respondents are not led only by traditional interpretations of religion shows that they also consciously follow their subjective interests and needs. Against the background of the three hypotheses formulated earlier in this chapter the significance of the spiritual interest in what monasteries have to offer is thrown into even greater relief. We do not see the picture of a widespread, progressive secularization as sketched by Bruce and Voas. What we do see is that respondents distance themselves from the church of their childhood. However, at the same time the phenomenon of new spirituality is clearly discernible in our population, especially in the exclusively spiritual. Moreover,

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contrary to the expectations of Bruce and Voas, we found that participants themselves feel that participation in the activities to be relevant (also socially). Our finding that the participants largely belong to the Christian population, which is nowadays dwindling, only seemingly supports the compensation hypothesis. More detailed analysis, available at the authors, shows that interest in the new spirituality does not depend on earlier religious socialization (De Groot, Pieper and Putman 2013, 170). Most of the exclusively spiritual participants had never been involved in a religious community. However, the revolution hypothesis was not confirmed either: age and background of the participants do not really point to a great spiritual revival versus religious decline. It is possible that signs of such a revival can be seen elsewhere, but positive effects for the Self, for personal consciousness and for the healing of body, spirit and mind were mentioned alongside an enhanced acceptance of life and an intensified relation with God, the Church and other people. In other words: effects in terms of subjective life spirituality and the reflexive project of the Self were intermingled with more traditional consequences of contemplation, such as going into retreat, formulated in terms of “life-as-religion” (cf. Van den Brink 2012). Thus, the question whether new spirituality can be found in old monasteries cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. As regards their programs, the monasteries themselves clearly stand in a Christian spiritual tradition. The same applies to most of their visitors. On the other hand, they also offer courses (Mindfulness, Enneagram, Psychosynthesis) that would not be out of place in centers for new spirituality. Our results indicate that in their approach to spirituality the visitors to the monasteries integrate elements that are often considered characteristic of the new spirituality. The high scores on “satisfaction” with the spiritual offering shows that on this aspect the centers do manage to hit the target, whereas this is clearly less so with the official church. The way in which the monasteries offer their programs is clearly geared to the religious and spiritual transformation processes they find in their visitors. In this specific context there is no question of a revolution, a schism between religion and spirituality. What we do find is an evolution: a process of gradual shifts in which elements from the new spirituality are incorporated into a Christian spiritual approach—and where a reverse movement cannot be excluded either.2

2 An earlier version of this article has been published in Dutch (De Groot, Pieper and Putman 2012). Grants for this research have been provided by the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, the Dutch Religious Conference (Commission Projects in the Netherlands), Stichting

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Part 2 Ex Oriente lux: Other forms of Monasticism

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Athos Outside of Athos: Orthodox Monasticism in the West Laurent Denizeau1 Since its foundation in the tenth century, the Greek peninsula of Mount Athos has always been considered a ‘Holy Mountain’ in Orthodox Christianity. This Monastic Republic2 is viewed by the monks as the sanctuary of the ‘Great Tradition’ of primitive monasticism, preserved from the changes in the outside world by a strict enclosure. The peninsula plays a central role in the life of the Orthodox Church, and indeed Orthodox Christians consider it to be the ‘spiritual beacon’ of their Church. Although Orthodoxy is usually associated with Eastern Christian spirituality, during the 20th century a series of events such as the Communist Revolution in Russia and the civil war in Greece led to large-scale emigrations away from Orthodox countries, and some monasteries on Mount Athos then founded dependences in Western Europe or America. The tradition has become deterritorialized: the monks we discuss in this paper speak about being immersed in the monastic tradition of Mount Athos…outside of Athos. In this context of migration, the ‘Great Tradition’ is connected not so much to a geographical place such as Mount Athos itself than to an extended community, which is considered as a monastic family. This article attempts to understand the role of filiation and the place of the spiritual father in the definition of tradition within a monastic context, focusing on the foundation of Simonos Petra (Mount Athos) monastic dependencies in France. For monks, tradition forms the relationship in which they keep their past alive by the way they live together in the present. Our discussion focuses on the place of tradition in creating social links in the field of monastic life. 1 Many thanks to Richard Crossley for his help with the English language. 2 Mount Athos is a self-governed part of Greece. Politically, Mount Athos depends on the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and religiously it reports directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Its status as self-governed region is guaranteed by the article 106 of the current Greek Constitution (1975). The peninsula is administrated by ‘the Holy Community’ which is formed by representatives from the twenty monasteries. Its constitutional charter, which establishes its organization as a ‘Theocratic Republic’, was approved by the government of Athos on May 10th 1924 and confirmed by the Greek government on September 10th 1926.

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The Holy Mountain and the Great Tradition of Athos

The French writer Jacques Lacarrière, who first visited Mount Athos during the 1950’s, wrote of his first impressions of the mountain in L’Eté Grec: A journey to Athos is a journey through time […]. Time has a different substance here. Athos is a relic of the past, a piece of Byzantium which has survived into our era. And the world of the living reproduces that of the dead, of ancestors, so closely that the monks can sometimes seem like moving icons, figures from the past who have wandered into the present. It is as if we pass through an invisible mirror when we go across the Bay of Longos, at the end of which the mount and its world of shades stands trembling. This immobility, this frozenness of time on Mount Athos is not simply a romantic or exaggerated impression. Everyday life might indeed be lax, and religious discipline on the decline, but time itself seems to be standing still, as if Mount Athos were one of those secret places, a magic mountain where time is slowed down and eventually comes to a standstill […]. What is surprising here is not so much the strange, the picturesque or the unique, as the existence, in a country like Greece, of this timeless isle where so many values are inverted. And it is this which strikes one from the first instants upon arrival: this different air, this scent of time, as if time on Athos had a density, a flow all of its own. Author’s translation3 Jacques Lacarrière paints a picture of a timeless Mount Athos, an ‘otherworldly’ territory, which means timeless, an inverted way of living which 3 « Un voyage à Athos, c’est d’abord un voyage dans le temps […]. Le temps, lui, a une substance différente. Athos est une survivance, une parcelle de Byzance enclose en notre époque. Et le monde des vivants y reproduit avec tant de rigueur celui des morts et des ancêtres que les moines donnent parfois l’impression d’être des icônes animées, des silhouettes d’autrefois égarées dans notre présent. Oui, c’est bien une sorte de miroir invisible qu’on franchit en traversant le golfe de Longos au bout duquel tremblent ce mont et ce monde des ombres. Cette fixité, cette pérennité du temps d’Athos n’est pas une impression romantique ou forcée. La vie quotidienne a beau y être souvent relâchée, l’esprit religieux livré à la décadence, le temps lui-même paraît intact comme si Athos était un de ces lieux secrets, une de ces montagnes magiques où le temps se fige et s’englue […]. C’est moins l’étrange, le pittoresque ou l’insolite qui surprennent ici que l’existence, au sein d’un pays comme la Grèce, de cet îlot intemporel où nombre de valeurs sont inversées. Et c’est cela d’abord qui vous saisit dès les premiers instants: cet air autre, cette odeur du temps, comme si la durée athonite avait une épaisseur, un écoulement qui lui soient propres » (Lacarrière 1996:32–33).

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prefigures celestial life. Monastic life is generally considered as angelic life. On Mount Athos monks like to claim that, “A thousand years are like one day,” to insist on the permanence of their monastic tradition, which originated in primitive monasticism and is detached from changes in the world. For Orthodox Christians, Mount Athos is seen as a place which transcends the present and opens up another dimension of reality, a window onto an unseen world. Mount Athos is called ‘the Holy Mountain’ or ‘the garden of the Mother of God’ by Orthodox Christians. A Christian legend recounts that the Virgin Mary, called Mother of God in Orthodoxy, was travelling by boat to Cyprus. When the boat passed near Mount Athos it was caught in a storm. They took shelter in a bay on the east of the mountain and Mary went ashore. Admiring the beauty of the place, she asked God to give her this land. God made himself heard: “Let this place be as your garden and your paradise, and also a haven for those who wish to be saved.” This is why the icon of Mount Athos shows the Mother of God sitting on the peninsula with the mountain as a throne, and its twenty monasteries spread over her feet. To speak about Mount Athos as ‘the garden of the Mother of God’ is a way to present the peninsula as a preserved place which shows us what Creation was like before the Fall. Mount Athos is considered by Orthodox Christians as a place linked to eternity, where a thousand years of uninterrupted prayer has ensured the continuity of the Tradition from the origins of the Christian Church. According to a monk of Simonos Petra (one of the twenty monasteries on Mount Athos): Mount Athos has always been the centre of preservation of monastic heritage, since the very beginning. This continuity is very important because there are a lot of customs which are only transmitted in the oral tradition, from generation to generation, and not recorded in the writings. So it is this continuity which makes Mount Athos so important for the Orthodox Church as it provides a direct link with the first generation of Christians. Mount Athos is the centre of Orthodoxy itself, and not only the monastic tradition, it really is at the heart of historical events where the Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Tradition has been preserved and passed on to other nations. From an Orthodox point of view, Mount Athos is seen as a spiritual beacon and the sanctuary of the Tradition, which is the very essence of the Orthodox Church. In fact, the word ‘orthodoxy’ – from Greek orthos ‘right’ and doxa ‘opinion’ – finds its application in contrast to notions of heterodoxy and heresy. In the religious sphere, the word implies fidelity to a revelation which is considered universal, and the Church has to define this very clearly in order to

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distinguish its practices from those viewed as deviant. For example, Orthodox Tradition sets out to preserve the original message of Christianity, as opposed to what it considered as deviations on the part of what then became the Catholic Church. In addition, Doxa also means ‘glory’, Orthodox faith can be understood as right glorification, as according to the first seven councils of the undivided Christian Church, before the great schism of 1054 with Rome. This is what monks refer to when they speak about ‘The Great Tradition of Mount Athos’, a way of life which comes from the origins of monasticism. In this context, an anthropological approach has to take into consideration not so much the continuity of traditional practices than the practice of tradition itself, the importance of continuity in the present forms of enacting monastic life. Tradition shapes the monks’ relationship to the past, in the ways in which they live together in the present. From an anthropological perspective, tradition is a way to understand the monks’ relationship with temporality, which itself is the means by which they go on recreating monastic communal life. Historically, Mount Athos is a very ancient monastic settlement, probably dating back to the 7th century, when monks fled the Egyptian desert during the Islamic expansion. Some documents from this period mention a conflict between hermits and shepherds, as the latter used to lead their flocks onto the pastures of Mount Athos. In 885, Byzantine emperor Basil I the Macedonian (813–886) wrote an imperial order forbidding access to the peninsula to shepherds. The number of monks grew considerably during the next century, and another Byzantine emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas (921–969) decided to send his own confessor, Athanasius, to organize monastic life on the peninsula. Athanasius founded the first monastery, the Great Lavra and its church was consecrated in 963. This date is considered as the foundation of the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos (Paléologue 1997). The avaton was enacted by Constantine IX Monomachos in 1046 to forbid the access to the Holy Mountain to “All women, all female creatures, all eunuchs and all glabrous youngsters.” (Kotsi 2003) This strict enclosure still applies today and preserves, according to the monks, the ‘Great Tradition’ from worldly change. Yet Mount Athos has remained a very important site for pilgrimages. Many people come to worship miraculous relics or icons, and to meet certain charismatic monks. Male pilgrims must have a diamonitirion – a permit to visit – which is delivered by the Holy Community, the government of Athos composed of different abbots of monasteries.4 To obtain this document it is necessary to justify a genuine spiritual interest in Mount Athos. Other reasons such as tourism, journalism or historical interest are not valid. The diamonitirion allows pilgrims to stay four 4 Called higoumenos in Orthodox Church.

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days only in the Monastic Republic. For women, access is still forbidden, but it is possible to perform a maritime pilgrimage: boats can approach the mountain by sea (at a distance of no less than 500 meters from the shore), and can then be met by a small boat coming from the monasteries, with monks carrying important icons or relics. Some travel organizers offer maritime pilgrimages around the peninsula. Today, there are approximately two thousand monks living in the Monastic Republic. Over the last few decades, Mount Athos has undergone an unexpected revival. As mentioned earlier, in the 1950’s Jacques Lacarrière described a ‘lax’ monastic life, a ‘religious discipline on the decline’. During this period, at a time when many monasteries were preparing to celebrate the millennium of Mount Athos, the crisis of vocation was so great that some predicted an imminent end to the Monastic Republic. So much so that property developers began looking to acquire monasteries on the hitherto preserved peninsula, with the idea of transforming them into luxury hotels. This crisis of vocation was a direct consequence of the Russian revolution in 1917 and the arrival of communism in some countries where the Orthodox Church was established. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon – also called The Rossikon – counted nearly two thousands monks, whereas at the beginning of the 1960’s there were fewer than sixty. During this period, monasticism on Mount Athos was characterized by an ‘idiorhythmic’ way of life, which is to say that monks could live according to their own routines with no abbots to define ascetic practices and timing of services. Practices such as fast days and staying awake through the night disappeared gradually from monastic life. In addition, each monk was allowed to keep his personal possessions, and according to Emmanuel Amand de Mendieta (1955), who also visited Mount Athos during this period, some cells were like small, richly furnished sitting rooms. But at the same time some Gerontes5 who lived in the Desert of Mount Athos – the arid slopes of the Mount to the south of the peninsula – gathered a number of disciples. These Gerontes, such as Father Joseph ‘the Hesychast’ (†1959), preserved the traditional monastic way of life, one defined by asceticism and the search for perpetual prayer. Hesychasm, from the Greek hesychia, means peace in the soul and inner silence. This holy state of being is achieved by fighting against our thought processes and ‘self will’, by obeying the Geronta and repeating the prayer of the heart (also called Jesus’ prayer) all day long: Kyrie Eleison, “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, take pity on me, a sinner,” or shorter, “Lord, take pity.” Today, Father Joseph the Hesychast is considered one of the most important 5 Geronta (pl. Gerontes) mean elder.

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spiritual figures of the Orthodox Church in the 20th century. His influence was spread by his disciples. Today, six of the twenty monasteries on Mount Athos are run by his disciples or their successors. One such disciple, Father Ephrem of Philotheou, founded eight monasteries in Greece and sixteen in Canada and United States. Other Gerontes, such as Father Aimilianos of Simonos Petra, restored cenobitic life by repopulating the monasteries. According to the monks, Gerontes played a decisive role in saving ‘The Great Tradition of Mount Athos’. This figure of the elder, and the relationship they form with disciples, can be an effective way to understand how tradition serves to create monastic social bonds.

The Figure of the Elder in Orthodox Monastic Life

The Geronta is a very important figure, not only in monasticism on Mount Athos but throughout the Orthodox Church. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky draws a portrait of this figure of the elder – called starets in Russian – with the character of Father Zossima, inspired by the writer’s own meeting with Father Ambroise of Optino. Dostoyevsky’s fictional character introduced many to the idea of the place of elders in the Orthodox Church, and is even seen as the archetypal spiritual father. In the Orthodox Church the Geronta is a figure of wisdom, about whom Marina Iossifides writes: Geronta (fem. Gerontissa), meaning ‘Elder’ and signifying not their age in years but their spiritual age, their acquired spiritual wisdom and maturity. In this sense, a young man or woman may be a Geronta/tissa if considered spiritually developed. iossifides 1991:146

Through his spiritual experience, which is most often a monastic experience, a Geronta has acquired the gift of discernment which enables him to lead his disciples the right way to salvation. For this reason, in Orthodox monasticism a person wishing to become a monk chooses a way of life not defined by Order, as in Catholic monasticism, but depending on the elder who presides over the community. He learns how to be a monk by living with his elder, just as in primitive monasticism. Monastic life is learnt through a spiritual apprenticeship. This apprenticeship does not only concern learning monastic precepts: the whole life of an elder is given over to teaching his disciples. He is considered a model of monastic life and seen by his disciples as the ‘embodiment of the tradition’.

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The monastic relationship between an elder and his disciples is built on the model of kinship. The elder is considered as a spiritual father. Kinship terms are common in many aspects of religion, and are used as metaphors for the spiritual bond, for example the words father, mother, brother and sister. Figurative use of the term ‘father’ is of course the standard way to refer to paternity, as in ‘our Father in Heaven’. Monastic life especially is built around the representation of paternity. To obey an elder is a way of obeying God, to be saved from one’s own passion rooted in one’s will. Organized around an elder, monastic community is built on the model of the family. Relationships between an elder and his disciples emulate relationships between father and son. An elder has an educative role in relation to his disciples: first and foremost a spiritual education, as he has to guide their souls, but also he has to educate them in good communal living. This relationship between them is characterized by a personal and affectionate relationship (the monk open his heart to his elder, to confide his spiritual troubles), but also by a definite respect towards this figure of authority. Spiritual guidance is built on a filial model: a monk becomes the son of one he has chosen as his father. This spiritual kinship can occasionally bear a very close resemblance to a genuine father-son relationship, as with this monk who himself notes certain resemblances to his elder: I knew Elder Placide before I knew Simonos Petra. I was attached to him before I knew this monastery. I met him in Paris, he gave some conferences. I didn’t even understand what he was talking about, but something made me quite attached to him, and the more I got to know him the more attached I became, like a child to his father. We are quite alike, and he is very much like my father. I have heard other people say he was like their father, he has something quite paternal. Whenever I saw him I was so happy, I can’t explain why. Can we speak here of a genuine kinship? As opposed to hereditary kinship, in this case the monk recognizes his spiritual father. In a spiritual kinship, the father-son relationship is inverted – the fathers are born from their sons. The monk recognizes that he is engendered by his father, but it is the monk himself who determines who engenders him. Spiritual transmission is rooted in a genealogy which comes from the son, i.e. the disciple. For Willaime, the characteristic feature of the religious act is a system of gift-giving, whereby paternity itself is seen as an emblematic symbol of donation: It is through being recognized, and recognizing oneself, as the son or daughter of someone else that one receives the gift and is thus able to gain

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access to liberty. Men achieve freedom and independence by recognizing that they were originally given, engendered, conceived by another. This recognition implies that it is impossible to be one’s own creator, and religion may correspond to this idea that freedom originates with filiation. Author’s translation6 In this way, religious commitment can be seen as founded on the recognition of a gift, therein creating a gift-debt7: to give one’s life to God. To take part in a spiritual filiation is a way to recognize, by being part of one monastic line, an original gift from God. The generational link highlights the need to rely on what others have experienced before in order to construct one’s own present experience of God. The continuity of the ‘Great Tradition of Mount Athos’ is rooted in a monastic communal life built on a whole millennium of spiritual filiation.

A Deterritorialized Tradition: Mount Athos in France

The Orthodox Church is often identified as Christianity in the East. This spatial distinction has a historical origin: Orthodox tradition is defined as the Eastern Christian spirituality in contrast with Western Christian spirituality, and this stems from the Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople. The two Churches are considered as independent entities with no relations between them, one staying in the first millennium, and the other evolving from it. However, this idea of a complete geographical separation is to a large degree imaginary, with little grounding in historical reality. On the contrary, a historical approach shows that the relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches continued well after the schism, and not only institutionally but indeed theologically. Many theologians from the court of Constantinople, such as Nicolas Cabasilas, had an interest in Latin theology. The most important works of Saint Augustine, as well as Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, 6 « C’est en étant reconnu et en se reconnaissant comme « fils ou fille de » que l’on accède au don et donc à la liberté. Les hommes accompliraient leur liberté, réaliseraient leur autonomie en reconnaissant qu’ils sont d’abord donnés, engendrés, conçus par d’autres. Cette reconnaissance impliquant l’impossibilité d’être entièrement son propre créateur, la religion pourrait correspondre à cette posture qui consiste à inscrire sa liberté dans la filiation. » (Willaime, 2003: 264). 7 This notion of gift-debt comes from Mauss’s piece which was entitled Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques (“An essay on the gift: the form and reason of exchange in archaic societies”) and was published in L’Année Sociologique in 1925.

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were translated into Greek. In Russia, theological learning was in Latin until the beginning of the 20th century (Lossky 1998). Catholicism was established in the East by the Greek Catholic Church. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, many orthodox theologians went to study in Christian Universities in the West. The presence of the Orthodox Church in the West dates back several centuries, for instance the first Greek church was founded in London in 1677 (Ware 2002: 223), but this presence took on a greater importance during the 20th century. Communism in Russia and civil war in Greece led to a wave of immigration from Orthodox countries to Western Europe, especially France. Olivier Clément gives the number of 150 000 Orthodox immigrants living in France during the sixties (Clément 1965:32). This number has been growing steadily since then, according to the Machelon commission report on the relationship between religious groups and public power (2006) which counted 300 000 members of the Orthodox community in France. As migrants wished to maintain a link with their church, the different patriarchates sent priests and bishops to organize the local population into parishes. But this migration led to the multiplication of local churches in a single place, identified by their cultural ties, which runs contrary to the principle of unity of dioceses. In some large French cities, there can be a Greek church, a Russian church, a Romanian church, and so on. The Church becomes a place where migrants are able to continue to speak their language and practice their customs. Whereas the relationship between culture and spiritual identity generally come from the settlement of Church in a particular territory, within a context of migration the local Church is not limited to the national territory, and yet religious identity is still linked to the national one. Nikos Kokosalakis (1996) notes that in Greece, Orthodoxy is a part of ‘Greek ethnic identity’, due to the Ottoman domination and nationalism in the 19th century. Through contact with these migrants, many French people discovered Orthodoxy, and those who were disappointed with the reforms of the Vatican II Council joined the Orthodox Church. In this way, Orthodoxy in France came to be distinguished from any cultural identity, with the appearance of uniquely French parishes. Within this context of migration, over twenty monasteries have been founded in France, linked to the different orthodox patriarchates. These monasteries are considered the most important way to transmit the Eastern Christian tradition, even though the majority of monks are French. The example of the foundation of communities which depend on the monastery of Simonos Petra (Mount Athos) can help us to understand the role of tradition in the construction of a spiritual identity in a context of migration. These French communities linked to Mount Athos were founded by a French monk, Elder Placide, who has over seventy years of monastic life – the first half

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in the Trappist order and the second as an Orthodox monk. His monastic life began in September 1942 when he decided to enter the monastery of Bellefontaine (Anjou) at the age of sixteen. He discovered the Desert Fathers during his theological education. He decided to increase his knowledge of primitive monasticism, visiting the Saint Serge Institute in Paris. This institute was founded in 1925 by Russian theologians to train Orthodox priests. Since its creation, the Saint Serge Institute contributes to the spread of Eastern Christian spirituality through important Russian theologians, such as Vladimir and Nicolas Lossky, Léonide Ouspensky, and also French theologians such as Olivier Clément. This establishment soon became a meeting place for both the Orthodox and non-Orthodox. Father Placide’s increasing identification with Orthodox practice led him to found a small community in 1966 in the forest of Aubazine (Corrèze), which was a dependency of the Bellefontaine monastery. Another Trappist monk and some disciples joined him in this experience, which attempted to rediscover the way of life of primitive monasticism in the Egyptian Desert. They lived alone in small log cabins and joined together for services and important meals. Throughout its ten years existence, the community travelled to Orthodox countries and Mount Athos, where Father Placide met Elder Aimilianos, the higoumenos of Simonos Petra. Gradually, Father Placide acquired the conviction that the Catholic Church had been separated from the fundamentals of the Tradition of the Desert Fathers, and his idea of conversion came slowly. In 1977, Father Placide and some companions from Aubazine joined the Orthodox Church by becoming monks of Simonos Petra. They stayed for one year on Mount Athos, as Father Aimilianos asked them to found two monasteries in France depending on Simonos Petra. In the end, three monasteries were founded: the monastery of Saint-Anthony-the-Great, a community of monks, in a valley of the Vercors (Alps); the monastery of Solan, a community of nuns, in the South of the France (Gard); and another community of nuns founded by a disciple of Father Placide in the West of France (Périgord), called the monastery of the Transfiguration. Since their foundation, the vast majority of people who have joined French Simonos Petra dependences have been French people, who were previously Catholic or Protestant. However, these communities, these metochia,8 depend on the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as do the monasteries on Mount Athos. Elder Placide understands his own monastic journey as a “pilgrimage to the source” of a Christianity which is shared by Eastern and Western traditions. For him, the Great Tradition of Mount Athos is the descendant of primitive 8 From the Greek meta echo: “which participates in” (metochion in singular), which signifies dependencies.

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monasticism as it existed in Western Christianity before the schism. During the founding ceremony of the monastery of Solan, Father Placide gave a speech where he described the meaning of the Orthodox monastic settlement in France: It is especially from Greek colonies in southern France that Christianity came to be introduced into Gaul, as early as the time of the first disciples. This was a Christianity which was of Greek and Eastern tradition. Our Orthodox church is a direct link to these first Christian generations. The presence of an Orthodox monastery in a Catholic country such as ours reminds us of our common origin, and invites us to look to the roots of our traditions, to the Christian origins of France. But to speak about our roots does not mean turning towards the past. When an oak tree buries its roots deep in the earth, it is not to become an acorn again but is rather to lift its boughs even higher. This monastery is a symbol of hope. The presence of the Orthodox Church, even though it is a reminder of the early Church, the Church of the Fathers and the Great Councils, also invites us to look to the future, to the new Europe which is forming. If this Europe is to be faithful to its origins and retain its identity, it cannot be limited to only its Western states, traditionally Catholic or Protestant. Orthodoxy is an essential element of this Europe. This presence of Orthodoxy in France is seen as a return to the country’s Orthodox origins which were lost during its subsequent development. According to Erny, through contact with immigrant populations in France, the idea developed that it should be possible to renew with the ecclesial tradition before Catholicism and the ‘deepest orthodoxy’ of our country […]. Theoretical propositions and concrete practices often lead to nothing. But the idea that it is possible to find once more the older model of ecclesial life by taking inspiration from the experience of Eastern Churches, without depending on them but rather by giving new life to a native Orthodox tradition.” Author’s translation9

9 « l’idée a germé qu’il devait être possible de renouer avec la tradition ecclésiale anté-romaine et « l’Orthodoxie profonde » de nos pays […]. Propositions théoriques et essais concrets ont souvent tourné court. Mais l’idée en elle-même est devenue incontournable: celle qu’il est possible de retrouver l’ancien modèle de vie ecclésiale en s’inspirant certes de l’expérience des Eglises d’Orient, mais sans s’inféoder à elles et en redonnant vie à la tradition orthodoxe autochtone. » (Erny 1993: 467).

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The presence of the Orthodox Church in Western Europe is seen as a spiritual rebirth, inasmuch as it is understood as a return to the Orthodox origin of Western Europe before the schism. In this sense, the foundation of monasteries depending on Mount Athos is considered less as the establishment of a tradition from one specific place than the foundation of a ‘Western Orthodoxy’ according to an expression of Father Placide’s which take inspiration from the ‘Great Tradition of Mount Athos’. In other words, this Orthodoxy is seen as a local expression of a universal message, a Western way to practice the teaching of the church of the apostles. In this way, Orthodox Christianity in the West would give way to a particularly Western Orthodoxy which has a wider reach than only the immigrant populations. Owing to their prestigious lineage, the French dependences of Simonos Petra may provide a way to reconnect with the origins of monastic Christian life through the monasticism of Mount Athos. And yet monastic life in France is different to that of Mount Athos. First, and perhaps most significantly, the French monks of Simonos Petra did not grow up with the Orthodox Church but in the Catholic, Protestant or Jewish traditions, and sometimes without any religious belonging at all. They must learn certain values, practices and customs which make up ‘the tradition’ as understood in an Orthodox way of belief. In Greece, everyday life is deeply rooted in Orthodox Christianity. For example, Lent is widely practiced by the population in general and a number of restaurants and food stores offer special dishes for Lent. This short period of asceticism is seen as a preparation for the important festivals of the liturgical calendar, while in Western countries this practice has diminished both in parishes and also in some religious orders. The majority of monks on Mount Athos have grown up with the tradition of Lent, whereas French monks only learn the practice of Lent during their first year in the monastery. In this sense, they have to be ‘educated’ as Orthodox in addition to their training as monk. This implies a certain flexibility in the observance of the rules of ascetic practice for monks who did not grow up in an Orthodox environment. France is a resolutely secular nation, quite different to the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos, where the government is composed by representatives of the twenty monasteries and the constitutional charter is based on their typica,10 so the state is firmly rooted in the fundamental principles of monastic life. To lead a monastic way of life in France presupposes the need to adapt a certain number of customs of Mount Athos, at the very least in order to 10 A typicon (pl. typica, litt. “model”) is the rule of life in a monastery. There is also a liturgical typicon to organize services.

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conform to French law. For example, in French law it is strictly forbidden to exhume the dead, which is why French monasteries do not have ossuary as one finds on Mount Athos. Monks in France also make adjustments to their settlements, which are considered as mission stations. In their view, French Orthodox Monasteries have to give testimony to the Great Tradition of Eastern Christian Spirituality in Western Europe. As an example, the monastery SaintAnthony-the-Great organizes visits of its church, the interior of which is painted. For the monks, this is a way of using the frescos to speak to visitors about Christ and salvation. The visitors often know little about the actual meaning behind celebrations such as Easter, or indeed any aspect of monastic life. To promote understanding of Orthodox spirituality, the Saint-Antony-theGreat monastery publishes some translations of the writings of the Desert Fathers, biographies of celebrated elders and the teachings of Elder Placide. In addition, Elder Placide himself gives conferences on the Orthodox tradition and the spirituality of Mount Athos. French monks undertake an important work in translating services into French. French dependences also regularly receive Orthodox immigrants, and give services. Many Orthodox families go to the French monasteries to attend services, ask the advice of the elder, or for Sunday School for children. The monasteries have guest rooms for men or women, Orthodox or otherwise, who wish to carry out a retreat. This inclination to create what could almost be considered a parish naturally requires a certain flexibility in the monastic codes, unlike within the Mount Athos avaton. For instance, instead of using the Julian calendar as is the case on Mount Athos, French monks have adopted the Gregorian calendar in order to facilitate the participation of the faithful, with the exception of festivals linked to Easter. For the same reason, French monks do not keep Byzantine time like on Mount Athos, where the day begins at sunset and not at midnight. With the recent establishment of Orthodoxy in France, monastic communities are seen as the guarantors of a tradition which is ever-present in parish life. And yet French monasteries see Mount Athos more as a source of inspiration than a model to copy exactly. This establishment of Orthodox monasticism in France is not so much a reproduction of the Great Tradition of Mount Athos than a translation, within a specific context, of the ‘spirit of the tradition’.

What Does Tradition Mean in Orthodox Monasticism?

Tradition is usually considered as a continuity of the past in the present day. Speaking about tradition is a way to emphasize the influence of the past within the present, whereby what is traditional could appear as a survival, something

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which has persisted through time within a context of change. Tradition often appears as a transmission, something which is handed down through the centuries, and is above all something which is handed down from one generation to the next. For this reason, we can view tradition as a specific relationship, formed within a social context which enables the act of handing down. It is interesting to remember here that the word tradition, which comes from Latina traditio, does not designate the thing which is transmitted, such as customs or values, but the act of transmitting. In Orthodox monastic life, this context of handing down takes place within a spiritual kinship. Orthodox monastic life is built around the spiritual authority of the elder, who constitutes a figure of mediation. Himself part of a lineage, the elder is the depositary from the previous generation and the referent for the subsequent generation. Through his teaching – not only precepts or knowledge about monastic life, but the elder’s life as a whole – his disciples learn what monastic life truly is by living with him, by observing him as a monk. He embodies the memory of the experience of his own fathers. This is why he is considered by his disciples to be the living tradition. What is handed down is not only words, which can constitute an oral tradition, but monastic life learnt through observation and imitation in a relationship built on obedience. In this way, ties of kinship form a deeply personal way of understanding monastic life, founded on affection towards an elder. As in the case of monastic kinship the fathers are born from their sons, the tradition can be considered as a means, in the present, to discover one’s inheritance from the past. To speak about tradition is a way of speaking about how monks lived before, what they said about their own experience of God, and above all what its signification could be today. The aim of the tradition is to continue making sense as the generations come and go, through differing contexts of meaning, not to carry meaning at just one time but to carry meaning at this time. Handing down tradition presupposes that what is transmitted refers not only to the past but can fully express one’s present vocation. In this sense, tradition is not the reflection of the past in the present but a present way to view the past. This is why we can view tradition as a translation, as it speaks about the same thing in a different way. In Orthodox monasticism, it is the role of the elder to act as translator. In writing the rules of the Saint-Anthony-theGreat monastery, Father Placide says: This rule of life (typicon) is principally formed by texts from the whole of the monastic tradition and selected according to the spirit and the needs of our monastery; according to Saint Nicodemus Hagiorite, we take our inspiration from the Spiritual Tradition of Western Christianity, where

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we are destined to live, by being aware of the consonance between this texts and the Orthodox dogma. This rule is neither an exhaustive treatise nor a complete statute book of observance; but it defines precisely our way of life. Yet this monastic life is built within the frame of tradition, it is not considered as an exact reproduction of the past. There is selection in the whole of monastic experience, in an attempt to meet the necessity of making sense here and now. It is in this sense than the monks speak about a living tradition, not because it persists through time, but because they recognize in it a capacity to make sense within different contexts. Tradition becomes almost interpretation. It is not so much a question of inventing tradition (Hobsbawm, Ranger 1983) but rather making a selection from the whole of past experience while considering the relevance to the present day. Tradition can be considered, according to Pouillon (1975), as viewpoint onto the past. In Orthodox monastic life this selection is carried out by the elders. In tradition, the orthodoxy of the transmitted message is based on the authority of its mediators. In Orthodox monastic life, this position of authority is situated in a spiritual genealogy. The point of view of the elder is considered as the primary level to define good practice, i.e. the traditional, in order to lead his spiritual sons. The elder is the source of the authority of tradition. It is his role to define, from the framework of past monastic experience, the elements which the monks have to take on in order to form their inheritance. The elders appear as specialists of the tradition, able to discern, within the continuity, the transformations which retain the original message from those which deviate from it. This is why tradition appears as a faithful translation, even if it can actually innovate. It is certainly not repetition, insofar as the spirit of the tradition allows creative action. The translators are those who have acquired this spirit, from their long monastic experience, and are able to reproduce the same things in another way. Conclusion The example of the establishment of Simonos Petra dependencies in France led us to consider tradition as a way for French orthodox monks to reconnect, through filiation, with an original and universal message. Tradition seems to signify a certain perspective on the past, the meaning that can be found therein and then used to build a present monastic life. In this temporality of the tradition, the elder takes the position of a mediator: between Christ and monks,

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between ancestors and descendants. As a figure of paternity, recalling ‘our Father in Heaven’, he personifies the gift, of which he is also the agent. And the recognition of the gift is linked to the recognition of its mediators. This recognition leads to spiritual filiation, as opposed to real kinship. In the context of orthodox monastic life, tradition appears as a way to represent the original gift, in the sense of making it present today, by creating a transmission of the gift through the relationship between elder and disciples. In the end, what traditional element in all this is not so much what is handed down than the form of the transmission itself. Monastic communal living is first and foremost a way of being together which draws from representations of tradition which are then re-represented, beyond the local, creating a link that unites even past generations to form the ‘Church’. The tradition in monastic experience could be seen as a way to inscribe, by a specific context of transmission based on spiritual filiation, the actual experience of God in the frame of the experience of the past generations, in a game of mediation in which the modalities aim to re-represent those absent and what they have to say to those present. References Amand de Mendieta, Emmanuel.1955. Le Mont Athos, la presqu’île des caloyers. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Clément, Olivier. 1965. L’Eglise orthodoxe. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Commission Machelon, Les relations des cultes avec les pouvoirs publics [archive] in http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr [archive], 20th september 2006, viewed the 10th december 2012. Erny, Pierre. 1993. “Premier pas d’une orthodoxie d’Occident.” Pp. 463–71 in Ethnologie des faits religieux en Europe, edited by Nicole Belmont et Françoise Lautman. Paris: Editions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques. Hobsbawm Eric and Ranger, Terence. 1983. The invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Iossifides, Marina. 1991. “Sisters in Christ: metaphors of kinship among Greek nuns” Pp.135–155. in Contested Identities, Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, edited by Peter Loizos and Papataxiarchis Evthymios, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kokosalakis, Nikos. 1996. “Orthodoxie grecque, modernité et politique” Pp.131–151. in Identités religieuses en Europe, edited by Grace Davie and Danièle Hervieu-Léger. Paris: La Découverte. Kotsi, Filareti. 2003. La communication enchantée. Une anthropologie réflexive du tourisme religieux autour du Mont Athos (Grèce), Ph D thesis. Lyon: Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines.

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Lossky, Nicolas. 1998. “Orthodoxie moderne et contemporaine.” Pp. 837–41 in Dictionnaire critique de théologie, edited by Jean-Yves Lacoste. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Paléologue, André. 1997. Le Mont Athos, merveille du christianisme byzantin. Paris: Gallimard. Pouillon, Jean. 1975. Fétiches sans fétichisme. Paris: Maspero. Ware, Kallistos. 2002. L’orthodoxie. L’Eglise des sept conciles. Paris: Cerf. Willaime, Jean-Paul. 2003. “La religion: un lien social articulé au don.” Revue du mauss 22: 247–67.

chapter 9

Spiritual Direction in Orthodox Monasticism: The Elder Beyond Weber’s Theory of Charisma Maria Hämmerli Anyone doing research on Eastern Christianity understands very quickly that monasteries are places of utmost importance for Orthodox spirituality. On several occasions over the last five years, I have visited Orthodox men’s and women’s monasteries in France, Switzerland, Great Britain, the usa, Romania, and Greece. It appeared to me that the most striking aspect of the monastic life in all these places was the relationship of the nuns and monks to their spiritual director, who most often was also the abbot of the respective monastic community. This relationship consists of total obedience to the spiritual father (elder in English, geron in Greek, starets in Slavonic, duhovnic in Romanian) with regard to all aspects of material and spiritual life: monks and nuns do not undertake any action without his blessing. Moreover, the elder benefits from an uncommon reverence from his monks, who bow in front of him and kiss his hand every time they meet him, and from a special treatment in everyday life (he eats at a separate table, uses nicer silverware and dishes, has a better cell, finer clothes, and so on.). This distinction of the elder from the rest of the monastic community and the relation of obedience that binds the monks to him evokes to the social scientist’s sensitivity something similar to Weber’s theory on charismatic authority. This chapter will discuss the possibility of applying Weber’s theory in the case of Orthodox monastic tradition of obedience to an elder. I will proceed first to a brief account of actual aspects of monastic life and of spiritual direction that will provide a more concrete picture of the aim and means of Orthodox spiritual guidance. Second, I will attempt to apply Weber’s sociology of charisma to the Orthodox monastic tradition of obedience to an elder. Then, I will put into perspective Weber’s view on power relations in a religious setting with the authority the elder exercises in a monastery. Last, I will trace what Weber calls routinization of charisma in the case of the institution of eldership. I base my argument on various sources combining my own field observations over the time, the actors’ discourse (personal communications with monks, abbots, abbesses and elders),1 and embedded in the broader discourse 1 What I men by “personal communications” is long hours of unrecorded discussions with monks and nuns about the life circumstances that brought them to the monastic vocation,

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of monastic tradition on spiritual guidance (readings from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and from contemporary prominent elders, such as Abbot Aemilianos in Greece, Abbot Placide in France and Abbot Sophrony in the uk).

Actual Aspects of Monastic Life

I was in a women’s monastery in Greece when, one night I needed to use something in the kitchen. There I came across the abbess of the monastery, the most revered Gerontissa (abbess in Greek), scrubbing the stove and sweeping the floor. She was doing this instead of the sisters in charge of the cleaning of the kitchen who, for specific reasons, had not been able to carry on their duties. The next day I asked her how come a highly educated and refined woman like herself had given up her career and scrubbed stoves in the middle of the night in the remote countryside of Greece. She answered: “The aim of our life, as nun, is to stop sinning. A sinless life can be achieved also through scrubbing the stove.” Abbot Aemilianos said that in monasticism “visible man lives in order to possess invisible God/Man” (Aemilianos, 1999: 123). This confirms the general statement that the purpose of monastic life is theosis (deification), which does not amount to becoming a god, but to restoring God’s image in the human being. According to Orthodox spiritual writings, this should be the purpose of any human being, be it a lay person (single or married) or a monk. This aspiration corresponds to what Weber calls the religious virtuosity, or a kind of spiritual aristocracy devoted to the pursuit of perfection and salvation within a given religious tradition. In order to reach it, monks and nuns choose to live apart from the world, in simplicity, prayer and obedience to an experienced virtuoso. Their ascesis is only a means to achieve theosis, not an aim in itself. Inheritors of the first monks of the Egyptian desert in 4th century, today’s monks do not flee the world for a geographical desert; they rather create it within: they are cut from the world, having no television, radio, newspapers, computers or internet and no entertainment.2 They have limited interaction their choice of the monastery they lived in, their relationship with their elder, abbot or abbess, etc. 2 Actually, there is not one single approach to this topic in Orthodox monasticism. Each monastery makes use of media and new technologies to a different extent, depending on the abbot’s or elder’s spiritual school, and in some places these are completely missing (definitely at Mount Athos and its dependencies in Europe), because they are perceived as a way of keeping in touch with the world from which monks intend to distance themselves. In other places, however, there is a moderate consumption of information technology: mobile phones and personal computers are allowed, and elders keep electronic correspondence with their

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with family, pilgrims and visitors. This does not stem from an alleged hatred or disdain for the world, but rather from a need to take a distance to what is sinful in the world, as a result of the fall,3 and cultivate virtue. Monks speak of “renunciation to the world,” which is symbolized by their black clothes, a sign of being “dead to the world.” Renunciation refers to external aspects of life (comfort, food, time, possessions, etc.), but also to the inner life (monks take vows of obedience and “cutting self-will”). Though monasteries have certain comfort for pilgrims and guests, the monks’ cells are much smaller, simply furnished and not always well insulated, letting the summer heat or the winter cold in. It is not rare also that monks share cells, lacking basic privacy. Life in a monastery is highly regulated, in line with prayer, church services and the daily community work. There is little time for personal reading or interests, let alone resting. Monks have virtually no possessions: even when they receive a present (chocolates, fruit, icons, books, etc.), they first present it to the elder and they keep it “only if it is blessed.” Yet the hardest form of renunciation to achieve is reportedly that which consists in cutting one’s own will, desires and wishes. This line of reasoning stands out against a basic principle of “the world” (this is how monks designate society and the secular realm), which consists in emphasizing, expanding and asserting the self and one’s will, desires and wishes. Monks unlearn this way of functioning and seek self-effacement in favor of their neighbor or for the sake of the community, but most important, they exercise the “cutting of the will” through obedience to their elder.

The Institution of Eldership

From its beginnings, monasticism was intimately connected with the belief that one cannot reach spiritual perfection by oneself, but needs guidance from spiritual children outside the monastery. I have never seen televisions or newspapers in Orthodox monasteries because media consumption is described as compatible with a life of prayer. 3 Unlike Augustinian theology, Orthodox theology does not present original sin as an ethical transgression, but rather as a disease that needs therapy. Adam and Eve’s personal sin is not everyone’s personal sin; humanity does not inherit the guilt for Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience to God, but rather its consequences. The human race therefore needs healing from its sinful condition and not expiation of the “original sin,” which the Orthodox theology prefers to call “ancestral sin.” The fallen human condition is mortal, distant from God and predisposed to passions. Through repentance, vigilance and a virtuous life, man can restore his original nature and reach again communion with God (theosis).

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an experienced person, who has walked that path and knows its pitfalls and difficulties. The one who survived the desert, inwardly and/or outwardly, “can speak with confidence and compassion, authority and charity” (Chryssavgis 2003: 64). It is by virtue of such spiritual experience that one was called an elder and not by virtue of one’s biological age. It is noteworthy that an elder was never self-proclaimed or appointed by an institutional authority, but became one because others spontaneously turned into his disciples. Thus eldership is not the product of Church as an institution, but of Church as “event or happening” (Ware 2000: 129). As monasticism grew in the Church, the institution of spiritual direction took root and developed. Special concern was given to the reproduction and faithful transmission of the teachings and experience of the first “desert fathers,” from one generation of spiritual fathers to another. This heritage did not remain exclusively an oral tradition, because very early the teachings were compiled in a collection of short parable-like accounts, known as “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers” (Apophtagmata Patrum). These “sayings” stage original situations and dialogues which reveal an elder’s wisdom on a precise spiritual issue. To this day they constitute a highly respected source of spiritual inspiration, which spiritual fathers invoke in support of their teachings. The figure of the elder, so prominent in the first generations of monasticism, “has retained its full significance to the present day in Orthodox Christendom” (Ware 2000: 128). Monastic commitment strongly maintains the idea of spiritual apprenticeship, which Laurent Denizeau in his doctoral thesis (2007) on a contemporary Orthodox monastery in France calls compagnonnage spirituel. People who embrace monasticism are not drawn to a certain type of institution or lifestyle, but rather to particular individuals “in whom they sensed the presence of God” (Maximos, 2007: 17). Elder Aemilianos defines monastic life as life lived with a particular person. It is not the acceptance of an ideology, or the gratification of certain longings; neither is it the application of principles found in a book. Monastic life means: I follow someone. And thus at the centre of monastic life is a particular person, and that person is the elder. maximos, 2007: 17

Most of my personal communications with monks and nuns that contain narratives about their entering monasticism confirm this. The encounter with the elder and the spiritual bond that grew between them triggered their interest in monastic life. Though coming from very different social, educational and

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ethnic backgrounds, and many of them converts to Orthodoxy, the monastics’ discourses converge on the idea that they followed their elder in a relation of obedience because they considered him a bearer of the Holy Spirit, capable of showing them God’s will. The importance of the relationship between monks and their spiritual father is visible also in the Rule (typikon) of each monastery, which contains sections that give guidelines about responsibilities of the elder toward the community which obeys him. The purpose of these guidelines, inspired from ancient monastic rules or from the “Sayings of the Desert Fathers,” is not to regulate a spiritual relationship, but to settle its basic principles: the elder is reminded about his high responsibility in front of God for the spiritual progress of the souls entrusted to him, that he needs to act like a true father always putting the interest of his community beyond his own person, or that he has to always be a model of humility and love to his flock, to act with discernment and self-sacrificial love. The elder thus is a charismatic figure around which the monastic life converges. In the following discussion, I will attempt to examine the elder’s charisma using Weber’s concept of charisma and charismatic authority exercised in a religious setting.

The Elder in the Context of Weber’s Sociology of Charisma

Weber’s sociology of charisma draws on the Christian notion described by the Apostle Paul in his letters to the early churches of Rome and Corinth as the “gift of the Holy Spirit.” Paul underlines the diversity of gifts (charismata): “the spiritual gifts we have differ, according to the special grace which has been assigned to each” (Rom 12:6) and “there are different kinds of gifts, though it is the same Spirit who gives them, just as there are different kinds of service, though it is the same Lord we serve…” (I Cor 12:4–6). Another feature of the Pauline charismata is that, despite their common essence and origin (the Holy Spirit), there is a hierarchy among them in the Church: “God has given us different positions in the church; apostles first, then prophets, and thirdly teachers; then come miraculous powers, then gifts of healing, works of mercy, the management of affairs, speaking with different tongues, and interpreting prophecy” (I Cor 12:28). This hierarchy appears as the natural result of diversity, and it corresponds to functionalities needed in the Church. All members of the Church are not equal in abstracto, as in the French declaration of 1789 (Ouedraogo 1993), but they are all equally necessary to the ecclesial community:

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Thus God has established a harmony in the body, giving special honour to that which needed it most. There was to be no want of unity in the body; all the different parts of it were to make each other’s welfare their common care. If one part is suffering, all the rest suffer with it; if one part is treated with honour, all the rest find pleasure in it. And you are Christ’s body, organs of it depending upon each other. i cor 12:24–27

We can notice that his concept of charisma as divine grace at work in a relational context brings about the notion of obedience and the idea of a given configuration and order in the Church and in the world. Weber introduced two major changes when borrowing charisma from Christian theology: first, there is a shift from the idea of divinely conferred grace to the idea of personal charisma conferring social status. Second, Weber interprets the hierarchy of the gifts implying hierarchy among the church members and obedience in this “chain” of hierarchy as a structure of domination (“Herrschaft”): The term charisma will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader…What is alone important is how the individual is actually regarded by those subject to charismatic authority, by his ‘followers’ or ‘disciples’. 1964: 358–359

The elder is a charismatic figure, to the extent that he is an individual distinguished by his exceptional qualities and recognized as such by a group of people. A chief difference with Weber’s notion of charisma is that the elder does not assert these qualities, and he does not claim authority on the account of being loving, capable of discernment, and so on. It is the others who recognize these qualities and spontaneously follow him. There is a bottom-to-top movement that provokes the salience of the charisma and not the other way around. Before proceeding to an overview of the “exceptional qualities” of the elder, it needs to be recognized that spiritual guidance in the Orthodox spiritual ­tradition is not subject to a schedule with quantifiable objectives to achieve or  a pre-defined methodology. It does not imply organized verbal teaching, but rather silent teaching by personal example. The elder guides others, not

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necessarily by words of advice, “but by his companionship, by the living and specific example which he sets. He teaches as much by his stillness as by his speech” (Ware 2000: 133). Thus, the first and more global quality of the elder is his own life and excellence in ascetic exercise and prayer, which are a condition for all the other qualities, which are added to the elder’s charisma as “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Irénée Hausherr (1955) provides a very detailed analysis of the attributes of a spiritual father, classifying them in two categories: intellectual qualities (diakrisis, diorasis, theognose) and moral qualities (love, patience, understanding, a balanced combination of kindness and firmness with the others’ “passions” and “sins”). The intellectual qualities do not refer to secular academic erudition. Indeed, some of the most famous elders were illiterate or had hardly ever received schooling or education. They became historical spiritual figures because they are supposed to have acquired empirical knowledge of the “passions” which “corrupt” the human nature and of the methods to transcend the human condition, with its cultural and biological determinisms. Diakrisis, the Greek word for discernment, is the ability to see the reality “as God created it,” which common people cannot perceive because they are “blinded by sin.” They are “prisoners” of their fallen condition. Disciples believe the elder can distinguish between good and evil, between the sources that inspire one’s actions, whether they come from the divine realm or from “the enemy.” This ability is described as a God-given spiritual faculty following personal purification. Connected and following from diakrisis is the diorasis, the “gift of perspicacity,” the ability to perceive intuitively “the secrets of another’s heart,” to understand the hidden depths of which the other does not speak and is usually unaware. “It is not a happy knack of hitting the nail on the head, nor yet a kind of extrasensory perception or clairvoyance, but it is the fruit of grace, presupposing concentrated prayer and an unremitting ascetic struggle” (Ware, 2000: 135). Though ascetics limit verbal communication and are rather thrifty in distributing their advice, speech remains an important means of conveying “the will of God” for the monk or the person soliciting the elder. The ability to “give a word” is what makes the diakrisis and diorasis meaningful, as it is through verbal communication with the supplicant that the latter can access particular teachings of the elder. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers insist on the fact that speech is pernicious and needs to be controlled. Silence appears as “a preventive and cathartic measure for the attainment of inner peace…It signifies divine presence and the human communion with the deity in an unmediated and direct fashion” (Antonova in Soumakis 2011: 46). When people come to an

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elder they ask for “a word of salvation,” meaning directions for life conduct. The plural “words” is understood as human discourse and has a negative connotation. The elder’s speech is therefore necessarily divinely inspired and as such it has high authority. The chief moral quality Hausherr attributes to the elder is the ability to love others and to make their sufferings his own. This is very close to the literal meaning of compassion – suffer together. Offering advice is not what makes the specificity of a spiritual father; additionally, he has to discern when to speak or when to stay silent and what words to use in order to get the best effect in the spiritual disciple. Spiritual guidance is not performed with distance by the elder, behind a self-protective barrier, as in the practice of psychotherapy. On the contrary, it is about total personal involvement. “It is his task to assume their sorrows and their sins, to take their guilt upon himself and to answer for them at the Last Judgement” (Ware, 2000: 138). St Barsanuphius of Gaza presents the elder as the burden-bearer par excellence: As God Himself knows there is not a second or an hour when I do not have you in my mind and in my prayers…I take upon myself the sentence of condemnation against you, and by the grace of Christ, I will not abandon you, either in this age or in the Age to come. in ware 2000: 139

The elder is a so-journer, not a tourist-guide. He takes the same path as the disciple, he endures and shares the sufferings and joys of the disciple; yet, because he has already trained himself for this journey and has accomplished it, he has authority and responsibility. Another moral quality of the spiritual father is patience, necessary in order to listen to the same people and their repeated narratives of sin, without interrupting and with high focus. The perfect spiritual guide is supposed to be gentle and kind to his spiritual children’s passions and limitations, not judging them, yet remain firm in exhorting them to keep fighting against their weaknesses. These qualities are the result of “synergetic work between God and the elder.” Having walked the way from “life in the flesh” to “life in the spirit” through prolonged ascesis and intense prayer, the elder receives God’s grace and the charisma of spiritual guidance. It is when people notice these qualities in an ascetic that the charisma becomes manifest to the elder himself. Unlike Weber’s description of charisma, the elder is not the one who is looking for followers, but they look for him. It is not the charismatic figure who advertises for “exceptional qualities,” but it is those who perceive them who publicise them and expand the circle of disciples.

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The charisma of the elder differs very much from Weber’s approach on this point. Weber’s charisma is a revolutionary force: “From a substantive point of view, every charismatic authority would have to subscribe to the proposition, ‘It is written…, but I say unto you…’” Unlike traditional authority, “bound to the precedents handed down from the past,” charismatic authority repudiates the past and is “a specifically revolutionary force” (Weber 1964: 361–362). The elder’s qualities are not acquired by himself, but the Orthodox spirituality assesses the necessity of a guide. Therefore, the elder himself was “shaped” by his own elder, who in his turn had followed a spiritual father, in a generational sequence. Eldership is a matter of transmission of teachings and ascetic experience from elder to disciples, among whom some may become elders in their turn. When elders are invited to give conferences to a group of people in search for “a word,” they refrain from presenting a new, revolutionary content, but rather quote the “Fathers,” their predecessors. It is because they situate themselves in a spiritual genealogy that their word has authority in the ­audience. When asked more personal questions, the elders would answer by  invoking the Desert Fathers or other saints or they speak in the plural “we” instead of “I,” because it is not their personal wisdom that they wish to express, but that of the Church and of all the generations of ascetics that precede them. Denizeau’s research (2012) confirms that the word of the elder is embedded in Tradition, and this is what confers it authority and reliability. One person may be wrong or may have distorted opinions, but by invoking Tradition and the writings of other spiritual figures, by interpreting them and adapting them to a specific context, the elder appears as the conveyor of Tradition, putting his own personality in the shadow. Weber opposes charismatic authority to traditional authority. The elder combines the two: Tradition is a “guarantee” of the authenticity of charisma. Just as the Orthodox Church speaks about apostolic succession as a condition for the sacraments to be valid, “spiritual succession” (Chryssavgis 2003) appears as a necessity for the elder’s teachings and example to be in line with Tradition (and therefore Orthodox). Weber speaks of charisma-bearers being in competition with each other: When such an authority comes into conflict with the competing authority of another who also claims charismatic sanctions, the only recourse is to some kind of a contest…In principle, only one side can be in the right side in such a conflict; the other must be guilty of a wrong which has to be expiated. 1964: 361

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Unlike the Weberian understanding of charisma, the elder’s charisma is ever more credible and legitimate as he receives recognition from peers and from his own elders. Though there may be different approaches to certain spiritual issues or different spiritual “schools,” this does not develop into a competition. Rather, it is a matter of awareness about the diversity of spiritual ways, which echoes the diversity of human character and personality.

Charismatic Authority in Weber vs. Obedience in Orthodox Monasticism

Weber’s concept of authority involves domination (Herrschaft). It means an imperative coordination, which consists in the fact that one emits orders or commands that are obeyed out of different considerations: habits, rational ­calculation, loving ties, and ideal motives. Obedience to authority is goal-­ oriented and instrumental. When there is no identification between the person accomplishing the order and the content of the order, Weber speaks of submission and when such identification exists, then obedience is sympathetic agreement. One specific characteristic of authority is that it establishes and cultivates belief in its legitimacy. In a religious organization, the authority enforces its order through psychic coercion by distributing or denying religious benefits. It has indeed been the case in history that religious authorities have abused their position in a game of power. It has also been the case in the Orthodox Church that the institution of spiritual direction was a venue for some power-thirsty people to dominate and subjugate their followers. Schmemann (2000), Hausherr (1955, 1966), Ware (2000) and many other scholars have drawn attention to distortions and delusions, past and potential. Yet, none of the authors reduced spiritual direction to its deviations, but rather focused on its successful performance, which is that which kept it alive and fully significant to the present day. Torrance (2011: 60) shows that the Orthodox tradition “has attempted to promote and protect the Christian integrity of the ministry of the spiritual father (and the spiritual mother)…through the tactics of the director’s self-abasement, humility and love.” The self-proclaimed elder, striving to keep and multiply his disciples by cultivating the legitimacy of his charisma and thereby dominating his followers, as Weber describes religious authority, is actually indicated as a deviation from the essence of spiritual guiding. Self-effacement and, more than that, self-abasement, are safety measures preventing the elder from imposing himself or his authority on his spiritual disciples and allowing the

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disciples to detect a devious behavior in the spiritual guidance they receive. Weber’s idea that religious authority is exercised and guaranteed by psychic coercion was regarded by both elders and monks I talked to as demonic: “domination is the work of the devil,” “a geronta is like water from the tap: the spiritual child opens it and drinks as much as he is thirsty. Or like a ­candle, which he takes and walks with it in the dark. So where is the domination here?,” “psychic coercion has not led anyone anywhere, except to perdition.” Potential risks of domination inherent in the spiritual direction of the Orthodox Church arise in the practice of disclosure of thoughts, in confession and in the relation of obedience, which is the norm between elder and spiritual child. Why does the monk or spiritual disciple need to confess and disclose his thoughts and hidden intentions before the spiritual father? Confession and the manifestation of thoughts are two different instances which can be performed by two different ministers; while the spiritual father is not necessarily a priest nor holds any specific administrative or monastic position, it is only a priest that can grant absolution after the confession of sins, as this is considered a sacrament in the Orthodox Church. Moreover, not any priest can be a confessor simply by virtue of his ordination to the priesthood. It is when the bishop considers him mature enough for this particular ministry that a priest can be given the permission to become a father confessor. This is a safeguard measure taken by the church hierarchy in order to prevent abuses or serious mistakes. Monitoring the thoughts is a special practice, consisting in laying before the spiritual father all intentions and initiatives, all movements of one’s heart and inner impulses, like a self X-Ray of one’s mental activity. In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, thoughts (logismoï) appear as a highly important area of which one needs to be in control, because they are described as the first access gate temptation has to the soul. If the ground is permissive, then temptation can advance and materialize into words or deeds, thence turning into sin. Hausherr (1955) summarized the ascetic literature about the disclosure of thoughts, identifying several stages of temptation: the prosbolé, an external suggestion inciting to sin, which remains innocent, followed by the syndyasmos, or the inner discussion with the first suggestion; then the palé, the struggle with the first suggestion or thought, which can end either with the victory of the ascetic against it or with his consent to the suggestion presented by the logismoi and therefore with sin. The purpose of the practice of disclosure of thoughts is to help the spiritual disciple to start reacting against the logismoi at the stage of prosbolé – namely to identify temptation and develop inner vigilance (nepsis) in order to keep one away from sin.

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In other words, confession is about sin as performance, whereas the disclosure of thoughts is about sin as project. These practices acquire meaning if taken in the scope of what spiritual guidance aims toward, namely helping the student to elevate beyond his or her sinful condition. Yet this is a very sensitive point, which can give rise to abuse and power over the souls, as it gives one direct access to another’s conscience and intimate inner life. Already the first generations of spiritual fathers were aware of this danger, therefore they warned the spiritual seekers about means of discriminating between the good or fake elder: the authentic spiritual guide would never judge the disciple, would never rebuke him when hearing his confession and his thoughts, but treat him with economia,4 compassion and assume his sin before God. The elder is not supposed to ask questions nor elicit confession, he should remain free from partiality of judgement and always listen only to what the disciple is prepared to disclose. In this way mutual confidence is built, resulting into a strong spiritual bond (Hausherr 1955: 150). If the elder is supposed to be so humble and self-effaced, then why is monasticism so much about obedience to an elder? Weber’s answer is that the very recognition of the charisma entails a duty from the disciple to obey charismatic authority. Orthodox monastic obedience is a duty in the sense that monks make vows of obedience to their elder and abbot in the tonsure service.5 Yet this is not the main incentive for obedience, which is given in a relation of spiritual guidance that precedes formal entrance into monasticism. Obedience gives the monk the necessary framework (in terms of life organization, time and inner disposition) for prayer and contemplation: being free from decision-making, from everyday concerns and “earthly cares,” the mind can devote itself entirely to spiritual matters. Obedience, as I will show in the following, is directed to the benefit of the obedient, of the monk, of the spiritual disciple, and not to the material or symbolical benefit of the one who is obeyed – the elder, the spiritual father or spiritual director. “Spiritual direction is not the gift of a response that solves a problem, but the gift of a path that leads the disciple to be saved – to be healed and made whole.” (Chryssavgis, 2003: 68) 4 Economia is a way of relating to the canons or religious rules, which means discretionary deviation from the letter of the law, while keeping its spirit. It translates God’s merciful attitude towards humanity. By contrast, akrivia is strict application of canon law. 5 Tonsure means literally cutting of hair, which is a ritual the Orthodox Church performs for three sacraments: baptism, entrance to monasticism, and ordination to the priesthood. It symbolizes an offering of one’s self to God. Monastic tonsure represents the rite of entrance to the monastic state.

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Three actors are involved in the act of obedience: the disciple, the elder and God. Both the student and the spiritual guide obey God, but the student, in order to train for obedience to God, obeys to the elder. The elder is an intermediary and an intercessor. He is only the de facto recipient of obedience. At a more symbolic level, both elder and disciple have to move beyond their “self” and focus their existential concern on the “other.” Obedience to an elder is not an aim in itself. It is just training the disciple to learn how to obey God: if one is prepared to obey another human being, one is training the spiritual ability to obey God. Elder Aemilianos supports this: “Because of our weakness, we need a fellow-man, visible and similar in appearance to ourselves, who will stand instead of God” (1999:123). Elder Sophrony also makes the connection between obedience to man and obedience to God in his spiritual writings: “If we do not practice obedience in relation to our brother, how can we…learn to humble ourselves before God and be obedient in fulfilling his great, eternal and divine will?” (in Sakharov 2002: 221). Elder Placide takes this argument further and states that obedience should not be just the standard attitude of the monk in relation to his elder, but also in relation to those who have no authority on him; this is because obedience is a means of overcoming self-centredness and of reaching out to one’s neighbour.6 There are two kinds of obedience: an administrative one, which consists in the tasks the elder-abbot assigns to each monk as community work, according to the needs of the monastery (which is a self-run community) and to each monk’s skills, physical and spiritual condition: washing dishes, cooking, receiving guests, doing accountancy and administrative jobs, writing, etc. And there is the spiritual obedience, which in a sense covers also the administrative one, as spiritual issues can arise while accomplishing one’s duties. Obedience consists in asking for the elder’s blessing in all details of life: “ask for every move in your cell, for every time you want to drink a drop of water” we read in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Elder Sophrony explains this is needed because “in the monastic life there are no trivial issues, everything is important” (in Sakharov, 2002: 209). Every life situation is the setting of two opposing logics: it is either an occasion of salvation or a source of perdition. By asking for the elder’s blessing, the monk deprives himself of his own judgement and personal will and entrusts the decision to the elder. This is motivated by the belief that one’s will is corrupted by sin or blinded by passions. Unless purified, the personal will hampers God’s will to inhabit the monk, because it is “damaged by the fall and as such does not allow its restoration with its own 6 Placide Déseille. http://users.uoa.gr/~nektar/orthodoxy/history/placide_desaille_egypte _monastique.httm.

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resources” (Sakharov 2002: 210). The spiritual student is called to replace the worldly habitus, made of passion-driven impulses and actions, with a divine habitus, consisting of virtue-based behaviour and thinking. This process implies a stage of “free denial of one’s own will in order to acquire and follow God’s will” (Sakharov 2002: 221). Though obedience presupposes a negative act – abdication from self-will, it is directed to something positive: acquiring a superior will, the divine one. This does not entail the suppression of personal freedom. Elder Sophrony used to state that “obedience does not contradict freedom, but leads to it” (in Sakharov 2002: 221) because it purifies one’s actions of the subtle determinism of one’s hidden desires and impulses. In a long conversation about obedience, an elder told me that “the quality of obedience comes from freedom…It is like spiritual dancing, a harmony of two wills.” Spiritual direction and discipleship is synergy of two wills and freedoms. It is to the extent that the monk/spiritual student effaces his own will that he makes room for a different will, the superior, divine one, to replace his own, corrupted will. It is to the extent that obedience is done in freedom, that it does not become submission or does not engender feelings of high frustration, and it is to the extent that the elder does not force the student’s will that the latter does not feel dominated or subjugated. The elder may sometimes wish the student to make quicker progress, but if the student is not ready, he will have to refrain from interfering. The elder needs to practice also detachment from his own will to influence the decision of the student. Elder Aemilianos underlies this synergy of the two wills: “spiritual fatherhood is a harmonious cooperation between the monk and the Elder, and is aimed at training in freedom and the cultivation of the personality. This discipleship does not degenerate into a cult of personality, but becomes God-bearing in humility and manliness” (Aemilianos 1999: 124). Torrance (2011: 65) argues that in order for the spiritual director to deflect any sense of personal authority and power over the others, it is important that the elder has been in obedience himself: “those who, after being subject to a spiritual father, were then appointed by him to take charge of the brethren, carried out their task as if they were themselves still under obedience, keeping the traditions of their own spiritual fathers.” The continuation of another’s work or style of direction is interpreted also as an attempt to decrease the spiritual father’s ego and safeguard the ministry. In light of these observations, obedience does not appear as compliance to an order, as with Weber: it is neither submission if one does not have a stand on the content of the order, nor empathically in agreement when one adheres to the content of the order. It is rather replacing one’s own will with the will of  another, making the “order” one’s own desire and aiming at acquiring a

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superior, other-worldly will. With Weber, obedience to charismatic authority remains on a horizontal axis, though it translates into domination by the charisma-bearer unto all those who recognize the charisma and follow it. In Orthodox monasticism, obedience to an elder contains also a vertical dimension and brings into the picture a third actor, God/Christ, the one to whom obedience is actually given, both by the monk and the elder. Moreover, the elder has an elder himself, hence obeys someone else. Obedience is expected from everyone, and therefore it appears as “the great leveller, the ultimate equalizer or the common denominator…It serves not so much to establish a hierarchical structure, but rather to unite the community” (Chryssavgis, 2003: 65). While with Weber an act of obedience ends as soon as an order is carried out, monastic obedience has further outreach and transcends the act itself. Another point of difference from Weber’s charismatic authority refers to the result of obedience: in Orthodox monasticism obedience does not lead to domination or power relations, but monks speak of filiations: by continually embracing the will of the elder, the spiritual student becomes a spiritual son. It is because he wanted to be a son of the elder that he made the elder a spiritual father. Is a reverse filiation, in which the sons choose their fathers: “the monk describes himself as begotten by a genitor he has chosen himself”7 (Denizeau 2010:122). Willaime (2003: 265), quoting philosopher Jean-Luc Marion, points out a direct connection between filiation and freedom: one becomes free and truly autonomous only when one becomes aware about being conceived by others: It is by being acknowledged as and by acknowledging oneself as ‘son or daughter of’ that one can have access to the gift and hence to freedom. Human beings can perfect their freedom and achieve their autonomy by acknowledging that they are first given, begotten, conceived by others. Since this awareness implies the impossibility to be one’s own genitor, religion could consist in embedding one’s freedom into filiation.8 Monks describe themselves as engendered in the spirit by their elder; the latter gives them their spiritual life, just like their biological parents gave them 7 “Le moine se conçoit comme un individu engendré qui présente l’originalité de déterminer lui-même celui par qui il est engender.” 8 “C’est en étant reconnu et en se reconnaissant comme ‘fils ou fille de’ que l’on accède au don et donc à la liberté. Les hommes accompliraient leur liberté, réaliseraient leur autonomie en reconnaissant qu’ils sont d’abord donnés, engendrés, conçus par d’autres. Cette reconnaissance impliquant l’impossibilité d’être entièrement son propre créateur, la religion pourrait correspondre à cette posture qui consiste à inscrire sa liberté dans la filiation.”

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physical existence. Whereas one cannot choose one’s biological parents, one is free to choose by whom to be engendered spiritually and therefore the one who holds more responsibility for the quality of one’s spiritual family than for the biological one (there is no conflict with or replacement of the biological family however).

Routinization of Charisma

If charisma and relations between a charismatic leader and his followers, according to Weber, “are not to remain a purely transitory phenomenon, but to take on the character of a permanent relationship forming a stable community of disciples” (Weber 1968: 44), it is necessary for the charismatic authority to become either traditionalized or rationalized. I have indicated in the previous sections that in the case of the elder, charismatic authority was blended with and anchored in traditional authority. This reference to tradition ensures not only more legitimacy for the elder, but also the perpetuation of the institution of spiritual direction, the transmission of spiritual know-how from one generation of elders to another. Keeping eldership in the limits of an inherited tradition is also a safety measure preventing spiritual directors from cultivating self-assertion (since they are not speaking their own original wisdom, but rather the teachings of the Fathers). The rationalization of charisma does happen also in the case of Orthodox monasticism, as monastic life is strongly connected with the practice of an ascetic rule, which facilitates the organization of the community. The rule sets conduct in the monastery, so that the monks can acquire the “good habits,” the proper attitudes in the struggle with passions and compatible with their prayer life. Each monastery has a rule (typikon), which may contain suggestions about fasting, keeping silence in the monastery, the usage of common goods, managing frictions in the brotherhood, and so on. This does not signify a norm, but more or less a compilation of codified recommendations from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers or from first coenobitic rules (St. Benedict’s, St. Basil’s, etc.). Denizeau’s study of monastic rules concludes that it is not so much about rule-as-law (règle-loi), but rather rule-as-custom (règle-coutume) or rule-asinstructions (règle-mode d’emploi). The typikon is not a mere system of codified observances, it is also meant as a spiritual support for the monks because it provides an outline of monastic principles based on others’ experience (therefore on tradition). Yet the role of the typikon is secondary compared to the place the elder takes in the organization of monastic life and in spiritual direction. It is just a

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framework, which can be subject to exceptions, granted by the elder out of economia in situations where the strict application of the typikon (akrivia) would exceed the human reality of the monastery. Conclusion This paper has shown that Weber’s sociology of charisma explains only partly the relationship of obedience to an elder in Orthodox monasticism: while it accounts for the fact that the elder’s charisma derives from the disciples’ recognition of his exceptional qualities, understood as divine gifts, Weber’s notion of charisma as a revolutionary force breaking up with the past fails to explain the way the elder establishes his authority, consisting precisely in continuing the work of his predecessors, in a spiritual succession. The elder’s charisma does not have its source in personal attractiveness and originality, which presupposes self-assertion, but in a faithful understanding and perpetuation of the Fathers and of Tradition, which presupposes self-effacement. Weber’s theory also fails to capture the nature of obedience in spiritual direction by reducing it to power relations. Religious authority as psychic coercion, as described by Weber, appears as the negation and ruin of eldership, rather than its content and operative modality. On the one hand, monastic obedience gives rise to hierarchical relations between monks and the abbotelder of the monastery, but on the other hand it puts everyone on the same footing, as both elders and monks observe obedience to someone else and all of them to a third party, God or Christ. Here we have another crucial difference with Weber, for whom obedience is a top-down relation between a charismabearer and his followers, generating a hierarchy of domination. In Orthodox monasticism the third actor involved in the relation of obedience, though invisible, transforms completely the nature of authority and spiritual direction: the elder is not the final recipient of obedience, and the relationship between elder and disciple appears as emulation of obedience to God. Obedience is not required to the benefit of the elder, in order to strengthen his power position in the community. Though this may be an incidental outcome, obedience is supposed to benefit the disciple, as it provides the necessary framework to allow a prayer life free from this-worldly cares and from the responsibility of decision-making. Weber’s charismatic authority is very much connected to someone giving orders and someone else accomplishing them, with more or less personal conviction and belief in the content of the order. The act of obedience in Ortho­ dox  monasticism implies a different attitude toward the order/advice/word

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received from the elder: the monk is supposed to make it his own will and desire and not take a stand on its content. Or he can simply reject it, which also happens in practice, when the elder’s word remains something external because the monk fails to integrate it into his own will. Weber puts religious charisma on the same level with political, royal or military charisma, overshadowing the specificities of these forms of authority and failing to differentiate them. We can question the appropriateness of equalling an order in a military setting with a political party leader’s directives and with the spiritual advice given by a spiritual guide. Though one may find some parallels or shared points, these forms of authority have more dissimilarities than commonalities. Christian obedience, monastic obedience, has nothing at all to do with institutional or military discipline. To paraphrase Archimandrite Zacharias, those kinds of discipline are impersonal and structural, having to do with the continuity of an organization, enforced by compulsion. A religious organization differs from any other form of human organization in that it claims that what structures and motivates it is a transcendental force, something other-worldly (Willaime 2003: 226). Weber might have based his theory of charisma and religious authority (in relation to monasticism) on a certain trend in Medieval Catholicism, or rather on its deviances, which he dealt with as if they were the norm. Hence the need to take Weber cautiously and balance his theory against monastic texts that have shaped the Orthodox experience of obedience to an elder, and also with the monastics’ discourse and narratives. References Aemilianos, Elder. 1999. “Monastic Life: the house of God and the gate of Heaven.” Pp. 107–130 in Spiritual Instruction and Discourses: The Authentic Seal, edited by H. Ormylia: Ormylia Publishing. Antonova, Stamenka. 2011. “Literacy, Orality, and the Brokerage of Power and Authority in Late Antique Egyptian Christianity.” Pp. 33–59 in Power and Authority in Eastern Christian Experience, edited by F.K. Soumakis. New York: Theotokos Press. Chryssavgis, John. 2003. In the Heart of the Desert: the spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Bloomington (Indiana): World Wisdom. Denizeau, Laurent. 2007. Le reste et la promesse. Etude ethnographique d’une tradition monastique orthodoxe en France. Unpublished PhD thesis, Université Lumières Lyon II. Denizeau, Laurent. 2010. Petite ethngraphie d’une tradition monastique. A propos de la foi et de la pratique religieuse. Paris: Téraèdre.

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Denizeau, Laurent. 2012. “Abba, donne-nous une parole. La tradition à la lumière de la filiation spirituelle dans le monachisme orthodoxe.” Pp. 103–120 in Maître et disciple. La transmission dans les religions, edited by M. Younès. Lyon: Profac. Hausherr, Irénée. 1955. “Direction spirituelle en Orient autrefois.” Orientalia Christiana Analecta 144–145. Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium. Hausherr, Iréenée. 1966. L’Obéissance religieuse. Toulouse: Editions Prière et Vie. Maximos, Monk of Simonopetra. 2007. “Charisma and Institution at an Athonite Cloister: Historical Developments and Future Prospects.” Annual Report 2007 of the Friends of Mount Athos: 17–34. Ouédraogo, Jean-Martin. 1993. “La Réception de la sociologie du charisme de Max Weber.” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 83: 141–157. Sakharov, Nicholas. 2002. I love, Therefore I Am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony. Yonkers, ny: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Schmemann, Alexander. 2000. The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973–1983. Yonkers, ny: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Torrance, Alexis. 2011. “I Must Decrease: Spiritual Direction and Power in the Orthodox Tradition.” Pp. 60–68 in Power and Authority in Eastern Christian Experience, edited by F.K. Soumakis. ny: Theotokos Press. Ware, Kallistos. 2000: “Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity.” Pp. 127–153 in The Inner Kingdom. Yonkers, ny: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Weber, Max. 1964. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Free Press. Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology. New York: Bedminster Press. Willaime, Jean-Paul. 2003. “La religion: un lien social articulé au don.” Pp. 247–268 in Qu’est-ce que le religieux? Religion et politique. Revue du Mauss semestrielle 22, Second semestre.

chapter 10

A National Monasticism? Monastic Politics of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Syria Anna Poujeau The publication in 1947 of Albert Hourani’s work, Minorities in the Arab World, inaugurated research in the humanities and social sciences on religious and ethnic minorities (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) in the Arab world. These are now better known, both from historical, religious, political, sociological and anthropological perspectives. It is regrettable, however, that so far very few studies have been carried out on the relationships established by these minorities with the nation-building process of the Arab states in which they live, which began in the early twentieth century. The numerical inferiority of these groups was then seen as an insurmountable obstacle to any important role they might play in these matters of national definition. In the case of Christian minorities, there is the additional fact that their disappearance from the Arabian landscape has become a cliché. Although not entirely false, this view is certainly simplistic. Today, from Lebanon to Egypt, passing through Syria and Jordan, there are millions of Christians whose dynamic national involvement leaves little doubt as to their profound anchorage in the Arab world, even if it is true that since the 1970s and the rise of radical Islamic movements, that pan-Arabist ideology, until then rather effective as a national unifying force for many countries with diverse populations (such as Syria, Iraq and Egypt), has been undermined. Despite the rise of Muslim fundamentalisms, however, Christians do not try to flee their countries at all costs and following the example of the various Islamic reform movements, the Coptic, Greek, Syrian, Maronite, Armenian, Assyrian and Chaldean churches that emerged from nearly two thousand years of theological, political and religious conflicts, prove their vitality through their religious and, more notably, monastic revival – monasticism then being presented as the oldest and most traditional institution of Eastern Christianity. Studying the monastic revival of the Eastern Churches can highlight the Christians’ current anchoring dynamics in the Middle East. From a methodological viewpoint, it is necessary to understand this phenomenon within each particular Church and each national context because it is the patriarchs (religious leaders having an authority over a country or a particular region, learned men, often charismatic and concerned with political purposes) who

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are promoting it. Finally, beyond this local level, the international level must also be taken into account given the extent to which it mobilizes the members of the diaspora who provide considerable economic and ideological support. Since the early 1980s, there has been a major revival of monasticism in Syria. If the Christians, who represent about six percent of the Syrian population, have found in this way a space for communitarian expression through the religious marking of the country, it is undoubtedly because those in power allow them this freedom. The authoritarian power of the al-Assad family, father then son, ruling since the early 1970s and now widely questioned since the beginning of the revolution in March 2011, is in the hands of members of a heterodox minority from Shi’a Islam in search of political support among the other minorities that they thus symbolically promote. Christians, because of their very small number in the country, their internal dogmatic divisions,1 and their definitely exogenous character from a religious point of view in comparison with the Muslim 'umma, are not threatening in terms of power. On the other hand, they could represent an important element for anyone wishing to exploit the religious divisions in the country. By promoting the expansion of monasticism, which passes mainly through the construction and renovation of huge buildings all topped with large blue crosses blinking at night, the government is trying if not to erase the Muslim identity of Syria, at least to introduce points of fracture symbolized by these monasteries, capable of undermining Islamic political demands. In this context, monasticism is a means of political expression for both those in power and for the various churches that choose to revitalize it. The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and of the entire East is the primary church in the country and brings together about three quarters of the Christians in Syria. It is also the first church to have become involved in the monastic revival both through an organization, Orthodox Youth (founded in the 1950s), and through individual initiatives by monks and nuns whose desire was to rebuild monastic life, then presented as the genuine and authentic expression of Eastern Christendom (Poujeau 2010). The Greek Catholic Church also embarked on the path of renewed monasticism by renovating and enlarging ancient places of worship abandoned for centuries and by giving a religious dynamic able to encourage vocations and especially new relationships with their flock. Indeed, if one can speak of monastic revival in Syria, it is not only because dozens of huge buildings have sprung up over the last thirty years but also because of the appearance of new religious practices. These monasteries are all dedicated to saints and are 1 There are eleven denominational churches in Syria.

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erected around places where apparitions have occurred, attracting thousands of devout Christians as well as pilgrims from all confessions, in search of blessing, healing, fertility, and so on. Although the huge monasteries often contain only small monastic communities and some are even only guarded by a layman, they attract large crowds on the day of the feast of the patron saint of the monastery and an almost discontinuous flow of visitors the rest of the year. The political, religious and community issues of this Syrian monastic renewal are therefore crucial to present-day expression of the Christian faith among this ethnic community. They seem all the more salient when considering the case of the Syriac Orthodox Church. This chapter’s framework for reflexion is the anthropology of Eastern Christianity and monasticism, particularly through a study of the Syriac Orthodox Church, in the Syrian national context and among its diaspora in northern Europe, whose important scope of action at a local and international level and its relationship with the ecclesiastical institution and fellow believers in Syria will be considered. Despite the Syriac Orthodox Church’s strong identity and cultural roots in the region of Tur Abdin (which extends southeast of Anatolia, between the Syrian border and the first high mountains of Hakkari), it has taken on an important global dimension since the early twentieth century, when a great majority of its members migrated to Syria and northern Europe. The aim of this chapter will be to understand how this monophysite Church, hailing from the region of Tur Abdin in Anatolia, located in Syria since the exile of its patriarch in 1923 by the authorities of the new Kemalist Turkey, has been integrated and able to take part in building the Syrian nation, notably thanks to the mobilization for political purposes of its own monastic tradition and its liturgical language preserved in the monasteries. This chapter intends to highlight the particular political dynamics that rallies the Church and its members around the critical issue of their historical consciousness, based on the idea of an Aramaic heritage, testified by its monastic organization and liturgical language.

Syrian Integration of a Non-indigenous Church

From its origins, the Syriac Orthodox Church has played an important religious and cultural role in all Eastern Christendom, especially in monasticism. Yet its recent particularly tormented history is poorly understood, although it still continues to have a significant impact on the religious, social and political Syrian landscape and on Eastern Christianity in general. This monophysite Church originated during the early centuries of Christianity in Upper

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Mesopotamia.2 The arrival of the Mongols, and in particular the army of Timur (14th–15th century) pushed its members to flee into the mountainous region of Tur Abdin (now Turkey), which extends south-east of Anatolia between the Syrian border and the first high mountains of Hakkari and which offered them shelter for more than six centuries. Tur Abdin – in Syriac “the mountain of the servants of God” – is named after the hundreds of monks who occupied the many monasteries built in the mountains from the fourth century. Religious and lay people have never ceased to speak an Aramaic dialect: Suroyo,3 which they are proud to present as the language of Christ.4 In 1915, along with the Armenians from Anatolia, the Syriac Orthodox were deported and massacred by the Kurds in the struggle led by the Ottoman authorities against the partitioning of their vast empire. The organized massacres of the Syriacs, which took place at the same time as the Armenian massacres, were barely noticed by the West until recent historical studies on this “forgotten genocide.”5 In 1923, the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the patriarchal seat of which had been located in a monastery of the region for over a thousand years, was forced into exile by the authorities of the new Kemalist Turkey. He and an important part of his community then fled to Syria, a diaspora (as defined by its own members) was also formed in northern Europe and North America, while a very small minority has continued to live in the villages and the thousand year old monasteries of Tur Abdin, alongside Kurds. During the French Mandate in Syria (1918–1946), the arrival of these new Christians in the country was viewed fairly positively by the Mandatory authorities who had developed close ties with all the Christians in the area (except the Greek Orthodox, always reluctant to accept any foreign occupation 2 The Syriac Orthodox Church was formed after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, following successive schisms that took place at that time. The Church is monophysite and therefore recognizes only the first three councils in the history of Christianity. It is also sometimes called the Jacobite Church in reference to one of its founders, Bishop Jacques Baradaï. 3 More specifically, it is “Western Syriac” relatively close to the written Syriac language used for the liturgy of the Syriac Orthodox Church. In some Christian villages in the region of Qalamoun in Syria (such as the village of Malûlâ for example), a dialect derived from Syriac is still spoken. The latter is also defined by linguists as “Western Syriac.” “Eastern Syriac” is spoken in the Nestorian (or Assyrian-Chaldean) communities from Iran and Iraq. 4 The Aramaic language originating from Upper Mesopotamia spread in Palestine through the Jews returning from Babylonian captivity. 5 According to the work of de Courtois (2002), approximately 250,000 Syrians, or 75% of the population, were killed during the genocide.

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of their territory).6 The Syriacs fought alongside the French in special battalions in Upper-Jezira (north-eastern Syria). Moreover, they contributed to its economic growth and led to a new wave of Syriac survivors from the genocide coming to Syria from Tur Abdin. Alongside the Kurds, the main occupants of this region, with whom they were used to living, as they were also their neighbours in Tur Abdin, the Syriacs developed the city of Qamishli (located at the current border with Turkey), which then was only a very small town. Their patriarch had meanwhile taken refuge in the city of Homs (in the centre west of the country) until 1947. At that time, thanks to money raised from the community, the church was able to build its new patriarchate in Damascus, in the Christian quarter of Bâb Touma, not far from the Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox patriarchates and from the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate and the Maronite Catholic bishopric. In this way, the Church came closer to the place in which the newly independent Syria exercised power and to the second location of Christian power in the Middle East after Jerusalem, Homs being only a small and fairly underdeveloped provincial city at that time.

Syriac Orthodox and Syria: A Providential Aramaic Heritage

Having arrived less than a century ago in Syria – not then yet an independent and national territory7 – the Church and its members were then “taken up” in the construction of Syrian national history so that their historical, religious and linguistic particularities later served – like many other elements – in the building of Syrian Ba’athist ideology and Syrian nation-building as planned by the ruler Hafez al-Assad (1970–2000) and his son, themselves from a religious minority (the Alawites).8 The rise to power in 1970 of Hafez al-Assad and the 6 For further details on this particular point of the relations between the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and of the entire East with Arab nationalism, notably in a historical perspective, see Poujeau (2010). 7 The rule of the Ottoman Empire over Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian regions…(Bilad al-Cham) ended in 1918 with the solemn entry into Damascus of Faisal (son of the Sharif of the Mecca), accompanied by Lawrence of Arabia. Less than a month later, however, the first French troops disembarked at the port of Latakia. The French Mandate lasted until 1946. (A few months later, the last French troops in the region evacuated Lebanon). Syrian independence was proclaimed in 1947, the Ba’ath party (Hizb al-bact al-carabî al-ishtîrakî), then won the majority of the seats in the government. 8 The Alawite minority originates from a heterodox sect of Islam. The Alawites are supporters of Ali (cousin of the Prophet, husband of his daughter Fatima) and come from a dissident

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various symbolic operations to legitimize his power brought the Syriac Church into the centre of new national interests. Ba’athist Syria does not minoritize its communities, however small they may be. The ruling power plays a particular political game, and both the Church and the Syriac Orthodox community have been welcomed and settled in Syria. Since the early 1980s, the current Patriarch of the Church has managed to find political allies among the Alawites. They themselves are indeed in search of political and symbolic support among members of the religious minorities in Syria because of the historical contention to which the Sunni Muslims – the majority in the country, deprived of exercising power – subjected them. While this Church and its members are only the third Christian community in the country (after the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics), its name as well as its historical, cultural, linguistic and religious particularities present many interests for the government that from 1975 onward, started to get involved in a singular historical reconstruction operation, notably playing on their name: Syriac Church-Syrian Church and on their Aramaic language heritage which, according to official Syrian history, was also the heritage of the Syrians. One of its objectives was to avoid as far as possible mentioning the Islamic heritage of Syria. References to it would give weight to Sunni Islam and be a hindrance to the project of national unity. The latter, envisaged through a combination of secularism and the idea of a​​ homeland (watan) attached to a territory, is not immediately apparent. Its achievement poses many problems. To solve them, current historiography opts for a radical return to the Syrian past, back to the origins of Syria (in its most blurred geographic sense) and of its population. This raises the question of knowing who the Syrians are and who the Arabs are. By a clever sliding effect between the terms, which in this context seem interchangeable, “syrianity” means at the same time both the ethnic origin of the people of Syria and the origins of the territory considered an Arab land. In this way, the Islamic reference in the composition of the population and the territory is again neutralized in favour of the Arab (or Semitic) origin of the Syrians. It is thus through breathtaking historical shortcuts that local historians and scholars develop the idea of the​​Syrians’ arabicity dating as far back as the ancient times of the Arameans or the Assyrians.9 For this sect of Shia Islam called Ghulat (the “outraged”). Their region of origin of this sect is located in the northeast of Syria between the Mediterranean coast and the valley of the Orontes in the Jabal al-Ansariyeh. 9 Between the 11th and 8th century bc, the Aramaeans and Assyrians composed two peoples of Upper Mesopotamia who both founded Kingdoms that sometimes clashed. The Assyrians

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reason, the national historic discourse particularly emphasizes the Arabism of Arameans and the important role they play in the formation of Syrian identity: “The Aramaic and Arabic contribution […] facilitated the birth of a Syrian people mixed with Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite and Aramaic elements.” (Valter 2002: 136, quoting Al-Asqar 1978: 86–87). In many official documents chronicling Syrian history,10 the Arameans are presented as Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula who migrated to Greater Syria and made Damascus the capital of their kingdom.11 Furthermore, this important reference to Arameans enables national historiography to build an artificial continuity of Syria’s fight against Israel. From the 10th to the 8th century bc, the Aramean kingdoms were subjected to many territorial conquests by the Hebrew Kingdoms. In this perspective of a historical, political and ideological continuity from ancient to contemporary Syria, the strategies employed by the Aramean kingdoms of Damascus in their fight against the Hebrews, seeking help from the Aramean kingdoms of the north and the Euphrates, are also mentioned in the national historiography to give historical depth to the will of the regime to overcome regional and community divisions in its political and military enterprises (Valter 2002). By highlighting the Syrians’ arabicity rather than their massive adherence to Islam, by promoting the millennial history of the country and by ideologically aligning, not without ambiguities, history with national territory to anchor the historically recent Syrian state to a more ancient history, the purpose of those in power was to erase more effectively the religious differences and major community claims of this diverse population. The construction of Syrian national identity therefore passes essentially through its attachment to territory and the arabicity of its people, concepts inherited from the political and ideological movement of Syrianism, born a little more than a century ago at the beginning of the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire.12

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eventually totally dominated the Aramaeans but they have retained the language which, based on an alphabet and not on cuneiform characters like their own, was much easier to remember and use. The Aramaeans founded the kingdoms of Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Damascus and conquered the Hebrew Kingdoms. The Assyrians conquered territories to the east along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern Iraq) and more often confronted Persian kingdoms. Notably those published by the Dar al-Tlass publishing house created by Mustafa Tlass (Sunni, one of the regime's leaders, faithful companion of Hafez al-Assad). This theory has no historical support. Butrus al-Bustani (1819–1883) – an intellectual Christian originating from the mountains of Lebanon – was one of the first great thinkers to put forward the idea of ​​a Syrian patriotism and a specifically Arab culture, basing it on the use of the Arabic language.

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In the face of this powerful Syrian nationalist machine capable of very considerable variations, shortcuts and historical manipulations, the Syriac Orthodox Church in Syria must adopt a suitable historical position both for the authorities and for itself. It must develop a political strategy. Faced with the need to have a strong land base in the host country to benefit from social and political support in the region, the question is then raised as to how it is possible for the Syriac Orthodox Church to escape issues of Arab nationalism. It succeeded by forming a nationalism of its own, ethnic and not state sponsored, to which the religious factor must be added. My ethnographic investigation carried out in Syria in 2010 among some religious leaders and learned scholars of the community interviewed in Damascus and Aleppo in the region of Homs and Qamishli, allowed me to highlight how this distinctive history is developed and then passed on to the younger generations in the parishes and Syriac parish clubs that bring together daily hundreds of children and young people around various secular and religious activities, particularly in Damascus, at the Syriac Orthodox club and the Patriarchate, both located in the district of Bâb Touma. At the heart of these teachings, monasticism, the authentic tradition of the Church, is presented as the structuring element. The monks are presented as sort of heroes of the community who, over the centuries, contributed to the preservation of the Church when under threat, particularly through the preservation of their liturgical language. At the heart of a global pan-Arabist ideology, Syrian nationalism, the Aramean heritage of Syrians and the Aramean heritage of the Syriac Orthodox Church and its members are all considered together. The Syriac Orthodox community intellectualises its history and its condition through the ages, allowing it to think ideologically about its existence beyond its territorial history. To this end, the Syriac Orthodox community seems to have mastered a historical, religious and political mindset capable of implementing the community scenario. The specific political dynamics of the Syriac Orthodox Church and its members are based both on initiatives of arabisation and the development of a particular historical consciousness: an Aramaic heritage, to which their liturgical language, among other things, testifies. In this way the Syriac Orthodox Church, By bringing the Arab identity to the fore, he was already aiming to minimize (or even to “deny”) the religious and linguistic differences constituting the population of the region, today as in the past. For this purpose, Butrus al-Bustani was one of the first thinkers of the last century to reuse the geographical term Sûriyâ/Sûriyya [Syria], fallen into disuse, while giving it a modern meaning capable of supporting his nationalist political project.

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particularly through its patriarchs, has developed many special relationships with the Syrian government, different from those that unite the latter and the Greek Orthodox Church, which are based on a shared Arab nationalist political ideology. They are based more on a cultural and historical “common heritage” than on a joint political ideology. The Syriac heritage of Syria, in a way represented by the Syriac Orthodox Church, is much easier to highlight than the more alien Byzantine heritage of the Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches. In recent years, the Church authorities have devoted much time and effort to community literature which consists, for the Syriac Orthodox Church, of rewriting its own history. This was achieved mainly through the writing, by the patriarch (of Iraqi origin), of the official monumental history of the Church in Arabic and Syriac and through a work that was commissioned and funded by the Orthodox Syriac community and published in 2001 in three volumes, in English, with videos: The Hidden Pearl. Significantly, the first volume is entitled The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage and the second volume: The Heirs of the Ancient Aramaic Heritage. As for the third volume, At the Turn of the Third Millennium: the Syrian Orthodox Witness, the first chapter is devoted to orthodox Syriacs, then seen as “modern heirs of the Aramaic heritage.” This idea, presenting orthodox Syriacs as the heirs and descendants of the Arameans, is one of the cornerstones of the process of constructing the identity of the church and its community at work today. It is also important to note that The Hidden Pearl, written in close collaboration with the patriarch and some scholars from the church and the community, has been edited by a professor from Oxford University, an actor and academic guarantor of this rewriting of history encouraged by the patriarch and, on a higher level, by the Syrian government. Here we see how within the Church context, we can see here how history can be subjected to theology and scholarly work can be linked to apologetics. On an international scale, some members of the Diaspora have different interpretations of their history and their origins which question their positioning in relation to the Syrian Patriarchate and the Church as an institution. Different discourses and versions about the origin of Syriacs disseminated in the Diaspora result in sometimes violent clashes between members of the Church who are faithful to the patriarch and others who consider him only to be a vassal of al-Assad. Some say that they have origins dating back to ancient Assyria; they present themselves as descendants of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Another hypothesis presents them as Christianised Assyrians who took refuge in the mountains of Tur Abdin and the highlands of Kurdistan.

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A final hypothesis, less widespread, suggests they were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. It is interesting to note that these claims of identity are also present in the Nestorian and Chaldean (or Assyrian-Chaldean) Christians from Iraq and Iran with whom the Syriacs indeed have many similarities.13 In any event, all these Syriac identity-claims pass mainly through their Syriac liturgical language and Suroyo (Western Aramaic dialect) which they continue to use in Tur Abdin as well as in Syria and pass onto their descendants in the Diaspora, notably through the Houses of Syriac Culture that emigrant communities set up in their places of exile. They also refer to the experience of the Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO) created in the 1960s by members of the community in Syria and Iraq. Today, from Sweden, which hosts the largest exile community in Europe, this ethnic nationalist party organizes and disseminates its ideas through the “Suroyo Sat” and “Suroyo satellite tv” channels broadcasting in Syriac worldwide.14

Institution and Monasticism

Within the Church itself, monasticism is very important both because it represents its history and is also a contemporary way of participating in its development and revival. Aramaic heritage within monasticism is highly valued. Even though over the centuries, the Syriacs never played a specific political role in the region (in contrast to the Antiochian Greeks15) – simply welcoming with relief the first Arab and Muslim invaders who allowed them to escape the yoke and persecutions of Byzantine power which was hostile to them – very early on, Syriac monks played an important cultural role in the entire Middle East, particularly in the translation of scientific, philosophical and theological writings from Greek into Syriac and then into Arabic. As a Semitic language, Syriac long constituted a “language bridge” between Greek and Arabic. The Syriac language and culture were never lost over the centuries. Syriacs therefore first resisted the Hellenization of their culture, and later on more than ten centuries of Islamization. 13

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A worthwhile subject for future research would be to attempt to assess to what extent American Protestant missionaries, who were relatively well received by the Nestorians compared to other Christian communities in this region, were responsible for the dissemination of this original identity thesis. The first channel presents more conservative programs than the second. Together, these channels reach a wide audience of Syriacs. This is how the members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch are designated, not to confuse them with their brethren in the Balkans and Turkey.

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Very early on, monasteries and Syriac Orthodox monastic communities played a critical role in defending the cultural, linguistic and religious particularities of their church. In reality, they were from the beginning of its history the beating heart of the Syriac Orthodox Church. For centuries, monks have had a considerable influence on the life of the Church and according to the writings of the church patriarch, monastic life, being “in search of eternal life by controlling carnal passions and evil lusts and departing from everything that is not consistent with a healthy and pure Christian life” is even for the orthodox Syriacs, an ideal for their community.16 Over time, however, monastic life in the Church experienced a period of decline, and by 1946, there were no more than twenty monks scattered in twelve monasteries in Tur Abdin, whereas centuries ago, there were several hundred. However, over the past thirty years, there has been a revival of monastic life through the efforts of the last patriarchs. Today, there are hundreds of orthodox Syriac monks and nuns in the Middle East and Northern Europe. Most of them are in the two double monasteries of Syria, the first of which was opened in 1997 and the second in 2000. They were founded thanks to significant donations from the diaspora in the West. The first of these monasteries built in Syria is dedicated to St. Ephrem. It is located not far from Damascus and houses monks and nuns as well as a seminary. It is also now the residence of the Patriarch of the Church. This seems to be the end of the last itinerant patriarchs. Indeed, in the crypt of the monastery church, a tomb was built to house the current patriarch at the time of his death. The second monastery is located in northeast Syria and was inaugurated in 2000. These two Syrian monasteries have allowed the Church and its patriarch to revive monasticism, the privileged lifestyle of its clerics. At the same time, in Tur Abdin, with funding from the Diaspora, the Church is renewing and expanding some of the dozens of monasteries belonging to it. Among them, two monasteries are very important.17 The Mor Gabriel Monastery founded in 397 is presented by the Church as “the centre of religious education of the Church and the Syriac’s cultural and linguistic memory.”18 The second

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From the writings of the patriarch published in Arabic and collected during fieldwork in Syria (2004–2010). Alongside these two monasteries, four other monasteries (Mor Malke, Mor Yakub, Mor Augin and Mor Abraham) are occupied by monastic communities and are visited by Syriacs from the region and from elsewhere. One of these monasteries – including the St. Mor Malke to which it is dedicated is known for its powers to heal epilepsy and insanity – is even a place visited both by Sunni and Yazidis Kurds and Orthodox Syriacs. As the prelates of the Church say in various writings published in Syria, in Arabic.

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monastery is Deir el Zafaran (or Mor Hananyo), the former residence of Syriac orthodox patriarchs. In this monastery church, at the place of the now vacant patriarchal throne (but holding a photograph of the current patriarch) are engraved the names of 122 patriarchs of the Church from 792 to the present – including the last three patriarchs of the Syrian exile. The Syriac Orthodox monastic organization is itself very special. The monastic communities have the singularity of all being double: they house monks and nuns under the same roof. All monks and nuns are under the authority of the bishop of the diocese, himself under the authority of the Church patriarch. There is only one monastic order not separated from the ecclesiastical order. Only the monks – who can, if they wish, be ordained priests – have the possibility of performing episcopal functions and only bishops, who are preselected from among the monks, can attain the highest function of patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East. Moreover, and this is again an oddity compared to other Eastern Churches, the patriarch lives in a monastery and the various other bishoprics are also monasteries.19 The other churches present in Syria, are organized around two distinct hierarchies. The first, ecclesiastic, consists of the patriarch of each church, bishops and priests in charge of parishes. They all forge relationships with politicians and important figures of the country. The second hierarchy is monastic. It is made up of monks and nuns from each Church, who are themselves forging relationships with the saints to whom the monasteries are dedicated. These two hierarchies are structurally opposed and often have conflicting relationships. In contrast, the only existing hierarchy among orthodox Syriacs is monastic. The monks and nuns occupy a very important place in the community and they do not operate outside the main spheres of patriarchal power, as is the case with Maronites, Greek Orthodox and Catholics or Catholic Syriacs. It is for this reason that it is possible to define the Syriac Orthodox Church as a “monastic church.” The monastic hierarchy is subtly woven between the patriarch, bishops, monks and founding saints of Christianity and the Church. The Syriac Orthodox patriarch and the Syriac Orthodox bishops, all monks, are called “his holiness” and this is not a misnomer.20 Various Syriac Orthodox patriarchs and bishops are actually treated, post mortem, as if they were saints. Their tombs 19

20

Until the late 19th century, the patriarch of the Maronite Church (also of Syriac Culture) also only resided in the monasteries of the Lebanese mountains. Now, he lives in a patriarchal residence as all the patriarchs of other Eastern Churches, except for the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch. “Mor” or “Mar” in Syriac means “holy,” but it is also this way that are designated the various saints of the Church, notably the most famous Mor Ephrem: St. Ephrem.

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are in the monasteries, and monks, nuns and laity worship them. The funerals of Syriac Orthodox patriarchs and bishops are also very different. Throughout the funeral liturgy, they are not lying in a coffin, as is the custom for other members of the community and other churches of the East, but are seated on either their episcopal or patriarchal throne. Adorned with all their ecclesiastical attributes, they face the audience. After a long ceremony, they are buried in huge tombs, seated on a throne.21 In addition, the current patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Mor Ignatius Zakka I who was born in Mosul (Iraq) in 1932, became a monk in 1947 (at the age of 15) and Metropolitan of Baghdad in 1969, discovered in 1964 the remains of St. Thomas in the monastery dedicated to the latter in the city of Mosul. On 14 September 1980, he was consecrated patriarch of the Church.22 So here we see the close relationship a current patriarch has with an important saint of Christianity and more generally with holiness because it was he – then a bishop – who discovered the remains of an apostle. It then seems quite logical that he was chosen among all the bishops to act as supreme head of the Church. On this particular topic, it would be interesting to make a comparison with the discovery in the 20th century of saints in Coptic Egypt, such as the discovery of the relics of John the Baptist in a Coptic monastery of Wadî Natrûn and of St. Mark (the holy founder of the Coptic Church) during the Coptic Patriarchate of Cyril VI at the time of Nasser.

An Eastern Church and its Diaspora

Although it is necessary to make a detailed ethnographic study of the Middle Eastern roots of the Church to reveal its constitutive logic, it is also important to understand that since the early 1980s, the Syriac Orthodox patriarch is the head of an increasingly international church as the community itself has became so. Ultimately, it is therefore necessary to put into perspective the current founding elements of a Church and its community in the context of globalization. The recent exile in the West of thousands of its members has transformed the Syriac Orthodox Church into an international church with several dioceses in the world and monasteries based in Germany and the 21

22

It was also in this way that the Patriarchs and Bishops of the Maronite Church (also of Syriac Culture) were buried during the first centuries of the founding of the Church. The Maronites have since abandoned this several centuries old practice. September 14 is the day of the Feast of the Cross, a very important religious feast in the Christian Middle East.

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Netherlands. Despite the dispersion of the community, its members remain subject to the authority of the patriarch residing in his monastery in Syria. An intense community life is organized in Syriac Orthodox parishes throughout the world, and the Syriac Orthodox diaspora actively defend the cause and the safeguard of their church by making extremely generous donations to its foundations in Syria and in Tur Abdin. In many cases, however, members of the Diaspora have arrived in their places of adoption in northern Europe destitute and, for the majority, illiterate. They come from a very remote region in Anatolia, underdeveloped in many ways. But in the West, they have been able to overcome considerable challenges through effective community solidarity, of which they are very proud. During the interviews I conducted in Belgium with a number of them, they liked to describe exactly how their community works on a daily basis and how, thanks to this, they have gradually become homeowners, created their own businesses and become rich. In this regard, an interesting question concerns the comparison they make between themselves and the Jewish Diaspora. They even claim to follow the example of the latter, notably because according to them, despite thousands of years of exile, it has managed to survive and maintain a real solidarity between its members and especially to “return” to Israel.23 Today, barely thirty years after the arrival of the latest wave of emigration from Syriac Tur Abdin, the members of this community have achieved remarkable socioeconomic progress that allows them, since the mid-2000s, to return to their region of origin, taking advantage of easing tensions between Kurds and the Turkish state. Before their departure, Tur Abdin had thirty-five villages, some of which were populated only by Syriacs but where the majority were occupied by a mix of Kurds and Syriacs. The latter were farmers and smallholders living frugally under the authority of a feudal Kurdish “Aga” (a title originally given to important people in the Ottoman Empire) to whom they paid a tithe and for whom very young boys were shepherds. When the Syriacs left, Kurdish “Agas” did not allow them to sell their homes and land that as a result remained abandoned until recently. In recent years, the Syriacs of the diaspora have met in Europe according to their village of origin, to elect a Council of Elders for each village consisting of six elderly men respected by all, and create associations (with a head office in Hamburg) in order to redeem their land when it has been occupied by Kurds remaining in the area, and to register their properties in the Turkish land Registry. The Council of Elders goes to Turkey, employs a lawyer, a notary and a Turkish surveyor whom they bring to 23

This point is to be discussed in the light of the work of Chantal Bordes-Benayoun on the diasporic experience in general and on the Jewish diaspora in particular.

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every village in Tur Abdin, to define the borders of the properties of each of the families in the village that the Council represents, to buy them when necessary, and enter them in the name of the owner in the Turkish Land Registry. Many Syriac families have already renovated their houses, where they stay during summer holidays, when the city of Midyat profits from an unhoped-for influx of tourists. This community, some of whom left the area only twenty years ago, is therefore coming back to Tur Abdin, having become far more upwardly mobile in the West. In addition to the churches and monasteries, houses also undergo luxurious and ostentatious renovations. This process demonstrates that the Syriacs remain deeply attached to their region of origin. Although transnational, their community and their church are only meaningful in their relationship with the latter. It is for this reason that the monastic renewal which has taken place there thanks to their large donations, the redemption of their land and villages, and the reoccupation of these either temporarily or on a more permanent basis were so prevalent in the years 2000–2010, due to the relatively calm period in the Kurdish conflict. However, groups formed by members of the Syriac Orthodox community who emigrated to Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France or North America are different in many ways. For example, the Syrian Orthodox community in Sweden is by far the oldest, largest and most important – and has far more political support than the very small community in France (based in Montfermeil). Nevertheless, the various communities interact with each other and manage to overcome their differences and distance to form a united Diaspora. Two types of events in particular enable a part of the Diaspora to meet up: transnational arranged marriages between members of the community and funerals.24 On both occasions, hundreds of community members dispersed in the West come together for several days, notably in their newly built monasteries which are, in the West as in the East, communal places. It is then not only the opportunity to join together in rituals, but also to create an active solidarity between them, especially on an economic level. It was in the monasteries that the Syriac orthodox Diaspora concretely and symbolically built itself up, maintaining its transnational links and “the myth of the unity of the people and eventually the dream of a return” (Bordes-Benayoun and Schnapper 2006). We see here that the Syriac monasteries of Europe are places that allow the community to come together and renew itself. Although, on a regional level, the Syriac Orthodox Church is able to renew itself by mobilizing its history and monastic tradition to integrate politically 24

Most of alliances continue to be forged between members of the same villages or of the same families.

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into Syria over the last forty years, on a transnational level, it is capable of bringing together the community in its European monasteries and through the monastic cause thanks to the extremely large donations that are made to the monasteries by members of the Diaspora. They are even capable of rallying strong support if one of the historical monasteries of Tur Abdin is threatened by the Turkish authorities, as was the case in recent years around the land conflict between the monks of the Mor Gabriel monastery with neighbouring Kurdish villagers, probably manipulated by the government. The land belonging to the monastery was threatened with expropriation under the pretext that it was not cultivated, when Kurdish villagers lacked pasture for their flocks. The tension surrounding the conflict was such that the monks of Mor Gabriel could not leave their monastery under penalty of physical threats from the villagers. A trial was held in the town hall, opposing the villagers supported by the government and the monks. The founding date (347) of the monastery was questioned, and it was even said that it was built on the site of a former mosque. The Syriacs in the diaspora came together in force, and called on Swiss nongovernmental organizations and influential politicians of the community in Europe. The conflict was finally only partially resolved, but it reminded all Syriacs of the importance of their monasteries in Tur Abdin and Syria as bearers of their communitarian history in the region. References Al-Asqar, A. 1978, Histoire de la Syrie tome 1, 1rst part: La première – et unique à ce jour-société civilisationnelle de type prophétique dans le monde (without place). Bordes-Benayoun, Chantal and Dominique Schnapper. 2006. Diasporas et Nations. Paris : Odile Jacob. Brock, Sebastian P., Madeleine Balicka-Witakowska, Eva Witakowska and Witold Witakowski (eds.) 2001. The Hidden Pearl: The Aramaic Heritage. Pascataway, N.J : Gorgias Press. De Courtois, Sébastien. 2002. Le genocide oublié, chrétiens d’Orient, les derniers araméens. Paris: Ellipses. Hourani, Albert. 1947. Minorities in the Arab World. London: Oxford University Press. Poujeau, Anna. 2010 “Monasteries, Politics and Social Memory: The Revival of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch in Syria during the Twentieth Century.” Pp. 177– 192 in Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective, edited by C. Hann and H. Goltz. Berkeley: University of California Press. Valter, Stéphane. 2002. La construction nationale syrienne. Légitimation de la nature communautaire du pouvoir par le discours historique. Paris: cnrs.

chapter 11

Contemplative Spirituality and the Intermonastic Encounter Movement Timon Reichl Introduction This article discusses the reformulation of contemplative spirituality in contemporary Christian monasticism, identifying the crucial contexts of this dynamic process: inner-monastic renewal and interreligious interaction. In the process of restating contemplation as the central dimension of a monastic vocation, monks turned to writings and practices found in ancient and medieval monastic literary works, such as Cassian’s Collationes Patrum for the socalled monologistos prayer-method, writings of the Spanish Carmelite St. John of the Cross concerning the apophatic dimension of Christian mysticism, or the ‘rediscovered’ Middle English work The Cloud of Unknowing, whose anonymous writer advocates the via contemplativa as the highest form of Christian life. Part and parcel of this process was the intellectual and practical interaction with the ‘mystical’ traditions of other religions. Scholarship, since the end of the 19th century, was turning to comparative studies on mysticism, making the respective traditions and modern interpretations of these accessible to a wide readership, one outcome of which was the religious appropriation of the theory that mysticism was to be seen as a universal and ‘perennial’ human heritage.1 The re-reading of specific mystical traditions in the theoretical framework of ‘universal mysticism’ allowed for a reformulation in which aspects of modern religious theory (e.g. psychological approaches) and elements of other religious traditions could be incorporated. This resulted in two characteristics of present-day contemplative movements: their interreligious or pluralist outlook (cf. Mermis-Cava 2009) and a predominantly trans-monastic notion of contemplative spiritual practice. Concerning the intermonastic encounter movement it is important to acknowledge that this notion of contemplation is not only an incentive for ‘dialogue’ but also a result of prior interreligious interaction. Following a brief introduction into the emergence of the intermonastic encounter movement the second section will illustrate the 1 An overview of this modern scholarship on mysticism is found in McGinn 1991. For a comprehensive methodological discussion, see Studstill 2005.

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important role of contemplation in the struggle for monastic renewal. The third section will then treat the specific form of interreligious interaction characteristic of the intermonastic movement. The final section will then take up the issue of new interreligious monastic conceptions, which are developing as a consequence of the ongoing intermonastic interaction. Due to their formative and ongoing impact as models and points of reference the so-called pioneers of intermonastic dialogue will receive appropriate attention in this article.

The Emergence of the Intermonastic Encounter Movement

Throughout the 20th century a growing number of Christian religious have sought contact with variants of living Buddhist and Hindu monastic traditions.2 This development emerged in various geographical regions with partly differing motivation; a general shift of direction and intensified global interaction occurred with the changed theological outlook of the Second Vatican Council.3 Three main reasons for seeking contact with members of other religions and their respective monastic-ascetical traditions can be discerned in the early phase: missionary efforts in Asia (1), monastic and church renewal (2) and a changed ‘pastoral’ situation in Western societies (3) (for the latter Heelas, Woodhead 2005; Gebhardt et al. 2005; Bochinger 2008). (1) Roman Catholic missionary efforts in Asia have historically predominantly been carried out by members of Catholic orders (Brück, Lai 1997). Their 20th century descendants were crucial in the critical evaluation of missionary theory and practice; this entailed the development of a new approach towards the members, institutions, theologies and practices of other religions. Benedictines in India and Jesuits in Japan argued that a successful implantation of Christianity and Christian monasticism necessitates the adaptation to 2 The term ‘monastic’ will be applied in its broadest and most general meaning, including coenobitic, anchorite and mendicant forms. In the case of Roman Catholicism it will be equated with all members of Catholic orders (lat. status religiosus), covering the contemplative and apostolic orders. This is not done with the intention to downplay the methodological challenge and necessity of developing terminological tools for comparative studies of ‘monasticism’ which take into due account both the conflicting and even mutually exclusive emic monastic conceptions and also the empirical inner- and interreligious plurality of ‘monastic’ forms. 3 In this context two documents have been particularly relevant: Nostra Aetate, formulating an inclusivistic theological framework towards other religions, and Perfectae Caritatis, giving guidelines for the contemporary renewal of Christian contemplative and apostolic orders.

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the respective Asian religious and cultural traditions, especially as monasticism was seen as constitutive or integral for Buddhism and Hinduism. In order to perform this task of enculturation it was considered necessary to know and experience personally “the spirituality of non-Christian monasticism” (Enomiya-Lassalle 1970: 162). – (2) Furthermore, the general task of renewing church and monastic life called for a questioning of the traditional apologetic and exclusivist approach to other religions. The diversity of religions was now considered an opportunity for interreligious collaboration and dialogue, which would strengthen religious positions against the modern challenges of nonand anti-religious ideologies. – (3) The changed religious situation in Europe and North-America was also seen as requiring church professionals to develop new competences and sensitivities. Both religious diversity, especially the presence and attraction of Asian religious traditions in the West, and new spiritual paradigms and demands necessitated appropriate responses. Monks have been amongst those active in creatively engaging with religious change, i.e. providing new spiritual offers which take the changed demands in the religious field seriously.4 Taken together these interrelated issues of developing a new theological and missionary outlook, engaging creatively in church renewal and responding to religious change, must be acknowledged as important promoters and contexts in which the intermonastic encounter movement emerged. This eventually led to the formation of an independent organizational structure within the Benedictine confederation, the globally active Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique / Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (dimmid; Blée 2011). Numerous interreligious activities of Christian religious worldwide take place in the ideological and organizational framework of the dimmid.5 These activities comprise strictly inter-monastic but also monastic interreligious interactions, the first covering those encounters in which all participants belong to monastic

4 Exemplarily I refer to the ‘trans-confessional spirituality’ of the new mystical movement of the German Benedictine Willigis Jäger (Jäger 2007) and the practice of ‘centering prayer’ of the new contemplative movement of the American Trappist Thomas Keating (Keating 2009). 5 There exists a great variety of activities, ranging from regular meeting-groups of Buddhist and Christian monastics, e.g. the North-American ‘Monks of the West’ and ‘Nuns of the West’ or the international intermonastic meetings with high-ranking participants from various Asian Buddhist traditions (Mitchell/Wiseman 2003) to literary projects like the Buddhist commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict (Henry 2001), the long-term mainly JapaneseEuropean intermonastic exchange programmes (Béthune 2010; Götz 2006), interreligious retreats and study groups offered together by Buddhist and Christian monastics (e.g. in Turvey Abbey, uk) etc.

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traditions in their respective religions; and the latter including all other activities in which solely the Christian participants are members of religious orders.

Contemplation and Monastic Renewal

During the 20th century Christian monasticism underwent a process of renewal and transformation. There was also a geographical shift, due to the dramatic decline within apostolic orders especially in the West and new foundations and growing recruitment in Asian and African countries (Ebaugh 1993; Frank 2010; Wittberg 1994, 2000). At the latest with the publication of the Second Vatican Council document Perfectae Caritatis this issue was turned into a general challenge for all sections of Christian religious life. The document called for a dialectical renewal of religious life: a return to the sources, a re-examination of the foundational charisma of the respective founders of the orders, and simultaneously an opening up to the needs and developments of a changed society. This process is still under way and was recently discussed by monastic scholars as “[t]he challenge of postmodernity to monasticism” (Eckerstorfer 2009: 111): Monasticism has to be able to discern the signs of the time in order to renew itself. Only if we dare to understand our forms of life in the light of contemporary thought and sensibilities can we envision a meaningful Gestalt for monasticism. Yes, today’s life and thought form an intrinsic part of the monk to such an extent that we can even say: the world is inscribed in the monk’s heart. Those monks who were before the Council already active in a constructive dialogue with new developments in society, which they appropriated for a critical evaluation and renewal of monastic life, were now encouraged in their efforts. One important example of this process was the integration of the findings and methods of secular psychology into the life of monastic communities, leading to a revised understanding of monastic (abbatial) leadership/supervision and putting a new focus on the individual psychological development of monks (Robinson 1963). Amongst those active in monastic renewal, before and during the Second Vatican Council, including, by the way, explicit inner-monastic critique, were the so-called pioneers of intermonastic dialogue, e.g. the Trappist Thomas Merton (1915–1968), the Benedictine Henri Le Saux (1910–1973) and the Jesuit Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle (1898–1990). They all understood their efforts to revitalize the contemplative dimension of monasticism and Christian spirituality in general

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as serving this issue of renewal. Their later descendants inherited this selfunderstanding of contemplation as providing the appropriate and ideal means for a renewal of monastic and church spirituality. So already in the first generation of interreligious monastics we find an identification of contemplative spirituality with monastic vocation. This understanding was partly derived from monastic sources, but its special impact on interreligious dialogue and religious change came from the renewed interest in mysticism. Seen from a socio-historical perspective we can today assert that this interest in mysticism in a comparative perspective triggered a re-contextualization of mysticism as universal and trans-religious. This allowed for a further identification: not only was the contemplative dimension the true telos of monasticism and needed to be reinstalled as such, but this contemplative-monastic dimension was also seen as a universal human heritage, latent and almost lost in the case of Christian spirituality, but still intact in various living religious traditions of Asia, e.g. Japanese ZenBuddhism. In the course of this process, the monastic who is true to this essential contemplative dimension is seen as the paradigmatic mystic. This is also how the pioneers are today cherished in this movement: as modern representatives of universal, i.e. interreligious, mysticism (Teasdale 1999: 33–41; 2003). Not long after Thomas Merton’s enthusiastic entry into the Trappist monastery, which he made publicly known through his autobiographical work The Seven Storey Mountain, he started to issue critical remarks concerning contemporary monasticism. His criticism focused on critically evaluating the ‘external’ aspects of monastic practice (Cunningham 1999: 127). In particular Merton disapproved of the overemphasis of monastic regulations, which should ideally be the means and not the end of the monastic endeavour.6 This was linked to his general rejection of the pre-eminence of the active aspects of Christian monasticism, betraying the traditional emphasis of the contemplative dimension.7 Throughout his lifelong “preoccupation with authentic monasticism” (Cunningham 1999: 168) he was also involved in the study and experimental practice of the eremitical, more contemplative monastic ideal, starting to live as a hermit on the premises of his abbey in 1965. A great part of his publications focused on contemplation and solitude (Merton 1979; 1997; 2003; 2007) 6 This also led him to an appraisal of Martin Luther’s critique of Catholic monasticism (cf. Merton 1968). 7 This question of the ideal relationship between the via activa and contemplativa is a classical theme within Christian monasticism and mysticism often treated with reference to the biblical example of Mary and Martha (e.g. by Cassian, Coll. I, 8). In the course of his monastic life Merton arrived at a balanced understanding of the “dialectic of withdrawal and return” in which the “retreat into solitude” is seen as creating “new possibilities for compassionate commitment” (McGinn 2006: 156, 165).

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and he regarded the contemplative orientation as the central characteristic of a monk: The monk is a Christian who has responded to a special call from God, and has withdrawn from the more active concerns of a worldly life, in order to devote himself completely to repentance, ‘conversion’, metanoia, renunciation and prayer. In positive terms, we must understand the monastic life above all as a life of prayer. The negative elements, solitude, fasting, obedience, penance, renunciation of property and of ambition, are all intended to clear the way so that prayer, meditation and contemplation may fill the space created by the abandonment of other concerns. 1996: 19

The ‘function’ of the monk, his “chief service to the world,” is directly linked to this essential definition of a monk as contemplative (25). Any fruitful monastic renewal must take this constitutive dimension of the monastic vocation seriously: The purpose of monastic renewal and reform is to find ways in which monks and sisters can remain true to their vocation by deepening and developing it in new ways, not merely sacrificing their lives to bolster up antique structures, but channelling their efforts into the creation of new forms of monastic life, new areas of contemplative experience. ibid.

For Merton this included the ‘contemplative dialogue’ with members of other religions and especially their respective monastic traditions. At the time Merton was not alone with his position concerning monastic renewal. The monks active in missionary contexts in Asia particularly, had become conscious of the need to revitalize the contemplative aspect of monasticism, if Christianity and Christian monasticism were to take root in Asia (Enomiya-Lassalle 1970: 161f.; Monchanin/ Le Saux 1962). This would also include the adaptation to and integration of non-Christian spirituality from Buddhist and Hindu monastic traditions, most prominently the Zen-Buddhist practice of zazen (Enomiya-Lassalle 1970: 167–176). The efforts of the German Jesuit Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle to integrate zazen into Catholic spirituality eventually led to the formation of a new socio-religious role, the Christian Zen Master, who simultaneously holds a Christian clerical and/or monastic position and a Zen-Buddhist teaching authorization (cf. Reichl 2012). Similarly, the

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Benedictine monk Henri Le Saux (=Abhishiktananda) was active in adapting Benedictine monasticism to the Indian religious situation, the so-called Christian ashram movement.8 Le Saux was also attracted to the eremitical dimension of monasticism, which he found ideally realized both in the Hindu ideal of saṃnyāsa and in the early Christian monastic movement of the Egyptian desert (see below Section 4). In the contemporary crisis of Western monasticism he expected that “a genuine monastic revival will follow in the wake of a renewed eremitical life” (Abhishiktananda 1984: 47). In his writing he argues that any renewal must be an attempt for “inward renewal” through a “renewal of contemplative life in the Church” (2006: viii). Likewise, he was convinced that “[t]he solution of the present crisis will only be found in the deepening of contemplative life at the heart of the Church” (x). Understanding monasticism as contemplative had on the one hand the function of implanting Christianity in an Asian context, stripping it of all “Western accretions” and widening the possibilities for interreligious dialogue (Blée 2011: 31ff.). But on the other hand the reduction of monasticism to an experiential, mystical understanding of prayer-life has had the implicit and explicit tendency to not only go beyond Christian forms of monasticism but also beyond monasticism itself. In this regard, it is instructive to look at the holistic understanding of prayer-life, propounded by Abhishiktananda, which likewise rejects the idea of prayer as a “part-time occupation which only belongs to certain moments of the day” and also any notion of there being “two classes of devout people,” contemplatives and worldly people (2006: 1). Both ideas amount to a “total misunderstanding of Christian life,” as “[t]here is no part of our life in which we can escape the mystery of God which fills our whole being” (2). For this reason the notion of “constant prayer, to lead a contemplative life, is nothing else than to live in the actual presence of God.” As this reality is believed to be foundational for existence itself, it is “utterly impossible” for humans not to be part of it (3). Although Le Saux argues for this trans-monastic understanding of contemplation, contemplation nevertheless remains the essential characteristic of monasticism proper. In this regard he is also critical concerning the implementation of the contemplative ideal in contemporary Christian monasticism: 8 It must be noted that Henri Le Saux and the missionary-priest Jules Monchanin called for an integration of the spiritual traditions of India and not merely an adaptation of its external forms and customs (cf. Monchanin/Le Saux 1962: 76). They expected this future synthesis, i.e. the emergence of Indian Christian monks, to be the fulfillment of both Hinduism and Christianity (Mochanin/Le Saux 1962: 50; Hackbarth-Johnson 2003). On the Christian ashram movement, see Ralston 1987, 1989.

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However one should not suppose that it is enough for an order to be strictly enclosed for it to merit being called contemplative. Especially in the early days of the Church, the only form of life that was considered as contemplative (in Greek, theoria) was that of the hermits who were supposed to live in perpetual contemplation of heavenly realities. In our days there are very many monks and nuns who, despite their enclosure, are just as much involved in physical or intellectual activities as any of their brothers and sisters in the world outside. Their life is undoubtedly of the greatest value, but even so it remains far from the ancient ideal of contemplation, or theoria. monchanin/le saux 1962: 58

Although some amount of physical activity is accepted as inevitable, it should not interfere with the essentially contemplative orientation of life: “[A]ny such activity should contribute, directly or indirectly, to an unbroken attention to the inner mystery, which is the life-blood of every truly contemplative life.” (Monchanin/Le Saux 1962: 59) The radical ideal of renunciation is identified with the eremitical life, which is realized in India by the saṃnyāsī and in early Christian monasticism by the so-called Desert Fathers (ibid.). Consequently Le Saux is critical of the subordination of this form of monastic life to the coenobitic ideal in the history of Catholic monasticism and appreciates the “revival of interest in this ideal” (60). The renewal of the ideal monastic life is expected to come about through the synthesis with the Hindu ideal of saṃnyāsa implying a revision of the canonical and Benedictine understanding of monasticism, as this “ideal transcends all yokes of māyā, all rights as well as all obligation…sets free from all rites and all Canon Law.” (Oldmeadow 2008: 105) On the same grounds he also criticizes institutionalized Hindu saṃnyāsa. This understanding of contemplative spirituality as being the central dimension that constitutes the monastic vocation also characterizes the Benedictine monk John Main, the founder of the worldwide movement for the revitalization of ‘Christian meditation’, today organized as the World Community for Christian Meditation9 (Main 1982: 14): [I]n our work, it became clear that only a monasticism vitalized by a return to its principal task of ‘seeking God’ in prayer would be able to re-establish an authentic relationship with the world. This relationship 9 For a sociological analysis of this movement cf. Mermis-Cava 2009.

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has to be and can only be a bond of spiritual energy if monasticism is true to itself and monks to their vocation. The renewal of ‘true monasticism’ is relevant not only for the members of monastic orders but is seen in the broader issue of the function of monasticism in the world and, more specifically, the church. The notion of prayer is essentially experiential, it is “a way to enter into the direct and personal experience of God,” not by “talking to God or thinking about God, but [as] a prayer that could only be described as […] awareness of God […].” (Main 1982: 14) Merton, Main and many others were constantly emphasizing that the general call for renewal in the post-Vatican II Church must essentially be a spiritual and not merely a structural renewal on the level of liturgy, organization etc. In this regard the propounded theory and practice of ‘contemplation’ has inner- and trans-monastic implications, the latter also in the sense that many recipients and participants of the respective movements are non-monastics. A difference between the presented material lies in Main’s appraisal of the Benedictine emphasis on community as a central aspect of contemplative life, in contrast to the more eremitical conceptions of Le Saux and Merton. Despite these differences, the pioneers of intermonastic dialogue who were at the forefront of the 20th century monastic renewal saw the issue of revitalizing contemplative spirituality as directly linked to the efforts for a renewal of monastic life and church spirituality. It is also typical that these activities were directly related to the intermonastic pioneers’ engagement in interreligious dialogue. Because of their familiarity with these issues, many prominent figures in this movement were invited to the Meeting of the Monastic Superiors in the Far East (in Bangkok, 1968) in order to share their experiences.10 It must also be noted that the motive for working for the renewal of monastic life, or its adaptation in the missionary context, was also important for inner-religious discussions concerning the legitimacy of a form of interreligious interaction, which at the time went far beyond the average Catholic approach to non-Christian religions. The call for a return to the sources of monasticism, e.g. the writings of the respective founding fathers, allowed for a reformulation of the contemplative foundation of monasticism which was compatible with non-Christian notions of contemplative and

10

The proceedings are published under the telling title A New Charter For Monasticism (Moffitt 1970). The meeting was itself in part an intermonastic encounter between Christians, Hindus and Buddhists and was an important stepping stone in the history of intermonastic dialogue (Blée 2011: 24).

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monastic spirituality. Regarding the outcome we can say that monastic theology in the 20th century had developed into an interreligious contemplative (and mystical) theology. For the furthering of intermonastic contacts, the integration of non-Christian spirituality and the trans-monastic relevance of monasticism this theoretical and practical movement was and still is of decisive importance.

Contemplation and Interreligious Interaction

Let me briefly clarify my usage of the term ‘interreligious interaction’: It is intended to function as an umbrella term covering various forms of interreligious interaction: e.g. contact, direct and indirect influence, reciprocal or onesided polemics, selective or general affirmations and/or criticism, integration of elements, synthetical and syncretistic processes etc. Currently no existing (‘new’ or ‘old’) religion can be understood in its emergent complexity without taking interreligious interaction processes into account. In this sense, interreligious interaction in the one or other form is a constant element of the dynamic history and sociology of religions. ‘Interreligious dialogue’ is only one form of interreligious interaction, usually implying a programme which states the objective and determines the structure of interreligious interaction. In the process of analyzing specific interreligious interactions, such as the here considered intermonastic dialogue, it should be noted that the term ‘dialogue’ can be misunderstood if it is seen as automatically implying (a) symmetrical motivations of the dialogue partners, and (b) a mainly verbal exchange between members and representatives of different religions. It is also important to appreciate that ‘interreligious dialogue’ is a programmatic term applied by religious agents in the religious field. As such the emic term and the corresponding sociological and historical reality are an object of the study of religions. This also allows for the appraisal of the fact that interreligious thought and practice, although depending to a greater or lesser degree on the encounter with other religions, to a significant extent manifests as an innerreligious development. The so-called intermonastic dialogue covers a whole range of interreligious interaction processes, including practical and theoretical, individual and collective interactions. One possibility of identifying potential common characteristics is to analyze the self-understanding of the monastics’ approach to interreligious dialogue. Monastics conceive their interreligious activities as ‘spiritual dialogue’ or ‘dialogue of religious experience’, one of the widely applied four types of dialogue (i.e. verbal-scholarly, everyday-practical,

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collaborative-social and spiritual; e.g. Hintersteiner 2003; pcid 1991). Other terms perceived as adequate descriptions of the specific monastic approach to interreligious dialogue are Raimon Panikkar’s ‘intra-religious dialogue’ (Panikkar 1999; Perron 2005), ‘silent dialogue’ (Åmell 1999; Kramer 1990), and – a term first introduced by Thomas Merton – ‘contemplative dialogue’ (Merton 1999; de Béthune 1994). In all cases the terms are intended to specify the method or conduct of interreligious encounter developed and applied by monastics. As outlined in the previous section, monastic life is essentially understood as contemplative, so that monasticism and contemplative spirituality can be – at least ideally – equated. Accordingly, when monastics engage in such a spiritual dialogue, lived and shared monastic spirituality become the way interreligious dialogue or encounter is practised. The most common form of collective intermonastic dialogue consists in inviting non-Christian monks to visit Christian monasteries and to participate in monastic life, usually for a few weeks or one month (Götz 2006; Augustine 1988, 1989). This is then followed by a return visit of Christians in non-Christian monasteries in Asia. The Benedictine monk Pierre-François de Béthune, the most prominent and influential figure in the European section of dimmid, describes such an encounter within a monastery: During such a stay verbal exchanges are of little value. It is the sharing, most often carried out in silence, of the details of daily life that makes up the essential aspect of the encounter. […] This is a setting that makes possible greater awareness of the common destiny that binds together all those engaged in monastic life. béthune, 2011: 93

Béthune further developed his understanding of dialogue as ‘interreligious hospitality’, drawing upon his extensive experience of intermonastic encounters in Europe and Asia, mostly Zen monasteries in Japan. Interreligious hospitality is “a form of sharing” that “take[s] the risk of going beyond strict dialogue”: Hospitality consists of, above all, allowing another person to come into one’s home, or to enter oneself into that person’s home. […] It is an existential form of experience […] that occurs at the level of ‘being’. béthune 2011: 101

In order to develop his understanding, Béthune draws upon various religious sources concerning hospitality, including Benedictine, Hindu, Jewish

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and Hellenistic approaches, and he points out that in different cultures “the welcoming of the stranger is taken to be an unconditional obligation, a sacred duty.” (Béthune 2011: 106) What is of great importance here, is that interreligious dialogue “on a spiritual level” (122) is not seen as the discussion of spiritual matters – although this type of verbal dialogue may also be included – but is in fact itself carried out as an integral aspect of spiritual practice. This can typically lead to an identification of the contemplative notion of monastic life and intermonastic dialogue, as expressed paradigmatically by the Trappist and Zen-Master Jef Boeckmans: So for me the search for God, the essence of monastic life, and monastic interreligious dialogue are very much the same thing. Every religious phenomenon interests me, and so the very heart of interreligious dialogue is the search for the Ultimate itself. Searching for God individually and with all of humanity. 2003: 2

This means that the application of monastic life in the context of interreligious encounters transforms or re-contextualizes monastic spirituality as a form of interreligious spirituality. If this type of interreligious monastic conduct is then seen as fulfilling the essence of the monastic vocation, then it becomes clear why monks see themselves as especially equipped and also responsible for interreligious dialogue on the level of lived spirituality. This is in my opinion also the central reason why Panikkar’s term ‘intra-religious dialogue’ is applied, as it explicitly stresses the religious and existential nature of interreligious encounters (Panikkar 1999: xvif.). Other religions are not seen as static systems with which, at best, friendly or diplomatic relationships are required, but on the contrary as collaborators on one’s own quest for salvific truth, questioning and transforming the respective religious positions. From a socio-historical perspective this means that interreligious encounters of this type cannot be studied as static meetings of religious traditions but rather be seen as dynamic interactions of religious traditions, in the course of which religious thought and practice are open to transformation. This willingness to engage existentially with other religions usually presupposes an integral theory of religious plurality, usually dependent upon a universal notion of human spirituality. One of the first couplings of ‘contemplation’ and ‘interreligious dialogue’ is a case in point. In the introduction of his Mystics and Zen-Masters Thomas Merton explicates the basis on which his notion and practice of ‘contemplative dialogue’ depends, namely the existence of “a wider ‘oikoumene’, the household and the spiritual family of man seeking the meaning of his life and its

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ultimate purpose.” (1999: x) This universal understanding of religion allowed (on a theoretical and practical level) for an in-depth, affirmative and also selfcritical engagement with non-Christian spiritual traditions. But it must also be noted that dialogical theory and practice have a reciprocal relationship. This becomes evident in Thomas Merton’s Asian journey, which he explicitly understood as a ‘pilgrimage’ (Burton et al. 1975: 235) and ‘spiritual quest’, motivated by his existential encounter with Asian spirituality. Motives of Zen and Mahāyāna Buddhism are integrated into his self-understanding as a Christian, perceiving himself as “[…] at last on my true way after years of waiting and wondering and fooling around. May I not come back without having settled the great affair. And found also the great compassion, mahakaruna.” (4) Accordingly his meetings with monastic proponents of Theravāda and Tibetan Buddhism where guided by his personal and innately religious interest in learning from the theories and practices of Buddhist meditation and monastic discipline.11 Two things should be remarked about Merton: His orientation towards topics of spiritual practice and his willingness to approach meditation teachers and spiritual authorities of other religions, as guides or equal conversation partners, has become paradigmatic for the majority of monastic interreligious interaction (Mitchell, Wiseman 2003; Henry 2002; Barnhart, Wong 2001; Bender et al. 2006). Secondly, many renowned Buddhist figures – most prominently the 14th Dalai Lama, Thich Nath Hanh and Chogyam Trungpa – recollect their meeting with Thomas Merton as significant, affirming his ‘spiritual maturity’ (Dalai Lama 1991: 189). This cordiality and reciprocal approval has since become a new socio-religiously relevant agent in interreligious relations. Through such cross-religious approval of the authenticity of spiritual maturity, socioreligious authority in the contemporary religious field is constituted not only by inner-religious but also interreligious affirmation. This functional aspect is evident in the many examples of introductions written by members of other faiths in which the authors are praised for their spiritual insight and realization, e.g. the Benedictine Wayne Teasdale by the Dalai Lama (Teasdale 1999) or Thomas Merton by Thich Nath Hanh (Merton 1996). This reciprocity also characterized the John Main Seminar, where the Dalai Lama was invited to comment on the Gospels from his Buddhist perspective. There he narrates a

11

His Buddhist dialogue partners included renowned authorities on Satipaṭṭhāna in Sri Lanka (e.g. Nyanaponika Thera, Walpola Rahula and Phra Khantipalo) and on Tibetan rDzog-chen teachings (e.g. the 14th Dalai Lama, the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche Dongyu Nyima, Chogyam Trungpa and the hermit Kyabje Chadral Rinpoche. Cf. Wiseman 2007; Simmer-Brown 2007.

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conversation with a Benedictine monk who had been living an eremitical life in the mountains near the monastery of Montserrat: I asked him what kind of contemplation he had practiced during those years of solitude. His answer was simple: ‘Love, love, love’. How wonderful! [D]uring all those years he meditated simply on love. And he was not meditating on just the word. When I looked into his eyes, I saw evidence of profound spirituality and love – as I had during my meetings with Thomas Merton. dalai lama 2002: 39

These ‘higher’ forms of reciprocal affirmation (concerning spiritual maturity, i.e. the ‘fruits’ of spiritual practice) are founded on a more basic affirmation that assumes that members of various spiritual and religious paths are generically to be considered as ‘spiritual practitioners’ or ‘fellow pilgrims’ etc. In the context of monasticism this general affirmation of religious plurality as ‘ways’ or ‘paths’, perceiving the respective members as joined in a common human endeavour for moral and spiritual perfection, is turned into a general affirmation of monastic plurality. In the following section I will now turn to this phenomenon, as it is not alone a result of but also a powerful tool for further intermonastic interaction.

Contemplation and Interreligious Monastic Conceptions

In the context of these diverse intermonastic interactions new monastic conceptions have emerged. They range from implicit and cautious affirmations of monastic plurality to explicit elaborations of new interreligious conceptions of monasticism. I will briefly discuss the contributions of two monastic authors.

Henri Le Saux (Abhishiktananda)

Henri Le Saux considers the Hindu ideal of saṃnyāsa as the ideal expression of the “essential charisma of the monastic life” (1984: 27) in any religion. As already implied by the choice of the subtitle to his essay Sannyāsa. The Call of the Desert (1984), Le Saux explicitly identifies the original spirit of Christian monasticism with the essential characteristics of saṃnyāsa: both are motivated by the sole desire for salvation, leaving “no place for any other desire”; any external signs do not have the intention of marking saṃnyāsa as “a special class in

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society” or “a fourth āśrama, or state of life, […]; rather it is atyāsrama, beyond (ati-) every state of life. It belongs to no category whatever, and cannot be undertaken along with anything else.” In every respect this means that “[t]he sannyāsī is essentially acosmic, just as were the original Christian monks.” From this perspective any socio-historical departure from this essential understanding of the original monastic ideal is criticized as the loss of “the true sense of their calling, and [the] inability to be wholly faithful to their ideal.” As a consequence, the Hindu ideal found in scripture and lived practice is presented as the norm for a revitalization of the lost foundational motive of Christian monasticism (Le Saux 2006: 60f.; 1984: 47f.). In this context he assumes that Christian monks from the West could receive saṃnyāsa-dīkṣā from a guru in order to strengthen the eremitical life in the West, and he even reflects upon the “dream of a kind of ecumenical dīkṣā, a monastic profession to which both a Hindu sannyāsī and a Christian monk would be witnesses.” (Le Saux 1984: 48) Although “sannyāsa has emerged in every great dharma [i.e. religion, T.R.],” not only is its first historical appearance found in India, but Hindu saṃnyāsa also “remains the most radical witness to that call to the beyond which sounds, however faintly, in the heart of every man.” (Le Saux 1984: 26) Because of this trans-religious monastic conception: [t]erms like ‘Hindu sannyāsa’, ‘Christian’ or ‘Buddhist monasticism’, despite their convenience, should be used with caution, since they only have meaning on the phenomenological level (the level of appearance). No epithet or qualification, religious or other, can rightly be attributed to the core of what in India is called sannyāsa and elsewhere monasticism. The call to complete renunciation cuts across all dharmas and disregards all frontiers. […] it is anterior to every religious formulation. In the end, it is in that call arising from the depths of the human heart that all the great dharmas really meet each other and discover their innermost truth in that attraction beyond themselves which they all share. le saux 1984: 27

In Le Saux’ equation of Hindu saṃnyāsa with Christian monasticism, we can once again see how an interreligious monastic conception is rooted in a universal understanding of human spirituality and that it implies a general theory of religious diversity. On the basis of this universal understanding of monasticism it is “perfectly natural that monks of every dharma should recognize each other as brothers across the frontiers of their respective dharmas.” (Le Saux 1984: 27) Henri Le Saux’ notion of saṃnyāsa is a continuous challenge to any organized form of monastic living. Saṃnyāsīs should not

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form a “special class” or “a spiritual élite apart from the common man” (32). This is why the ideal of saṃnyāsa not only comprises the radical renunciation of anything material, sensuous and worldly but also the ‘renunciation of the renouncer’ (34). For this reason Henri Le Saux again and again praises “the lack of all foothold in this world” as “the very essence of sannyāsa” and regards the “indefinite number of ascetics without status” as the true sādhus preserving the ancient ideal (7f.). This essentially spiritual notion of saṃnyāsa leads him to assume that there exists a kind of universal spiritual ‘monastic order’ which has no organized or institutional form, as this would “destroy the essential charisma of the monastic life” (27). In his opinion also the envisioned Christian saṃnyāsa will be a member of this ‘order’ (Le Saux 2006: 61). For the intermonastic movement Abhishiktananda is of ongoing importance. He is revered as a pioneer of monastic dialogue and as one of the ‘fathers of dialogue’ in general (Blée 2011: 33f.). From a socio-historical perspective we must take account of his and his followers’ formative influence on the theory and practice of intermonastic dialogue. Their publications are read in order to receive spiritual and theological guidance especially by those who are active in interreligious encounters. Le Saux also remains a focus for current exchanges and conferences by the Christian monks active in interreligious interaction (e.g. Skudlarek 2010). Pioneers like him have introduced a new monastic theology and practice which continues to serve as a model for interreligious monastic identity in contemporary Christian monasticism.

Gilbert G. Hardy

One of the more scholarly contributions to this field so far is the Cistercian Gilbert G. Hardy’s Monastic Quest and Interreligious Dialogue from 1990. Hardy explicitly develops his universal understanding of monkhood in the context of its application in intermonastic and interreligious dialogue (Hardy 1990: 18f.), believing that “the clarification of what monastics are about and who they are is a fundamental condition for conducting a fruitful monastic dialogue among religions.” (23) His usage of the term monasticism is intended to include “all forms of monastic life, coenobitic or eremitic” and its “proper usage is not confined to some Christian form of religious life alone.” (11) He nevertheless applies the normative structure of a Benedictine monastic conception in his effort to develop an essential notion of the monastic quest, distinguishing two “essential ingredients that make up the meaning of monk” (ibid.), the ‘absolute quest’ and the

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‘community principle’.12 Both essential elements are assumed to be dependent on each other and can at times be in conflict. The absolute quest is the root or primordial element of monkhood, and although it has an anthropological foundation in humankind’s universal openness to the transcendent realm of being, Hardy is clear to stress the necessity of not generally identifying the monastic and the religious quest. This is an interesting point as any cross-cultural definition of monasticism while integrating ‘the monastic’ in a universal concept of human spirituality must respond to the challenge of also defining the cross-cultural specifics of monasticism in relation to religions and spirituality in general. For this reason Hardy rejects Panikkar’s idea of the monk as a universal archetype (Panikkar 1982) and sees it as merely a “figure of speech” (Hardy 1990: 20), arguing that monkhood is not the general but “a particular way of answering the call of the Absolute.” (Hardy 1990: 22) The decision for “the monastic pursuit is uniquely all-embracing: […] a total reorientation of one’s life toward some newly perceived goal of unlimited greatness. [It] requires a total dedication […] involving a coordinated use of all means at one’s disposal.” (Hardy 1990: 27) An important dimension of the monastic quest, which differentiates it from the general religious quest of humankind, is the presence of the community principle, which comprises the submission to a Rule, and guidance by an Abbot. The community principle is seen as the specific embodiment without which “the absolute quest would lack clear orientation, the vitality of the here-and-now, and the seal of authenticity.” (Hardy 1990: 50) But nevertheless the absolute quest, the spiritual or contemplative orientation of monkhood, remains the constitutive element, so that “[e]verything in the monastic institution, whether spiritual, material, or juridical” has the function of advancing the monk’s ultimate union with the infinite One. In order to provide a community with a “cohesive focus” towards ‘the absolute’ some form of monastic rule and also a spiritual guide, i.e. an abbot or Zen-Master are needed. For this reason the Benedictine understanding of monasticism is believed to be an adequate paradigm for monastic authenticity. Wherever then these essential dimensions are realized in a specific, embodied form, it is legitimate to speak of monasticism or monkhood: Monasticism or monkhood is not restricted in either of its two essential components (absolute quest and the community principle) to any specific culture or civilization. It does not require a definite religious affiliation, nor is it circumscribed by language, race, geography, or any other 12

Cf. Hardy (1990: 52–55) for his argumentation concerning the assumed primacy of the coenobitic interpretation of monastic life.

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historical or sociological factor. Indeed the species monk is not Christian, Orthodox, Islamic, or Buddhist. It is, potentially, of a universal type: interdenominational, interracial, intercultural, and interlinguistic. In short, the essential features of monkhood can be realized, at least in principle, anywhere within the family of humanity […]. hardy 1990: 20

Conclusion The theoretical and practical encounter of monastic traditions from various religious backgrounds has led monastics to reflect upon the question of a common or essential nature of monasticism. Although the monastics’ development of an interreligious monastic conception can vary, for example, regarding the eremitical or coenobitical orientation, the foundation capable of integrating the diversity of monastic forms is provided through an explicit equation of the monastic vocation and contemplative spirituality. As was discussed in the foregoing sections specific elements of this notion of contemplation is a comparatively recent development that reformulates ancient and medieval monastic sources in the context and under the influence of interreligious interaction and religious change. This development constitutes an important dimension of the recent histories of monastic traditions and has contributed to their inter-contextual ‘permeability’. The application of universal approaches to spirituality and mysticism in the internal revision and transformation of monastic identity and practice has been instrumental in redefining monastic boundaries. This has supported the accessibility and plausibility of monastic themes and resources, especially within those areas of contemporary spirituality that emphasize the experiential and therapeutic dimension of spiritual practice. Thus, formerly embedded elements from monastic traditions, including e.g. monastic ideals, literature, spiritual disciplines, communal practices, and even buildings etc., are transferred into new semi- or non-monastic contexts. Furthermore, far from being a purely monastic issue this article suggests that the intermonastic encounter movement evolved and continues to be situated at the intersection of contemporary spirituality and the challenge of religious diversity. References Abhishiktananda (=Le Saux, Henri). 1984 [1975]. The Further Shore. Delhi: ispck. —— . 2006 [1967]. Prayer. Norwich: Canterbury Press.

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Mitchell, Donald W. and James Wiseman. 2003. The Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics. New York: Continuum. Monchanin, Jules and Henri Le Saux. 1962. Die Eremiten von Saccidānanda: Ein Versuch zur christlichen Integration der monastischen Überlieferung Indiens. Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag. Oldmeadow, Harry. 2008. A Christian Pilgrim in India: The Spiritual Journey of Swami Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux). Bloomington: World Wisdom. Panikkar, Raimon. 1999. The Intrareligious Dialogue. Mahwah: Paulist Press. —— . 1982. Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as Universal Archetype. New York: Seabury Press. Perron, Gregory. 2005. “Listening to the Lion’s Roar. Notes on an Intrareligious Dialogue.” Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin 74. pcid (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue). 1991. Dialogue and Proclamation: Reflection and Orientations on Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Rome. Ralston, Helen. 1989. “The Construction of Authority in the Christian Ashram Movement.” Archives de sciences des religions (43e Année, 67.1): 53–75. ——. 1987. Christian Ashrams. A New Religious Movement in Contemporary India. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press. Reichl, Timon. 2012. “Sanbōkyōdan in Deutschland.” Pp. 1–23 in Handbuch der Religionen, Band 5 (VIII–26), edited by Michael Klöcker und Udo Tworuschka. München: Olzog Verlag. Robinson, Marian Dolores. 1963. Creative Personality in Religious Life. London: Sheed & Ward. Simmer-Brown, Judith. 2007. “The Liberty That Nobody Can Touch: Thomas Merton Meets Tibetan Buddhism.” Pp. 51–90 in Merton & Buddhism. Wisdom, Emptiness & Everyday Mind, edited by Bonnie Bowman Thurston. Louisville: Fons Vitae. Skudlarek, William, ed. 2010. God’s Harp String. The Life and Legacy of the Benedictine Monk Swami Abhishiktananda. New York: Lantern Books. Studstill, Randall. 2005. The Unity of Mystical Traditions. The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibetan and German Mysticism. Leiden: Brill. Teasdale, Wayne. 1999. The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions. Novato: New World Library. —— . 2003. Bede Griffiths: An Introduction to His Interspiritual Thought. Woodstock: SkyLight Paths Publishing. Wiseman, James A. 2007. “Thomas Merton and Theravada Buddhism.” Pp. 31–50 in Merton & Buddhism. Wisdom, Emptiness & Everyday Mind, edited by Bonnie Bowman Thurston. Louisville: Fons Vitae. Wittberg, Patricia. 1994. The Rise and Decline of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective. New York: State University of New York Press. —— . 2000. “Contemporary Issues: Western Christian” Pp. 329–331 in Encyclopedia of Monasticism, vol. 1, edited by William M. Johnston. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.

chapter 12

Experiencing the Liminal: Understanding Sep­aration and Transition among Buddhist Monastic Women in Contemporary Britain Caroline Starkey According to Turner (1969: 107) and, later, Szakolczai (2000: 221), individuals who have made a commitment to a monastic way of life experience a “permanent” position of “liminality.” They have transitioned away from their former social roles. They own nothing and they are ritually separated from wider society. They are required to observe rules and regulations without question and “accept arbitrary punishment without complaint” (Turner 1969: 95, 107). In this liminal position, individuals are “bound together” in communitas; a powerful manifestation of companionship and equality (Kamau 2002: 19). Yet, how far does this image of monastic life reflect the experiences of female Buddhist monastics in contemporary Britain? Using empirical evidence from recent research with female monastics from six different Buddhist groups, I will challenge an uncritical acceptance of Turner’s model and argue that this image of “permanent liminality” does not always reflect how Buddhist women in modern Britain experience monastic life. Following ordination, Buddhist female monastics may continue to play certain social roles (such as mother, daughter and sister), and they may have to earn money and own property as not all are able to live within a monastic community.1 This reflects not only how Buddhist monasticism might be experienced in a modern, capitalist context, but also that even in its earlier history Buddhist monks and nuns were not expected to be completely isolated from wider society (Robson 2010: 8). Furthermore, Buddhist monasticism (particularly female Buddhist monasticism) is heterogeneous (Tsomo 2006). This is especially true in contemporary 1 The term “ordination” is complex in this context, as it means different things within different Buddhist groups (see Salgado 2004 for a discussion of the complexities of the terms “ordination” and “renunciation” in relation to Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka, for example). I take monastic ordination to mean a formal commitment to Buddhist practice that includes celibacy (Tsomo 1988c: 53), and where ordained people are distinguished (in the precepts or vows they have taken, their dress and/or role) from lay people within the same tradition. Not all the groups within this study use the traditional vinaya (monastic code [see Holt 1995, Harvey 2000: 224–225]) but for the purposes of this article I have included data from women who refer to themselves as “monk” or “nun” and who fit the description provided above.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_013

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Britain where a variety of traditions are present (Baumann 2002: 93–94, Bluck 2006: 24), each emphasizing different Buddhist teachings and each with different rules in relation to ordination for women. As Bluck (2006: 195) argues, Buddhist traditions in Britain are akin to “family members who had lived in different countries for many years and now find themselves together in one place.” However, despite this heterogeneity, I will argue that the liminal monastic archetype should not be dismissed out of hand. Buddhist monastic women in Britain do undergo a process of separation and transition from non-Buddhist (and lay Buddhist) communities and roles, and this separation is ritually expressed during their ordination ceremonies and in the practices they adopt following monastic ordination, although these continue to be experienced in diverse ways. Therefore, in order to examine the relevance of Turner’s model of liminality for this context, this chapter will be structured into three thematic sections – the ordination process, monastic dress, and living situations. While I will show (particularly in the first thematic section) that elements of separation and transition are significant, as the chapter progresses I will argue that too prescriptive a model of monasticism does not always reflect the diverse experiences of Buddhist women in contemporary Britain. I am inspired by Cook (2010: 71) when she argues that: It does an injustice to the lives of monastics to understand “monasticism” only as a set of codes or rules by which one may live one’s life and thereby be “monastic.” This provides us with an understanding of the context of monastic practice…but it helps little in our understanding of the significance of the lived experience of monasticism. This chapter is based on my on-going doctoral research which investigates the lives of ordained Buddhist women using participant-observation techniques and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with fifteen monastic women and one former monastic within six different Buddhist groups in Britain (Tibetan Karma Kagyu and Gelug, Theravada, Soto Zen and Pure Land).2 The fieldwork took place between September 2011 and July 2012, in various locations across England and Scotland.3 All participants’ names have been changed. 2 This research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, uk, and includes an additional nine interviewees who were ordained but were not celibate monastics. Their data are not included here. 3 Two women in this sample lived outside of the uk and were interviewed the internet telephone service “Skype” (www.skype.com).

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Before I move on to look at the three themes of this chapter, I will explore Turner’s description of liminality in more detail, and then discuss the specific context of this study.

Turner, Monasticism and Permanent Liminality

“Liminality” was first described by anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep in his identification of the three ritual stages (“separation,” “transition” and “incorporation”) that he argued were common to all “rites of passage” (Van Gennep 1960: 11). It is to transition that Victor Turner (1967, 1969) turned his attention and, following Van Gennep, referred to this middle phase as “liminal” − meaning “threshold” (Turner 1969: 95; Weber 1995: 527). Turner writes: Liminal beings…have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing indicating rank or role, position in a kinship system – in short, nothing that would distinguish them from their fellow neophytes or initiands…. It is as though they are being reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew and endowed with additional powers to enable them to cope with their new station in life…. Secular distinctions of rank and status disappear or are homogenized. In most “rites of passage,” a person “passes through” the liminal stage before they are re-incorporated into society (Turner 1969: 95). However, Turner establishes that there are certain groups of people, including monastics, who experience liminality on a more “permanent” basis.4 Turner states that: “Transition here has become a permanent condition. Nowhere has this institutionalization of liminality been more clearly marked and defined than in the monastic and mendicant states in the great world religions” (1969: 107). This is also emphasized by Szakolczai (2000: 221), who argues that monastics exemplify a type of “permanent liminality” through their repetition of rituals and monastic practices (celibacy, dietary restrictions, uniform dress and daily schedule) that segregate and detach individuals from the world and focus their attention on other-worldly goals. This is also highlighted by CampbellJones in her study of Catholic nuns, when she argues they are “not quite of this

4 The other groups that Turner suggests experience liminality and a strong sense of com­ munitas include “hippies,” the “beat generation” and “millenarian religious movements” (1969: 111–112).

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world, but not quite dead to the world either” (1979: 187). Silber, in her comparative study of medieval Catholic and Theravada Buddhist monasticism, also makes use of Turner to consider how far these monastic groups are “antistructural” and “liminal.” Interestingly, she sees monasticism as containing both “structural” and “anti-structural” features, and as a result, she argues it should be seen as an “alternative structure” (1995: 41).

Monasticism and Buddhism

Buddhist monasticism has certainly received scholarly attention, particularly in relation to its history and texts (Tsomo 1996: 11, Holt 1995, Silber 1995, Wijayaratna 1990). A number of other studies adopt an ethnographic approach, particularly in terms of monastic women (for example, Bartholomeusz etc. 1994, Cheng 2007, Ploos van Amstel 2005). Both Freeman (1987) and Gutschow (2001, 2004) use the concept of liminality in their studies of Buddhist female monastic experiences in Vietnam and Zangskar, respectively. Freeman (1987: 276) emphasizes the “transitional” nature of Buddhist monasticism, where individuals have renounced mundane social achievements and markers, focusing instead on the goal of enlightenment (nirvana). Gutschow (2001: 202) states that during the monastic ordination process, Zangskari nuns move through ritual and actual separation from the world where they are required to be compliant and live a modest lifestyle focused on Buddhist practice in a communal setting.5 Covell (2005: 20) asserts that “world renouncers are set apart by their way of life,” and he cites seven features of this separation: celibacy, living situation, robes, tonsure, diet, not working for money, and behaviour governed by monastic precepts (Covell 2005: 21, Robson 2010: 3). As Harvey (1990: 218) argues, “the whole aim of monastic life is to diminish attachment to self and its consequent desires and aversions,” and while it might be possible to achieve some element of this without being ordained (Bodhi 2010: 100), monastic commitment is seen as “superior” in many Buddhist traditions (Harvey 1990: 218, Cantwell and Kawanami 2002: 45).6 However, this does not preclude a vital role for lay people in Buddhist societies, particularly in supporting monastic institutions (Lamb 1994: 16), and the ideal society as presented by the Buddha was

5 Gutschow (2001: 191–192) argues that nuns in Zangskar experience “reintegration” when they officially become part of the nuns’ community. 6 Harvey (1990), Lopez (2004: 223) and Wijayaratna (1990) provide accounts of the development of the early Buddhist monastic order.

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“four-fold,” consisting of monks (bhikkhu/bhiksu),7 nuns (bhikkhuni/bhiksuni), laymen (upasaka) and lay women (upasika) (Bartholomeusz 1994: 14). However, Buddhist monastic ordination for women has a complex history (Gutschow 2004: 167, Salgado 2004, Tomalin 2006, Williams 2005). While it is argued that the Buddha established a female ordination lineage when he ordained his step-mother, Mahapajapati (Harvey 2000: 384), the lineage has not remained intact everywhere. Orders of nuns thrived in some countries (such as Taiwan and Korea), but either died out or was never established in others such as Thailand or Tibet (Mohr and Tsedroen 2010: x).8 Regarding contemporary ordination practice, what is available for Buddhist women differs between traditions and lineages (Tsomo 2006). In terms of the women in this study, two had taken bhikkhuni ordination (311 precepts) and two had taken siladhara ordination in a Theravada tradition (10 precepts and further training rules [see Angell, 2006a and b]), two had taken bhiksuni (Tib: gelongma) ordination (248 precepts) in the Mahayana (dharmaguptaka) tradition although they were affiliated with Tibetan schools, three had taken novice (getsulma) ordination within the Tibetan (mulasarvastivada) tradition (10 precepts, which can be subdivided into 36), and one had taken rabjung ordination (5 precepts or vows, including wearing monastic robes and adopting celibacy). Five observe 16 precepts within a Soto Zen tradition (Bluck 2006: 80), and one had taken 238 precepts within a Pure Land tradition. There is also a marked diversity among the living situations of female monastics in Britain: Some live in rural mixed-sex communities, some live alone, some live in smaller single-sex communities. Some live in urban areas of large cities, while others live in small towns. Furthermore, some place an emphasis on contemplative practice, spending significant time in closed retreat, some on social engagement that serves both Buddhist and non-Buddhist communities. Monastic women are referred to by different names: monk,9 nun, Reverend,

7 In this article, the Pali/Sanskrit terms are Romanised without the use of diacritic marks. 8 The bhikkhuni ordination was re-introduced in Sri Lanka in 1998 (Tomalin 2006: 387), although there is an on-going global controversy about (re)establishing the full ordination (upasampada) of the bhikkhuni/bhiksuni lineage in countries where it does not exist. See Tomalin (2006) in terms of Thailand and also Tsomo (1988a) and Bodhi (2010). Salgado (1996:62) has highlighted that, some nuns who are not able to take “full ordination” form “a marginalized and liminal group” (see also Cook 2010:4 in relation to Thai nuns - mae chee). More research is needed to explore how this use of liminality relates to women who have not taken full ordination in the British context. 9 This Soto Zen tradition in Britain refers to both male and female monastics as “monks.”

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Sister, Ajahn, Venerable, Ani, depending on the tradition of which they are a part.10 This diversity in female monasticism reflects a level of diversity within Buddhism in Britain more generally, as well as in Buddhism globally. Although detailed histories of Buddhism in Britain, including how particular monastic communities were formed, is provided by Almond (1988), Bell (1998, 2000), Bluck (2006), Goswell (1988) and Kay (2004) among others, what is important to note is that a number of Buddhist lineages have been “established” on British shores, each bringing a different approach to Buddhist practice (Bluck 2006: 1). In general, Buddhism in the West is seen as emphasizing lay rather than monastic practice (Schedneck 2009: 231, Wallace 2002: 35), even though monastic communities are a feature of many Buddhist traditions in Britain and, as Robson (2010: 2) argues, one cannot “overstate the significance of monasticism within Buddhism.” Most likely as a consequence of this, there is only a relatively limited amount of academic scholarship focussing specifically on Buddhist monastic women in Britain. Notable exceptions to this include Angell (2006a and b), Shaw (2008) and Williams (2005), although these concentrate on Theravada communities, and Williams includes a consideration of countries other than Britain. Goswell’s (1988) study involved both men and women ordained in the Theravada Forest Sangha tradition in Britain (although she gives specific attention to the female community), and Ploos Van Amstel (2005) considers “Western” nuns in Tibetan traditions, although not only those based in Britain. Bluck (2006), Bell (1998, 2000), Cush (1990), Kay (2004) and particularly Waterhouse (1997), do consider gender issues in Buddhism in Britain, although these are not studies solely focused on monastic women. This may be because Buddhist monastic women comprise only a small percentage of the Buddhist population of Britain. Indeed, I estimate that there are likely to be fewer than 150 monastic Buddhist women in Britain within the six groups considered in this chapter. Although Buddhism has become more popular since the 1960s (Bluck 2006:10), the number of Buddhists in Britain remains relatively small. One reason for this includes lower levels of immigration to Britain by Buddhists (from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand or Burma, for example) in comparison to those affiliated with other South Asian “minority religions” such as Islam (Cush 1990: 12).11 10 11

The term “ani” is Tibetan and is used to refer to a nun. The term “Ajahn” is a Thai honorific title for a teacher (http://sujato.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/bhante-or-ajahn/). For more detail about the establishment of ‘minority’ religions in Britain see Woodhead (2012) and, in the same volume, Gilliat-Ray (2012) in relation to Islam. Again in the same volume, Bluck (2012) explores how Buddhism came to Britain, initially through the work of Victorian scholars, and later through conversion and immigration.

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Using 2001 census data, Bluck (2006: 15) suggests that there are 144, 453 Buddhists in England and Wales, and 152,000 Buddhists in the United Kingdom as a whole (0.28% and 0.26% of the population, respectively).12 The following section will explore the first theme of this chapter: the experience of separation and transition during the monastic ordination process and ceremony.

Ordination and “Being Out to Sea”

As all the monastic women in this study were adult converts to Buddhism, it could be argued that the beginning of their separation from their former roles and status and their introduction to the transitional, liminal state began during their conversion to Buddhism. Their growing involvement with Buddhism is part of a process to “reorder, and reorient” (Austin-Broos 2003: 2) as they begin to make an increasing commitment to a particular tradition and group and take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.13 This initial separation and transition is intensified and made increasingly significant when women ask for monastic ordination, participate in their ordination ceremony, and begin their training as novices or junior members of their monastic communities.14 The process of ordination is instigated by making a formal request to be ordained as a Buddhist monastic (in person or by letter), often after a period of time spent as a lay person within a monastic community or connected to a particular teacher. The transitional state begins with waiting for a reply: standing at the shrine or at the door of the head of the monastic community, or waiting for a reply to a letter from a teacher (who may not be based in Britain). If the answer is yes, the woman can begin the (sometimes long) process of preparing for ordination, which can include procuring or making monastic robes. This is an intense and challenging time, even though 12 13

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The recent (2011) census showed an increase in the number of people who self-identify as Buddhists (O.N.S 2012). Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma (the teachings of the Buddha) and the Sangha (the monastic community) is a traditional marker of adherence to Buddhism (Lamb, 1994: 12). In Tibetan traditions, additional refuges may be taken, including in the Guru, or teacher (Lamb 1994, 15; Harvey 1990, 179). In the Pure Land tradition, additional refuges are taken in Amida and the Pure Land. Lamb (1994: 10) provides a description of certain ordination ceremonies in more detail. He argues, making reference to Turner, that “…Buddhist rites of passage conduct one away from the world”.

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it is a path that they have entered onto voluntarily.15 It is described by Ceola (Soto Zen) as “being out to sea” because “You literally have so much (that) is… getting left behind and you are sort of in a state of general turmoil of some kind or another.” This mirrors Turner’s description of the liminal state as a time of “reflection” and upheaval (1967: 105). In this study, the motivation to ordain was often described as a desire to re-focus and deepen dedication to Buddhist practice.16 Whilst Cook (2010: 67), in her ethnography of a group of Thai mae chee,17 identifies a number of different factors that influenced an individual’s decision to ordain, the women in this study expressed a broadly similar rationale. As Kalinda (Tibetan) explains: …there was a sense of wanting to make a strong statement to myself that spiritual development was the centre of my life. Because it’s really difficult to do that in the West. This is further emphasized by Rajana (Theravada): The idea of just being able to make a whole-hearted commitment to one thing was very attractive and that’s one of the things that really drew me to monastic life and keeps me going. Indeed, Delia (Soto Zen) explains that, for her, the cessation of “lay” activities (such as career, homeownership and romantic relationships) was experienced as a “relief” that allowed her to improve her “focus” on meditation. She described that she had “a sense of having found what I needed to do, a true way ahead.” For one monastic, it was of vital importance that she took the ordination vows permanently, for even though her tradition offered temporary ordination, she wanted to make a firm commitment: “I…felt very, very strongly that I wanted to make a life commitment…which is in a way quite strange 15 16 17

This is also recognised by Goswell (1988: 2/179) and she states that following novice ordination “many compared it with dying and being re-born.” Both Shaw (2008:160) and Goswell (1988: 2/122) identify some similar motivations among Theravada (Forest Sangha) monastics in Britain (see also Bluck 2006: 33). Mae Chee are Thai nuns, who take between 8 and 10 precepts. They are not always considered to be monastic, but Cook (2010, 4) argues that the mae chee in the Thai monastery that she studied have developed a monastic practice and are becoming esteemed teachers of vipassana (insight) meditation. Although Cook (2010: 6) recognizes the “heterogeneity of the monastic community,” she identifies that “ordination is conceptualized as an opportunity to ‘do work’ on oneself through meditation.”

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because before you become ordained, you can have no clue what it’s going to be like.” During the ordination ceremony itself, whilst the ritual order and wording differs between traditions, the motifs remain comparable (Lopez 2004: 230). Renouncing the householder or lay life, moving on from past social situations and dedicating oneself to the teachings of the Buddha (dhamma/dharma) are shared themes. For example, during the Soto Zen ordination ceremony, the postulants ceremonially let go of attachments by bowing to someone who represents their past, recognizing the role of their parents, and ceremonially bowing facing the stairs, emphasizing their movement away from their previous life and roles. Even for those whose ordination ceremony was conducted in a language that they did not understand, they emphasised the elements of renunciation: “Occasionally I had to repeat promises and vows in Tibetan… After this (the preceptor) explained the vows and what it meant to renounce the householder life” (Elizabeth, Tibetan Gelug). The process of ordination, and the ceremony itself, is frequently described as “life-transforming.” Most of the women in this study had had educational achievements, careers, families, relationships, and many had been home-owners and financially self-sufficient (see also, Shaw 2008: 160). When they are ordained, most aim to reject these markers of status, and their ordination ceremonies are experienced as joyous events and celebrations of deepening dedication to Buddhist practice, and signify formal acceptance to a Buddhist tradition, group or lineage (Cook 2010: 62). As Rajana (Theravada) explains: It’s like a kind of outward manifestation of a very significant shift that you are making in your own way of life and practice, from being independent, having money, driving, you are making yourself totally dependent not having money18 and serving in a different way, so it’s a very beautiful ritual, very lovely. In describing their reactions to their ceremonies, the words “joy,” “wonderful,” “lovely” and “moving” were often repeated by the monastic women. To Elizabeth, the ceremony was: Just complete joy, just complete joy. There wasn’t anywhere else I wanted to be, there wasn’t anything else I wanted to do, there (were) no ifs or buts…I couldn’t wait. 18

Of the groups in this study, only the Tibetan and Theravada traditions include vows not to “handle money,” although this is practiced in different ways in Britain (see Bluck 2006: 121).

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However, there were instances where the language of the ordination ceremony affected the experience as more than one ordained woman testified that they were not always sure exactly what was happening in the ceremony, what they had to do, and the precise translation of what they were agreeing to. It is important, therefore, not to idealize or simplify the transition to monasticism. One monastic described her ceremony as less than wonderful on account of the fact that she did not really feel that she was the sort of person who would commit to a life of celibacy and renunciation, and had taken herself almost by surprise when she felt pulled toward monastic ordination. In many ways, her relationship with monasticism and its practices has been marked with more challenge and difficulty than expressed by others, highlighting that it is not a one-size-fits-all experience. This uncertainty and questioning in terms of monastic vocation was also expressed by Prasanna (Theravada): “I was quite kind of surprised about the feeling, the calling (to be a monastic) and felt also uneasy about it, because I didn’t want to be a celibate nun, it was the last thing I envisioned for me.” As part of their ordination, all Buddhist monastics take on “vows”, “precepts” and “training rules”, in the majority of cases for life, which aim to shape how they relate to those within and without the monastic community, as well as regulating individual conduct (Tsomo 1988c: 54, 59). Although there is variation in the precepts among traditions, the vows and practices that are taken at ordination are a disciplinary means through which a monastic can work toward enlightenment (nibbana/nirvana) (Ploos Van Amstel 2005: 74), acting at the same time as a “blueprint for transcendence of the world and a strategy for order within this world” (Holt 1995:16, [italics in original]). Yet, as Cook (2010: 15) indicates, monastic “renunciation” does not happen solely when one takes the steps to become a monastic (and ritually accepts monastic vows at an ordination ceremony, for example), but is part of an engaged process (that she calls an “on-going project”) which continues throughout monastic life. Szakolczai (2000: 221) asserts that it is the repetition of “rites of separation” that mark the monastic as permanently liminal. For the women in this study, the repeated reminder of their monastic status is expressed in various ways, ranging from periods of retreat (sometimes silent), communal work schedules, daily meditation, chanting or ritual activity as part of the monastic ­community, to twice-monthly confession and chanting of the monastic regulations undertaken by those in the Theravada tradition (Angell 2006a: 103, Bluck 2006: 29). While not all monastic women relate to ritual or ceremonial practice in the same way, what appears to be shared (particularly by those who live in monasteries) is the value that regular communal practice brings in both binding a group together, reinforcing monastic priorities and vows, and

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strengthening their dedication to following the dharma above other mundane pursuits. As Rajana explains: The…confession and…our recitation (of the precepts) is just helpful to give a sense of this particular group of people (who) are doing this…we’re supporting each other in the practice and furthering our own practice…. Ultimately, the adoption of a particular set of precepts and practices by monastics highlights their distinctive role and focus (Tsomo 1988c: 59, Tsomo 1996: 9). This is further expressed through the changes that are made to appearance and name.

“Clothing Myself in the Buddha’s Words”

Ordination entails a number of material changes, including the adoption of robes and a Buddhist ordination name and shaving the head. While changing one’s name on ordination is not a material change per se, I consider dress, hair and name together because they are all markers of the monastic identity and function in broadly similar ways. As Holt (1995: 124) argues, full ordination marks a “transition from an old orientation to a new orientation.” This transition is visually represented in terms of dress practices (Havnevik 1989: 35). On ordination, all of the women in this study adopted Buddhist monastic robes of different styles and types, all shaved their heads, and all but one adopted a Buddhist name. These material changes differentiate monastics from the laity19 (Gutschow 2001: 192) and clearly identify their changed roles following ordination.20 By adopting religious dress, monastic women reject what is required from lay women in terms of appearance, and in this study, they frequently described this as “freeing” them from expectations of female behaviour within contemporary British society. In practical terms, several women noted that wearing uniform dress afforded them more time each day to focus on Buddhist teachings and meditation practices, as they did not have 19

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However, Gutschow (2001: 196) also notes that there is “much more fluidity between the householder and ascetic realms” in Zangskar as compared to the Theravada Buddhist world. In terms of the function of religious dress, there are interesting parallels between this study and the experiences of Catholic nuns and monastics as described by Palmisano (2014) and Trzebiatowska (2010). In particular, Trezbiatowska (2010: 62) argues that the habit is both “a material expression of the collective values of the religious order as well as an active participant in the creation of such values…”

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to deliberate over their appearance (see also Shaw 2008: 162). Moreover, in Buddhism, shaving the head of a monastic is a marker of celibacy and a rejection of involvement in sexual relationships (Gutschow 2001: 194, Lang 1995: 33). During ordination ceremonies, most women offer a tuft of hair (and often this tuft is cut by the preceptor or celebrant during the ceremony), and according to Van Gennep (1960: 166), this ritual action “bind(s) oneself to the sacred world” (see also Gutschow 2001: 194). In addition, some burn three cones of incense into their foreheads, physically embodying their dedication to the Buddhadharma (Freeman 1987: 276–277). Dress, hair and name practices also act as a daily “reminder” to individuals of their monastic vows (Trzebiatowska 2010: 61, Tsomo 1988c: 57). Each time they get dressed, see their reflection, are called by their monastic name or shave their heads, they are reminded of their role as a monastic, their intentions and aims, ensuring the continual and repeated emphasis on separation and transition. Ailith (Soto Zen) calls this “a physical acknowledgment” of Buddhist monastic ideals. For those following the Tibetan tradition, monastics also refrain from wearing white and black, as this is seen to be a colour associated with the laity Tsomo, 1996: 144. Several of the women found it significant that the robes that they wore were modelled on the original robes of the Buddha, with the traditional “rice paddy” design, which features squares of fabric sewn together to mirror how a rice field is laid out. Wu (2001: 254) explains that “each patch symbolizes a field of merit, and this merit-field robe is a symbol of Buddhism” (Wu 2001: 254). These women felt this connected them to the original practice of Buddhist renunciation. For Dhatri (Pure Land), her appearance actually connects her to the Buddha’s teachings: “The precepts hold me; the robe holds me, as if I’m clothing myself in the Buddha’s words.” Wearing uniform dress emphasizes one’s commitment to a particular community and subsequently ties the person, in the eyes of others, to a particular set of values and practices (Trzebiatowska 2010, Tsomo 1988c: 62). For Keenan (1999: 391), “to be dressed religiously is to wear one’s faith on one’s sleeves” and the significance of dress in making one’s values visible to non-monastics is evoked by Rajana (Theravada): “Making a clear statement about what you’re interested in…far outweigh(s) the possible benefits of looking like everybody else.” As well as connecting the individual monastic to a particular community, however, dress and hair practices (alongside the other elements of monastic discipline) also help support monastics to achieve Buddhist objectives (Holt 1995: 3). By removing choices in dress and hairstyle, monastics are encouraged to let go of “attachment to appearance” and “individuality” (Chodron 2001: 30). Gutschow (2001: 192) highlights that the ritual process of tonsure and adopting monastic robes and names is “deeply transformative.” As Edwina (Soto Zen)

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explains: “The day I became a postulant was the day that my hair was cut and I put on robes…that was when my life changed.” Adopting a Buddhist name on ordination is seen not only as a marker of life change, but also as providing aspiration for spiritual development. Ordained names are often chosen by preceptors or teachers to reflect something positive within a prospective monastic’s personality, or something to which to aspire. Letting go of your identification with the name given to you at birth also supports Turner’s assertion (1969: 95) that liminal persons are homogenous, with every “secular” identification removed. This is reflected by several women who valued the homogeneity (including that between men and women)21 in uniform dress and non-gender specific names, arguing it helps them to move away from a fixed identification with being a woman and any subsequent expectations in roles and behaviour.22 To cite one example, Ceola asserts, “I’m not particularly thinking of myself as a self.” However, others mentioned that although their dress might be androgynous, they continued to be aware of, and respond to, their female form. As one participant explains, “I’m still a woman”. It is important to recognize, therefore, that there are divergent attitudes to monastic dress among the women of this study. Furthermore, not all monastics wear the robe at all times. Soto Zen monks are not required to wear robes outside the monastery (Cush 1990: 26). Instead, they are permitted to wear what they call “town clothes.” They are also allowed to grow their hair or wear a wig if they are visiting family, as this helps them fit in outside the monastic environment and helps not to upset family members who might not be used to seeing their daughters with shaved heads. One nun in the Tibetan tradition was also given permission to wear non-monastic clothes with her (non-Buddhist) parents, as robes might “disturb their mind too much.” In addition to this, two women emphasized that monastic robes were somewhat awkward to wear and had made some adaptations to how they wore them (particularly to suit the British weather). Another described her monastic robes as “on duty” clothes 21

22

Of the women in this study, only the Theravada siladhara wear different robes from the ordained men in their tradition. (For a more detailed consideration of the siladhara robes, see Angell 2006a: 100). Within Buddhist philosophy (particularly exemplified in Mahayana ideas of sunyata – emptiness − but also present in earlier Buddhist thought), “gender” has been represented as impermanent and changeable (Faure 2003:120, Tsomo 1988b:80). Furthermore, an enlightened mind is deemed to have moved beyond attachment to conventional and fixed binaries of “male” and “female” (Gross 1993: 77; Lindberg Falk 2007: 50). However, it is vital to recognize that the relationship between gender and Buddhism is complex and multi-faceted (Faure 2003: 57, Sponberg 1992: 4) and is outside the scope of this chapter to explore in more detail.

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(although she did emphasize that robes were “beneficial”). Furthermore, one monastic in this study did not change her name (partly because others within her tradition in the West had set a precedent not to), and not all ordained women changed their names legally. Although this diversity in attitude should not be interpreted as a lack of commitment to monastic practice or tradition (commitment to the Buddhist path was frequently articulated as internal rather than solely through external markers and forms), it does highlight that separation and transition might be experienced and expressed in different ways, particularly for those not living in a monastic community.

Liminality Outside the Monastery

For Turner, a person in the liminal phase is detached from social roles and liminality is “frequently likened to death” (1969: 95). Liminal groups are “conceptually, socially and physically…set apart from normal society” (Kamau 2002: 20). For those living in Buddhist monasteries, this emphasis on physical separation rings true as monastic communities can be situated in remote locations (Silber 1995: 38). However, not all Buddhist monastic women in Britain live within monasteries. The reasons for this include a combination of choice and necessity. Some ordained women made a deliberate and conscious decision to live outside a monastic environment, either due to familial responsibilities (including ties to particular geographic locations) or because of a preference for living with a smaller number of people or alone. The options are limited for some women owing to the lack of monasteries in Britain, most notably for the Tibetan Gelug nuns. Although the Soto Zen tradition has a monastery, it also has several smaller priories and temples across Britain, and in these settings usually one monk lives alone and serves the surrounding lay community. I argue, therefore, that the relationships that ordained women have with wider society and their social roles (such as employee or neighbour) for those who live alone will be different from those women living within monastery walls. Social context thus has an impact on the experience of liminality. In this study, nine monastic women lived alone or as the only monastic in a lay Buddhist community (and a further four had spent time living outside a monastery at some point following their ordination). While there is diversity in their attitudes toward their living situations, five mentioned that living outside a monastic environment had an impact on their monastic vows and practices hence, I would argue, their transitional, liminal status. Of those living alone, seven owned their own homes or lived in rented properties, and four of these women continued to have the additional responsibility of getting enough

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money in order to pay rent or mortgage and bills. In addition to financial responsibilities, a number continued to play familial roles after their ordination, including helping to look after grandchildren or supporting children or ageing parents and having responsibilities toward, and relationships with, siblings. Some monastic women are therefore still fulfilling similar social roles to those they carried out prior to ordination – parent, employee, bill payer, community member (Chodron 2009, Tsomo, 1999: 12). Most don’t see this as a problem in relation to their Buddhist practice and argue, like Wu (2001: 85), that while they still maintain familial relationships, they feel qualitatively different post-ordination. However, for some, the maintenance of “lay” responsibilities and connections has a direct impact on their ability to renounce fully householder life, as decreed by their monastic vows, and certainly affects the experience of liminality as described by Turner. So, although Padma took a pragmatic approach to earning and handling money and Dolma felt handling money was inevitable when living alone in the West, Kalinda stated “…it very hard having to actually be in a lay situation where I am earning a living, basically being a householder.” This potential tension between lay and monastic responsibilities is also reported in other Western and non-Western locations (Chodron 2009; Choedron 2013), and therefore contributes to what Tsomo calls “the paradox between the ideal of renunciation and the realities of survival” (1999: 13). These challenges have also been recognised by Ploos Van Amstel (2005: 147), who argues that “solitary nuns are certainly – by their living situation – forced to find ways to interpret their vows.” Nevertheless, some women in this study found this more challenging than others. Although separation is a feature of the liminal state, Robson (2010: 8) argues that Buddhist monastics have rarely experienced their renunciation completely removed from wider society. In the introduction to his jointly edited collection on monasticism in medieval China and Japan, he notes that the rarefied picture of Buddhist monasticism as completely “world-transcendent” does not reflect the heterogeneity of the monastic experience. In addition, he asserts that a relationship between Buddhist monastics and the laity was, in fact, vital to the survival of the monastic community, as the laity traditionally provide monastics with “material support” (Robson 2010: 7–8). This is also emphasised by Harvey, who identifies an “often close” relationship between the two social groups, and further acknowledged by Silber and Wu (Harvey 1990: 217, Silber 1995: 67, Wu 2001: 85, Bell 1998: 150, 169). Moreover, Lopez (2004: 329) argues that in early Buddhist communities in India this also included ongoing connections between monastics and their families. An association with the lay community is often highly valued, and one monastic in this study emphasized that she was completely enabled to live outside the monastery

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through the (financial and in-kind) backing offered to her by lay supporters. However, not all monastic women in this study who live alone received enough financial backing to enable them to give up earning money, regardless of how difficult they might find this. There is, however, a certain level of fluidity in the living situations of ordained women, as even those based in particular monastic communities might spend periods of time living in other locations − in Britain and around the world − most often, although not exclusively, in the other monasteries or priories within their tradition. Ordained women might also travel to give or receive teachings, and therefore come into contact with different Buddhist (and non-Buddhist) communities (see also Shaw 2008: 161). Moreover, some monastic women do not want to live completely apart from contemporary society. Dhatri (Pure Land) was clear that while she wanted to commit to focusing on Buddhist practice, she wanted this in “a monastery without walls,” in order to be of service to other people. The desire to help others (both Buddhist, and non-Buddhist) through ordination motivated at least half of the women in this study and has also been reported by Western Buddhist monastics in other countries (Tsomo 1999: 10, Ploos van Amstel 2005: 173). Yet the scale of social engagement differs between individual women. In this study while four monastics, at least, had been involved in public demonstrations and had helped to facilitate community projects − both in the uk and abroad, others retained a more contemplative focus, although the majority provided one-on-one support or teaching to lay practitioners (see also Chodron 2009). Yet, even for those living outside a monastery, while they may have to engage with wider society in the main, they may also enter into periods of closed retreat (often within monasteries or retreat centres) or dedicate particular times of the year to a more intensive focus on meditative practice or study, sometimes as part of a group and sometimes alone. Conclusion This chapter argues for the recognition of heterogeneity between Buddhist monastic women in the contemporary British context and the impact of such diversity on the liminal monastic image put forward by Turner. While I agree with Cook (2010: 2) that “the idea of detachment is central to the monastic community’s imagining of itself,” this chapter has shown that the actual experience of detachment, separation and transition is shaped in part by the particular location and circumstances of the monastic practitioner. While highlighting the deep dedication that monastic women in Britain bring to Buddhist practice, evidence from this study supports Silber’s (1995: 38) call for a “fuller and more contextual understanding of monasticism.”

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My focus has been on experiences of separation and transition, and I have not given sufficient attention to some of the additional features of the liminal stage, such as communitas, hierarchy, obedience or passivity. In addition, I have emphasized the individual experiences of monastic women rather than the relationships that Buddhist organizations have with wider British (Buddhist and non-Buddhist) society. It has also been beyond the scope of this chapter to consider gender issues in any detail, and further work is on-going to explore how the experiences of the women in this study compare with Buddhist monastic women in other studies, both in Britain and beyond. However, what I have shown is that although Buddhist monastic women in a British context undoubtedly undergo a process of separation and transition as they shift from a lay to a monastic role, it is difficult for those living alone without financial support to maintain this on a permanent basis. While I argue that “liminality” is a useful lens through which to examine the complex data from this study, I challenge the imposition of too prescriptive or rigid a framework for analyzing expressions of contemporary monasticism. This appreciation of variety in the monastic experience also applies beyond the borders of Buddhism and Britain. As Stefania Palmisano indicted in Chapter 5, for example, it is important to recognize the differences between Catholic New Monastic Communities and “classical” monastic traditions in Italy, particularly in how they “reinterpret the meaning of monastic archetypes” in relation to contemporary requirements. Therefore, she stresses that “it is necessary to avoid a monolithic conception of monasticism.” Indeed, as Tweed (2006: 59) argues, “religions are not reified substances but complex processes,” and evidence from this study supports the idea that an individual’s location and circumstances can impact upon his or her experience of monasticism. References Almond, Philip C. 1988. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Angell, Jane. 2006a. “Women in Brown: A Short History of the Order of Siladhara, Nuns of the English Forest Sangha, Part One.” Buddhist Studies Review 23: 93–112. —— . 2006b. “Women in Brown: A Short History of the Order of Siladhara, Nuns of the English Forest Sangha, Part Two.” Buddhist Studies Review 23: 221–240. Austin-Broos, Diana 2003. “The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction.” Pp. 1–12 in The Anthropology of Religious Conversion, edited by A. Buckser and S.G. Glazier. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. Bartholomeusz, Tessa J. 1994. Women under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Baumann, Martin. 2002. “Buddhism in Europe: Past, Present, Prospects.” Pp. 85–105 in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, edited by C.S. Prebish and M. Baumann. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bell, Sandra. 1998. “British Theravada Buddhism: Otherworldly Theories and the Theory of Exchange.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 13: 149–170. —— . 2000. “Being Creative with Tradition: Rooting Theravada Buddhism in Britain.” Journal of Global Buddhism 1: 1–23. Bluck, Robert. 2006. British Buddhism: Teachings, Practice and Development. New York: Routledge. —— . 2012. “Buddhism.” Pp. 131–143 in Religion and Change in Modern Britain, edited by L. Woodhead and R. Catto. New York: Routledge. Bodhi, Bhikkhu. 2010. “The Revival of Bhikkhuni Ordination in the Theravada Tradition.” Pp. 99–142 in Dignity and Discipline: Reviving Full Ordination for Buddhist Nuns, edited by T. Mohr and J. Tsedroen. Boston: Wisdom. Campbell-Jones, Suzanne. 1979. In Habit: An Anthropological Study of Working Nuns. London: Faber and Faber. Cantwell, Cathy and Hiroko Kawanami. 2002. “Buddhism.” Pp. 47–81 in Religions in the Modern World, edited by L. Woodhead, P. Fletcher, H. Kawanami, and D. Smith. London: Routledge. Cheng, Wei-Yi. 2007. Buddhist Nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka: A Critique of the Feminist Perspective. London: Routledge. Chodron, Thubten. 2001. “A Contemporary Cultural Perspective on Monastic Life.” Pp. 27–37 in Choosing Simplicity: Commentary on the Bhikshuni Pratimoksha by Bhikshuni Wu Yin, edited by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, translated by Bhikshuni Jendy Shih. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion. —— . 2009. “Buddhist Education for Nuns in Western Countries: A Paper Presented at the 2009 International Conference for Buddhist Sangha Education, Taipei, Taiwan, May 2009.” http://www.thubtenchodron.org/BuddhistNunsMonasticLife/luminary _ conf.pdf (accessed 09.08.2013). Choedron, Karma Tashi. 2013. “Buddha’s Lone Rangers: Vajrayana Nuns of Contemporary Suvarnabhumi.” Unpublished paper presented at Buddhism at the Grassroots:13th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women. Vaishali, India 5–12 January 2013. Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. Cook, Joanna. 2010. Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai Monastic Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Covell, Stephen G. 2005. Japanese Temple Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Cush, Denise. 1990. Buddhists in Britain Today. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Faure, Bernard. 2003. The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity and Gender. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press.

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Freeman, James M. 1987. “Turnings in the Life of a Vietnamese Nun.” Pp. 264–278 in Betwixt and Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation, edited by L. Carus, S. Mahdi, S. Foster and M. Little (eds.). La Salle, il: Open Court. Gilliat-Ray, Sophie. 2012. “Islam.” in Pp. 110–121 in Religion and Change in Modern Britain, edited by L. Woodhead and R. Catto. New York: Routledge. Goswell, Marilyn. 1988. “Motivational Factors in the Life of a Religious Community, and Related Changes in the Experience of Self.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bath. Gross, Rita M. 1993. Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis and Reconstruction of Buddhism. Albany, ny: suny Press. Gutschow, Kim. 2001. “What Makes a Nun? Apprenticeship and Ritual Passage in Zangskar, North India.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studie, 24: 187–197. —— . 2004. Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press. Harvey, Peter. 1990. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— . 2000. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Havnevik, Hanna. 1989. Tibetan Buddhist Nuns: History, Cultural Norms and Social Reality. Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Holt, John Clifford. 1995. Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapitaka, 2nd ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Kamau, Lucy Jayne. 2002. “Liminality, Communitas, Charisma and Community.” Pp. 17–40 in Intentional Community: An Anthropological Perspective, edited by S.L. Brown. Albany, N.Y: suny Press. Kay, David N. 2004. Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantation, Development and Adaptation. London: Routledge. Keenan, William. 1999. “From Friars to Fornicators: The Eroticization of Sacred Dress.” Fashion Theory 3: 389–410. Lamb, Christopher. 1994. “Buddhism.” Pp 10–40 in Rites of Passage, edited by J. Holm and J. Bowker. London: Pinter. Lang, Karen Christina. 1995. “Shaven Heads and Loose Hair: Buddhist Attitudes toward Hair and Sexuality.” Pp. 32–52 Off with Her Head! The Denial of Women’s Identity in Myth, Religion and Culture, edited by H. Eilberg-Schwartz and W. Doniger. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lindberg Falk, Monica. 2007. Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand. Copenhagen: nias Press. Lopez, Donald S. 2004. Buddhist Scriptures. London: Penguin.

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Mohr, Thea and Jampa Tsedroen. 2010. “Preface.” Pp.ix–xii in Dignity and Discipline: Reviving Full Ordination for Buddhist Nuns, edited by T. Mohr and J. Tsedroen. Somerville: Wisdom. O.N.S. 2012. Religion in England and Wales 2011 [Online]. ons. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and -wales/rpt-religion.html (accessed 17/12/2012). Palmisano, Stefania. 2014. “Contemporary Evolution in Monasticism in Italy.” Pp. 78–99. Forthcoming in Christianity in the Modern World: Changes and Controversies, edited by G. Vincett. Farnham: Ashgate. Ploos Van Amstel, Thessa. 2005. “Sandpaper Sisterhood: Western Nuns in Tibetan Buddhist Traditions.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht. Robson, James. 2010. “Introduction: ‘Neither Too Far, nor Too Near’: The Historical and Cultural Contexts of Buddhist Monasteries in Medieval China and Japan.” Pp. 1–17 in Buddhist Monasticism in East Asia: Places of Practice, edited by J.A.Benn, L. Meeks and J. Robson. London: Routledge. Salado, Nirmala. S. 1996: “Ways of Knowing and Transmitting Religious Knowledge: Case Studies of Theravada Buddhist Nuns”. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 19, 1: 61–79. Salgado, Nirmala. S. 2004. “Religious Identities of Buddhist Nuns: Training Precepts, Renunciant Attire and Nomenclature in Theravada Buddhism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72: 935–953. Schedneck, Brooke. 2009. “Western Buddhist Perceptions of Monasticism.” Buddhist Studies Review 26: 229–246. Shaw, Sarah 2008. “The Development of the Theravada Order of Nuns in Britain.” Pp. 151–169 in Dharma to the u.k: A Centennial Celebration of Buddhist Legacy, edited by M. Deegalle. London: World Buddhist Foundation. Silber, Ilana Friedrich 1995. Virtuosity, Charisma, and Social Order: A Comparative Study of Monasticism in Theravada Buddhism and Medieval Catholicism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sponberg, Alan. 1992. “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism.” Pp. 3–36 in Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, edited by J.I. Cabezon. Albany, ny: suny Press. Szakolczai, Arpad. 2000. Reflexive Historical Sociology. London: Routledge. Tomalin, Emma. 2006. “The Thai Bhikkhuni Movement and Women’s Empowerment.” Gender and Development. 14: 385–397. Trzebiatowska, Marta. 2010. “Habit Does Not a Nun Make? Religious Dress in the Everyday Lives of Polish Catholic Nuns.” Journal of Contemporary Religion. 25: 51–65. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. 1988a. “Ordination as a Buddhist Nun.” Pp. 53–65 in Sakyadhita: Daughters of the Bhudda, edited by K.L. Tsomo. Ithaca, ny: Snow Lion. —— . 1988b. “The Potentialities of Women in Buddhism.” Pp. 79–85 in Sakyadhita: Daughters of the Buddha, edited by K.L. Tsomo. Ithaca, ny: Snow Lion.

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—— . 1988c. “The Bhiksuni Issue.” Pp. 215–224 in Sakyadhita: Daughters of the Buddha, edited by K.L. Tsomo. Ithaca, ny: Snow Lion. —— . 1996. Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women. A Comparative Analysis of the Chinese Dharmagupta and the Tibetan Mulasarvastivada Bhiksuni Pratimoksa Sutras. Albany, ny: suny Press. —— . 1999. “History of Buddhist Monasticism and Its Western Adaptation.” Pp. 3–16 Blossoms of the Dharma: Living as a Buddhist Nun, edited by T. Chodron. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. —— . 2006. “Buddhist Nuns in the Global Community.” www.congress-on-buddhistwomen.org (accessed 22.11.2006). Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. —— . 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Tweed, Thomas A. 2006. Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press. Van Gennep, Arnold. 1960 [1909]. The Rites of Passage, translated by M.B. Vizedom and G.L. Caffee. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wallace, B. Alan 2002. “The Spectrum of Buddhist Practice in the West.” Pp. 34–50 Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, edited by C.S. Prebish and M. Baumann. Berkeley: University of California Press. Waterhouse, Helen. 1997. Buddhism in Bath: Adaptation and Authority. Leeds: University of Leeds. Weber, Donald. 1995. “From Limen to Border: A Meditation on the Legacy of Victor Turner for American Cultural Studies.” American Quarterly. 47: 525–536. Wijayaratna, Mohan. 1990. Buddhist Monastic Life According to the Texts of the Theravada Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, Liz. 2005. “Women’s Ordination in Theravada Buddhism: Ancient Evidence and Modern Debates.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Sunderland. Woodhead, Linda. 2012. “Introduction: Judaism, Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.” Pp. 86–88 Religion and Change in Modern Britain, edited by L. Woodhead and R. Catto. New York: Routledge. Wu, Yin. 2001. Choosing Simplicity: A Commentary on the Bhiksuni Pratimoksa, edited by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, translated by Bhikshuni Jendy Shih. Ithaca, n.y: Snow Lion.

chapter 13

A Space of Mountains within a Forest of Buildings? Urban Buddhist Monasteries in Contemporary Korea Florence Galmiche Taking a break from the coex, one of the largest underground shopping centers in Asia, or from its adjoining gigantic conference center, a visitor to Seoul would immediately come across the massive Buddhist monastery of Pongŭnsa. If she goes through the monumental door, she will be welcomed by a team of Buddhist volunteers in charge of tourists. She will then enjoy a guided visit of the monastery, in English or in Japanese, even perhaps in French or German. She will receive explanations about Buddhism and monastic lifestyle as well as introductions to the art of tea and to meditation. While discovering the beauty of Korean architecture and getting a glimpse of the serene atmosphere of a tea room, she may be surprised by the number of busy activities going on in the diverse monastery halls: several hundred of mothers praying for their children’s success on the university entrance examination with a small photo of their child pinned to their prayer books, devotees and monks setting up a public exhibition to present the ample remodeling and development plan of the monastery, older men cheerfully talking together near soft-drink vending machines, and a group of women rushing to their sutra-study class. What is a sach’al 1 today in the South Korean capital? Should we call it a monastery, a temple or a kind of Buddhist mega-church? Buddhism in twentieth century Korea has been characterized by the crossing and occasional confrontation of two major concerns: the quest for modernization and social integration on the one hand, and the overhaul and reaffirmation of its monastic legitimacy on the other. By tracing some characteristics of the recent development and transformation of Buddhism in Korea, this chapter aims at questioning aspects of the contemporary relationship between calls for greater engagement with the world and aspirations to restore and rejuvenate monastic asceticism. It, like the debate it traces, is organized in a somehow dialectic logic. The first part focuses on a movement from the mountains to the cities. It sketches how reform projects tend to reorganize a criticized “monastic tradition” in accordance with 1 The Korean term sach’al can be translated as both Buddhist monastery and Buddhist temple. The ambiguity appearing in this translation reflects the issue that this chapter is trying to address. Here, both terms will be used in an almost interchangeable way. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004283503_014

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conceptions of a “modern religion,” and it describes some of the changes in the role and status of the laity. The second part deals with presenting another side of the picture. It focuses on the emphasis given to monasticism’s aspects of asceticism and world withdrawal. It makes another detour in recent history to present the movements advocating a monastic reform of Buddhism and tries to explore how withdrawal from the world is considered today.

Monasteries as Buddhism’s Grave? Modernization Movements and Questioning Monasticism

After five centuries of relegation to a secondary position during the Chosŏn kingdom (1392–1896),2 the status of Buddhism achieved a significant revival at the end of the nineteenth century (Park JY 2010).3 However, this new opportunity for Buddhist communities to increase their influence in society occurred in the midst of troubled times and in a context of growing Japanese and western influence.4 When the law that prohibited Buddhist monks from entering the capital was suspended in 1895, missionaries from various Japanese Buddhist schools as well as Protestant and Catholic missionaries were already actively proselytizing in Korea. Buddhist monks expected to revive Buddhism, but they also faced the necessity of redefining their identity in front of modernization efforts as well as several other competing religions. Worried by the threat of the further marginalization of Buddhism (or even its disappearance) and looking for a means to give a greater role and importance to Dharma in the “new society,” some intellectuals called for a reform of Korean Buddhism and particularly criticized the gap between monasteries and society. In spite of significant divergences, these reformists were particularly active in denouncing the isolation of Buddhism and the distance between the

2 Buddhism has played a key role in the social and cultural history of Korea, but its place is far from having been undisputed nor has it been continuously predominant. After its introduction in the peninsula at the end of the fourth century, Buddhism played the role of a state religion with a strong influence in the Silla and Koryŏ kingdoms. This status was drastically weakened, however, by the foundation of the Chosŏn kingdom (1392–1896) on the ideological base of Confucianism. The new dynasty excluded Buddhist monks and institutions from public affairs: monks were banished from the capital and Buddhism was relegated to a more peripheral position. (On the repression of Buddhism in Korea – and for a more nuanced view, see Bruneton 2011). 3 The history of Chosŏn Buddhism has recently attracted a new attention, and excessively negative depictions of its state of weakness as well as the overemphasis put on the consequences of the Korean port opening in 1876 have been challenged (Cho 2003, Walraven 2007). 4 The Yi dynasty was overthrown in 1910 and Korea was officially annexed by Japan the same year.

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monastic community and the social concerns of the laity. Emphasizing both the survival of Buddhism and its duty to engage in the realization of a better society, they advocated a process of secularization (in the sense of engagement with the world) and, for some of them, the authorization of clerical marriage. In this intellectual context, critics particularly targeted the remote location of monasteries and their tendency to valorize renunciation. One of the influential figures of the time, the monk Han Yongun,5 was particularly vehement in criticizing monastic withdrawal. He ironically describes monasteries as “a special world outside of the normal world…concerned only with their own cleanliness” and regrets that Since ancient times how many of the accomplished and famous have entered these formal ‘separate universes’ – from the point of view of the spirit, these devil-inhabited black mountains – to decay there in silence, together with the grass and the trees, without sending a single message to the outside world? han 1913/2008: 84, 78

In his treatise “On the Reformation of Korean Buddhism,” he pointed out that this distance from the world was a major cause of what he depicts as the social and spiritual decay of Korean Buddhism.6 In order to compete with other religions and to offset the monastic withdrawal from the world, modernist reformers of Buddhism have emphasized proselytization as their most crucial priority. As extensively analyzed by Mark Nathan (2010: 41–42), the concept of “Buddhist propagation (p’ogyo)” was “a ubiquitous feature in nearly all the writings on Korean Buddhism reform in the first two decades of colonial rule.” Tightly associated with a concern for developing religious education among both the monastics and the laity, this new task has been accompanied by a movement of Buddhist activities from the mountains to the cities. Several schools were created with the aim of giving monks an education in line with the new times – integrating, for example, geography, natural sciences and history (Taehan pulgyo Chogyejong kyoyugwŏn 2005: 104–108). In addition, Buddhist monks attempted, with more or less 5 Han Yongun or Manhae, 1879–1944. 6 “Living in a secluded valleys deep in the mountains, the monks would not have known it even if Heaven and Earth were smashed to pieces. (...) That is why now, when the flags and standards of the different religions are as many as the trees in the forests, Buddhism is unable even to raise a flag of surrender.” (Han, 1913/2008: 85). Han Yongun based a large part of his critic on a very negative view of Chosŏn Buddhism described as in decay. However, as highlighted by Boudewijn Walraven for example, these modernist calls for reform have also contributed to a distorted vision of earlier Buddhism.

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success, to create “propagation centers” aimed at the laity in villages and cities. In 1910, several monasteries collaborated to open the “Central Propagation Center of Korean Buddhism (Chosŏn pulgyo chungang p’ogyodang)” in Seoul which was followed in 1912 by the “Central Propagation Center of the Korean Sŏn Order (Chosŏn sŏnjong chungang p’ogyodang).” In 1913 there were 18 propagation centers in Korea. This number increased to 117 in 1930 (Park 2005: 101). The success of these newly created institutions remained limited, and many closed their doors after a few years. However, they contributed to the development of Buddhism within the cities as well as the emergence of Buddhist temples primarily directed to the laity.

The Development of a Buddhist Religious Identity for the Laity

The integration of laity was one of the most crucial challenges met by Buddhist institutions in the twentieth century, and the definition and the role of lay Buddhists has been, and to some extent remains, a critical question. In spite of several attempts to reduce the distance between the monastics and the laity, this issue is a recurrent concern in Buddhist circles. In the second half of the twentieth century, intellectual lay Buddhists have expressed particularly sharp criticisms against the monastic community, reproaching it for neglecting “common believers” and the spreading of Buddhist teachings. These criticisms were markedly voiced by the movement of Minjung Buddhism (Chung 1997: 91) and by engaged lay groups who more broadly reproached dominant Buddhist institutions for a lack of social investment and for a politically conservative position. In addition, alternative Buddhist schools have further challenged the dominant organization, the Chogye Order, by strongly emphasizing lay practice and adaptation to modern society. In this context, many lay Buddhists gathered in more or less independent associations where they organized classes, lectures and reflections on the reform of Buddhist institutions. Beside this generally intellectual – and sometimes militant – form of lay Buddhism, the largest portion of the people attending temples were until recently not actively labeling themselves as “Buddhists.” Yoon Yee-Heum, analyzing the conditions of surveys about religion conducted in Korea in the 1980s, pointed out that: “[In contrast to] Christians [who] can accurately be counted by a questionnaire, Buddhism shows a very high difference between selfidentified members and those who can be classified as ‘practical’. …‘Practical’ Buddhists outnumber self-identified ones by a ratio of more than two to one” (Yoon 1997: 11–12). This discrepancy between the amount of persons taking part in Buddhist prayers and ceremonies and those who describe themselves

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as “Buddhist” has been noted in detail by anthropologists who conducted fieldwork in the 1970s and the early 1980s. Alexandre Guillemoz (1983) and Laurel Kendall (1985), for example, have shed light on the “continuum” prevailing in religious life of villagers and the proximity – in this context – between prayers to a Shamanist and to a Buddhist shrine.7 This religious continuum as well as the believers’ rather loose affiliation to Buddhism have been major targets of Buddhist reformers, especially in a context of strong competition with Christian (especially Protestant) churches that promote strong and visible affiliation among members. However, it is only in the 1990s that Buddhist membership has massively and visibly started to be formalized among laity. From the mid-1990s, the number of Buddhist temples has rapidly increased in urban areas with a clear emphasis put on adaptation to the demands and needs of the laity. Among their activities, these temples give a central importance to educational programs aiming at regulating practices, targeting especially the propitiatory rites and the prayers for practical benefits derogatorily called “prayers for good fortune” (kibok) (Galmiche 2011). The multiplication and systematization of progressive courses for laity have been conceptualized by Buddhist institutions and intellectuals8 as crucial tools toward the aim of “transforming the common people who come to the temple with the vague thought that they may be Buddhist, into real Buddhists.”9 This stress put on the religious education of laity and the abundance of educational programs are important characteristics of Buddhism as it is developing in South Korean cities. Movement toward a systematized religious education of the 7 The women of Enduring Pine Village themselves consider seasonal offerings at the mansin’s shrine and seasonal offerings at the Buddhist temple analogous practices. (…) The Christians stand outside the folk religious system, but shamanism and Buddhism blur. From the perspective of women worshipers, shrine and temple do not represent discrete religions, but rather the different traditions of separate households.” (Kendall 1985: 83–84) 8 Cf. The description of the “movement for the renovation of faith and practice” by Riw Ho Sun: “Nowadays, what is called “movement for the renovation of faith and practice (sin sinhaeng undong 新信行運動)” is gaining momentum. The “movement for the renovation of faith and practice” is a central mission in Chogye Order propagation centers (pogyowŏn): its goal is to overcome invocation practices directed toward good fortune (kibok-chŏgin yŏmbul sinhang) and to reform them in concordance with the system of correct faith and practice. The people in charge of proselytism in the Chogye Order administration try to bring some order to the religious life of the Buddhists. This process is as follows: “Introduction -> basic education -> practice of self- cultivation (suhaeng) -> application on a social level” ” (translated from Riw Ho Sun 2008: 708). 9 Translation from an extract of P’anjŏn (February 2010), the monthly journal published by Pongŭnsa, a large monastery of Seoul.

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public is also closely related to the development of formal affiliation to Buddhist institutions and the strengthening of followers’ associations. The emphasis put on the doctrinal formation of believers is not only related to a quest for orthodoxy, but has much to do as well with concern among Buddhists to develop a collective identity and to promote Buddhism as a form of social affiliation. When taking part in the educational curriculum offered by temples, newcomers are encouraged to join the followers’ association of the temple (sindohoe) and to participate in its various activities. While individual attendance at Buddhist monasteries remains important, a new form of religious participation has widely developed within the last two decades. Buddhist institutions promote the model of a formally affiliated adherent, who participates in religious activities individually but also as a member of an association. Among other things, this tendency can be observed through the promotion of membership cards for the believers. These have been widely encouraged and tend to formalize adhesion to both the central organization of the Chogye Order and a monastery of affiliation.

Toward a New Position in Society

The definition of what it means to be a Buddhist follower has changed considerably during the last twenty years. Confronted by the negative image of being a superstitious religion or “Buddhism for good fortune (kibok pulgyo),” Buddhist institutions have highlighted the importance of forming “modern and religiously educated” followers who could represent and develop their religion with pride. Communalizing the believers has become a clear priority for most Buddhist temples. They are now emphasizing these relations between practitioners in religious terms, as a means to nourish their motivation and deepen their devotion, but also – in a conscious way – to increase the social status of Buddhism. Promoting the communalization of believers is also aimed at contributing to a collective Buddhist identity, which is expected to reinforce the place of Buddhism in society. While Buddhism appears in surveys as a majority relative to other religions, both actors and observers have observed its secondary, if not marginal, position in society.10 The feeling of being in a more or less fragile position as 10

Frank Tedesco (2003: 158), for example, has shed light on this seemingly paradoxical situation: “In general, Korean Buddhists do not view themselves as an influential or prestigious force in Korean society and they have little political clout compared to well-organized, wealthy Protestant and Catholic factions. (…) Buddhism has low status in contemporary Korea and engaged Buddhists who work in public often fell self-conscious and sometimes react with defiance or timidity when ostracized.”

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Buddhists is particularly present among the Buddhists of the upper-middle class in Seoul, where Protestants are the majority both in quantitative and symbolic terms. In this context of religious competition, many monastic and lay Buddhists have regarded the temples of affluent districts as strategic places for spreading Buddhism among those considered to be “leading members of society.” While this strategic view is obviously not the first reason for Buddhists to develop collective activities, it is nonetheless an explicit and very present concern in the temples of the affluent district of Kangnam. Monastics as well as the laity and the journals published by these monasteries, tend to emphasize how the development of religious education and socialization among believers is crucial for improving the image of Buddhism in society and for increasing its influence as a social force. Slogans such as “Forming high-quality Buddhists through high quality education (myŏngp’um kyoyuk ŭro myŏngp’um pulcha yangsŏng hal kŏt)”11 have appeared in temples, with the directly correlated idea that these “high-quality Buddhists” should proudly represent Buddhism in society and contribute to its new visibility. In a competition with the neighboring, active and visible Protestant megachurches, urban temples have been particularly committed to exalting a sense of confident and extraverted belonging among their believers. On several points, Buddhist temples are clearly reacting to the success of Protestant churches, but these relations are far from univocal. The “megachurch model” is a very ambivalent reference, both fascinating and repelling to Buddhists. When it comes to the stress put on the communalization of believers and on the praise of a conscious and more vocal Buddhist identity, the influence of the Christian techniques of believer management is significant. Adapting forms of proselytism to a modern and urban society has been a key concern for Buddhist institutions throughout the twentieth century, and this matter has been addressed in detail by both monastic and lay Buddhists. In this context, different kinds of comparative studies have been undertaken in Buddhist circles. Several temples in Seoul have even organized official “equipment study tours (sisŏl kyŏnhak)” and “benchmarking for adherent management (sindo kwalli pench’imak’ing)” in successful churches to determine what could be adapted to Buddhism.

From Monasteries to “Megatemples”?

Urban temples are becoming increasingly concerned about their adaptation to the needs of the urban population and have endeavored to broaden their 11

P’anjŏn (Pongŭnsa monthly journal), February 2010.

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activities to new sectors such as health, social facilities and education. Moreover, in Seoul, “Buddhist megatemples” are emulating megachurches’ social influence by developing wide and influential networks of believers. Could we then say that Buddhism in Korea is shifting its center of gravity from monastics to the laity? This would reflect significant aspects of the contemporary reorganization of Buddhism, but it would also, however, overshadow the point that together with a trend toward the secularization of monasteries, Korean Buddhism has also been marked by movements aiming at restoring and emphasizing its monastic dimensions. The place and meaning of the monastic tradition today is ambiguous. It has been regularly put into question and criticized in the name of opening Buddhism to the needs and constraints of society. In the meantime, ascetic meditation monks and the traditional lifestyle of the monastic sangha enjoy increasing prestige among lay and monastic Buddhists and even outside Buddhist circles. This importance given to the monastic aspects of Buddhism in the midst of calls for a greater secularization is neither an anecdotic phenomenon nor a mere issue of distinction, but takes roots in the complex history of contemporary Buddhism. Significantly, in November 2007, the Chogye Order organized a large and official ceremony to commemorate the sixty years of the “Pongamsa kyŏlsa” or “Pongamsa community.” This community, founded in the Pongamsa monastery in 1947, two years after the end of Japanese colonization, was aimed at reestablishing Korean monasticism by emphasizing the legacy of a tradition going back prior to both the Chosŏn Kingdom and colonization, periods regarded as times of decline for monastic Buddhism. In spite of being quickly interrupted in 1950 by the Korean War, this movement has noticeably influenced contemporary Buddhist institutions, especially though one of its leaders, the monk Sŏngch’ŏl, who was the supreme patriarch (chongjŏng) of the Chogye Order from 1981 to 1993. The Pongamsa Community aimed to break with the secularizing trend that had marked Buddhism during the first part of the century. Reform movements cannot solely be reduced to Japanese influence, but secularization of Buddhism was supported by the colonial administration, especially through the legalization of clerical marriage. As both Henrik H. Sørensen (1999: 136) and Robert E. Buswell (2004: 32) argue, these reforms have progressively been accused of serving the colonial ambition for control over Buddhist communities and became a foil for the new reformers of 1947. In this context, the renovation of Buddhism advocated by the Pongamsa Community was aimed at reinforcing Buddhism through a revival of monasticism emphasizing the practice of  fuga mundi and the strict observance of the precepts. This association

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c­ ontributed to the redefinition of monastic identity by reinforcing its ascetic dimensions and elaborating a “community regulation (kongju kyuyak)” aimed at supporting the renovation of monastic life (Kim KS 2006: 56–57). Through the influence of the Pongamsa Community, a dominant part of contemporary Buddhism’s ideological basis has been built on a monastic project of affirming withdrawal from the world. In addition, mistrust toward secularization has been reinforced by a severe conflict on the issue of “clerical marriage,” which profoundly divided Buddhist circles from the 1950s to at least the 1970s. In 1954, for several reasons, but in the name of the expurgation of Japanese influence, the South Korean president Yi Sŭngman (Syngman Rhee) ordered married clerics – in the majority among clerics since the Japanese colonization – to leave the Buddhist community and to hand monasteries over to celibate monks.  This “purification movement (Chŏnghwa undong)” triggered violent conflicts over legitimacy and temple property. It led to the creation of two separates orders: the Chogye Order in 1962 and the Taego Order in 1970. These power struggles continued after the official resolution of the conflict and reinforced the emphasis put on a monastic and ascetic identity by the largest part of the Chogye Order.

Mountain Monasteries as References

Withdrawal, renunciation and remote mountain monasteries are central parts of the image claimed by Korean Buddhism. However, this ideal is today a site of confluence for very different phenomena: it brings together a historical stress on monastic traditions but also explicit strategies of communication and “branding.” Buddhism in twenty-first century South Korea has entered a conscious process of self-branding, oriented toward both the national society and other countries. One of the most visible aspects of this movement is the so-called “Temple Stay” program. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched this project at the occasion of the fifa World Cup finals in 2002 with the initial aim of providing accommodation for some of the numerous foreign visitors that were expected at this occasion. As noted by Uri Kaplan, the Chogye Order first opposed this idea, but a compromise was finally reached on the base of a “package of both accommodation and a cultural/spiritual experience” (2010: 132–133). First aimed at foreigners, this program has become an important success among Koreans as well. It is now widely spread across South Korean monasteries. It is not exclusively addressed to Buddhist practitioners  and offers a mix of spiritual, cultural and touristic activities. Temple Stay  retreats are generally – but not exlusively – organized in traditional

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­ onasteries located in the mountains, and the Buddhism emphasized through m this ­program is mostly monastic with a focus on the monastic lifestyle and “emblematic” activities such as the art of tea (tado) and the formal monastic meal (paru kongyang). It is not directed toward a direct soteriological goal, but rather claims (quoting its advertisements) to offer participants a “transformative experience” and an “occasion to connect with Korean tradition, nature and one’s peace of mind.” More broadly than this touristic program, the ideal of a temple among Buddhists remains mostly based on images of mountain and monasticism. Nonetheless, this phenomenon is not only a matter of “image.” Even if the representations of Korean Buddhism promoted by the Chogye Order and programs like Templestay are not completely congruent with its actual practices and reality, they cannot be reduced to mere strategies of promotion. Redefining Korean Buddhism is not only a concern largely shared among monks and nuns, but also by a large part of the general lay audience. Above all, this issue reflects on a significant tension existing within the current reorganization of Buddhist temples in urban area. Most temples affirm an ambition to prove their relevancy to the “new” South Korean society. While urban monasteries tend to differentiate themselves more and more from a monastic lifestyle, mountain temples are celebrated and sometimes idealized. Likewise, the recent development of urban temples is praised by Buddhist individuals and institutions but, in some occasions, the same actors may also distance themselves from these Buddhist types of “megatemples.” As it appeared during ethnographic fieldwork, it is not rare that Buddhists express reservations toward what they suspiciously refer to as a “church-isation (kyohoe-hwa)” of temples. Urban monasteries are widely valued as they bring Buddhism to the world and participate in its development and visibility. Equally omnipresent idea is that the “real monasteries” that constitute the “essential foundation (kŭnbon)” of Buddhism are located in the mountains. Hence, believers who actively engage in the lay association of a large urban temple near their home may both emphasize its conveniences and social role and criticize its “mundanity” and “noisiness,” while also expressing a stronger attachment to a more remote mountain temple (Galmiche 2010). In spite of remarkably growing dynamism and success, and even if they benefit in practice from a larger degree of autonomy and generally larger incomes, urban monasteries are nevertheless in a relation of relative dependence – symbolically and in terms of human resources – to the more traditional ones located in mountains. An illustration of this can be found in

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the multiplication of pilgrimages offered by city temples, sometimes several times a month. The rotation of monks and nuns between mountain and urban areas constitute another circulation: most of them are not steadily located in a remote monastery or in a busy one, and many move between them. This circulation is not, however, completely symmetric, as a frequently expressed idea among monastics (and even among laity) is that monks and nuns are restoring their physical and spiritual forces in mountain monasteries in order to contribute to the propagation of Buddhism in cities. Conclusion Buddhism in Korea is widely seen and self-described as a monastic tradition, and a large part of its culture has been elaborated in monasteries. However, the remote – and prone to world withdrawal – position associated with monasticism has never been unanimously approved among Buddhists. Moreover, the monastic mode of organization itself has been internally and externally challenged on several occasions. A key feature in the urban development of Buddhism has been the emphasis placed on the “Buddhicization” of lay religious practices as well as the extension of formal adhesion to Buddhism broadly beyond the members of the monastic community. In a more historical perspective, these new forms of lay participation and adhesion echo the deep transformations that Buddhism has encountered while facing and appropriating the category of religion in a context a religious plurality. When the neologism of “religion” (chonggyo) has been introduced in Korea, Christian churches have been widely regarded as reference points of religious organization and “modernity.” More recently, the success of megachurches has given even larger audience to the forms of adhesion and social integration that they favor. Buddhist institutions are nonetheless in an ambivalent relationship with  these new “models.” Large urban temples have more or less explicitly embarked on religious competition by emulating megachurches, but at the same time, they have also partly based their success on promoting different forms of religious involvement. The priority given by temples to social integration and visibility is far from having fully eclipsed the withdrawal sides of Buddhism. Instead, this aspect of monastic Buddhism has been given new meanings in line with the needs and concerns of urban society, and its current promotion is playing a significant role in the ongoing outreach of Buddhism.

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References Bruneton, Yannick. 2011. “Comment la répression du religieux a-t-elle accompagné la réforme du régime monarchique de T’aejong? Les mesures antibouddhiques au début du XVe siècle en Corée.” Pp. 73–147 in État, religion et répression en Asie: Chine, Corée, Japon, Vietnam (XIIIe–XXIe siècles) edited by A. Brotons, Y. Bruneton, and N. Kouamé, Nathalie. Paris: Karthala. Buswell, Robert E. 2004. “The Emergence of a ‘Korean’ Buddhist Tradition.” Pp. 23–44 in Geumgang Center for Buddhist Studies, Korean Buddhism in East Asian Perspective. Seoul: Jimoondang. Cho, Eunsu, 2003. “Re-Thinking Late 19th Century Chosŏn Buddhist Society,” Acta Koreana 6: 87–109. Chung, Byung-jo. 1997. “The Buddhist Lay Movement in Korean Society.” Pp. 87–199 Religion and Society in Contemporary Korea, edited by L.R. Lancaster and R.K. Payne. Berkeley: University of California Press. Galmiche, Florence. 2010. “A Retreat in a South Korean Buddhist Monastery. Becoming a Lay Devotee Trough Monastic Life.” European Journal of East Asian Studies 9: 47–66. _______. 2011. “Transformer les « prières pour la chance » en “perfectionnement de soi”: Rejet du chamanisme et revendication d’orthodoxie dans le bouddhisme contemporain en Corée du sud.” in Acts of the 4th Congress of the Asia and Pacific Network. Published online: http://www.reseau-asie.com/colloque/4eme-congres-2011/ organisation-sociale-rituels/regards-exterieurs-chamanisme. Guillemoz, Alexandre. 1983. Les Algues, les anciens, les dieux, la vie et la religion d’un village de pêcheurs-agriculteurs coréens. Paris: Le Léopard d’or. Han, Yongun, 1913/2008. “On the Reformation of Korean Buddhism (1913).” Pp. 41–152 in Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to “Socialism with a Buddhist Face,” edited by V. Tikhonov and O. Miller. Folkestone: Global Oriental. Kaplan, Uri. 2010. “Images of Monasticism: The Temple Stay Program and the Re-Branding of Korean Buddhist Temples.” Korean Studies 34: 127–146. Kendall, Laurel. 1985. Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Kim, Kwang Sik. 2006. Han’guk Hyŏndae Pulgyosa Yŏn’gu (Research on the Contemporary History of Korean Buddhism) (in Korean, title translated by fg). Seoul: Pulgyo Sidaesa. Nathan, Mark Andrew. 2010. “Buddhist Propagation and Modernization: The Significance of P’ogyo in Twentieth-Century Korean Buddhism.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Park, Jin Y. (ed.) 2010. Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism. Albany: suny Press. Park, Pori. 2005. “Korean Buddhist Reforms and Problems in the Adoption of Modernity During the Colonial Period.” Korea Journal 45: 87–113.

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Riw, Ho Sun. 2008. “Han’guk pulgyo-ŭi sinhaeng kaenyŏm-e kwanhan yŏn’gu (Study on the Meaning of ‘Sin-Haeng (信行)’ in Korean Buddhism).” Han’guk Pulgyohak 50: 689–713 (in Korean). Shim, Jae-ryong. 2000. “Buddhism and the Modernization Process in Korea.” Social Compass 47: 541–548. Sørensen, Henrik H. 1999. “Buddhism and Secular Power in Twentieth-Century Korea.” Pp. 127–154 in Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, edited by I. Harris. London: Pinter. Taehan pulgyo Chogyejong kyoyugwŏn ed. 2005. Chogyejong Sa Kŭnhyondaep’yŏn (History of Chogye Order – Contemporary Times). Seoul: Chogyejong ch’ulp’ansa (in Korean). Tedesco, Frank M. 2003. “Social Engagement in South Korean Buddhism.” Pp. 152–180 in Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism, edited by C. Queen, C. Prebish and D. Keown. London: Routledge Curzon. Walraven, Boudewijn, 2007. “A Re-Examination of the Social Basis of Buddhism in Late Chosŏn Korea.” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 20: 1–20. Yoon, Yee-Heum. 1997 “The Contemporary Religious Situation in Korea.” Pp. 1–18 in Lewis R. Lancaster and Richard K. Payne (eds.). Religion and Society in Contemporary Korea, edited by L.R. Lancaster and R.K. Payne. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Part 3 Methodology and Classical Authors of the Sociology of Monasticism

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Studying Contemporary Monasticism in Italy: An Anthropological and Historical Perspective Maria Chiara Giorda, Javier González Díez and Sara Hejazi1 While in recent years the term asceticism has been considered the most appropriate term to compare various phenomena among different religious traditions, the term monasticism has represented a more problematic issue: rooted in the Christian tradition and thus historically limited to Christianity, the term monasticism has recently become generalized, including universal traits that would fit many religious traditions worldwide. Both perspectives have shown their limits. Contemporary social transformations (for instance hybridation, globalization and the reinvention of traditions) allow in fact new interdisciplinary approaches from social scientists in the study of comparative monasticism, coping with the rigid domain of terms, terminology and tradition itself, and adopting a multidisciplinary, multifaceted approach, more coherent to the study of complex societies. The first part of the chapter argues that up to now, within the bibliographical tradition presently available, the terms asceticism and monasticism have had different meanings and applications according to time and space variations of the scholars themselves. The second part of the article applies Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblance and compares three different case studies: a Cistercian monastery, a Hindu āśram, and a Zen monastery – all situated in the same geographical and cultural area, the northern Padan plateau in Italy. This methodological approach does not start with an operative definition of monasticism tout court, which would be broad enough to include many different and generic traits of various religions; instead, the starting point is the anthropological epic perspective that considers monasteries to be those social formations that define themselves as monasteries. 1 This chapter deals with an interdisciplinary and comparative methodology for the study of monasticism from different and complementary perspectives, as part of an on-going research project started in the summer of 2012 at the University of Turin, Italy, and is the first outcome of a common research project “New Monasteries in Contemporary Italy,” funded by Compagnia di San Paolo (2012–2013 Department of Studi Storici, coordinator: Professor Giovanni Filoramo) in which the three authors were involved. Specifically, Maria Chiara Giorda has written Sections  1–3; Sara Hejazi, Sections  4 and 5; and Javier González Díez, Sections 6 and 7.

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The third part of the chapter will focus on the methodologies through which it is possible to trace historical and cultural differences and specificities among the three different case studies, in order to fit them in a more general and explicative framework on contemporary monasticism in Italy.

Understanding Christian Monasticism

The starting point for tracing the story of the studies on monasticism, asceticism and its practices is Max Weber. He tackles asceticism throughout all his works, and particularly in his two major works: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1904–1905) and Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1922). Weber stresses that asceticism and mysticism are both means of sanctification: extreme attempts of the believer to overcome the gap between a certain religious worldly vision and the nonsense brutality of everyday life. Nonetheless, the two terms are not synonyms. For Weber, the mystic seeks rest in God, and replaces activity with the static enjoyment of a possession of the divine as a union with it. The ascetic feels that he is an instrument of God in the sense that he systematizes his own personal patterning of life to achieve God’s will (Palmisano 2011: 36–37). By despising the world and refusing its laws, asceticism seems more like an ethical action with an aim for a critical intervention, carried out by either enacting separation from earthly worries (ausserweltliche asceticism) or an active effort of transformation within the world, through an ethically oriented action (innerweltliche asceticism). While considering protestant ascetics (Calvinists, Pietists, Methodists, Baptists) as representatives of innerweltliche asceticism, Weber draws upon western monasticism as an example of ausserweltliche asceticism: monastic behaviour – starting from the Middle Ages including the rule of St Benedict through the Cluniacs and Cistercians – is an elaborated method of rational life conduct. Thus, the Christian monk, considered from Weber’s perspective, becomes the prime example of ausserweltliche asceticism.2 The binomial asceticism-monasticism is often the main paradigm for scholars who focus on monasticism as subject of study, always referring to Weber. Historians and theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, between the end of the 1800 and 1950 (Peterson 1948; Harnack von 1881; Alciati 2012; Jaspert 2006), have in fact followed the path of connecting the concepts of asceticism and 2 This is well explained in the second chapter of Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus titled “Die Berufsethik des asketischen Protestantismus,” in the first paragraph titled “Die religiösen Grundlagen der innerweltlichen Askese.”

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monasticism, arguing that the latter is part of the broader ascetic phenomenon. As an example, we can cite Karl Heussi’s work in his “Askese,” “Kloster” and “Mönchtum” in the first edition of the lexicon Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (1909–1913). In defining Mönchtum, Heussi relates the concepts of asceticism and monasticism, arguing that monasticism has to be considered a form of organization whose origins can be traced in Christianity, in the ascetic practices of classical antiquity, and in Judaism. Therefore monasticism was born between the third and fourth century b.c. in Egypt. His later book, Der Ursprung des Mönchtums (1936), a work collecting twenty years of his research, places the monastic phenomenon in the framework of a more than centurylong history of Christianity. Heussi marks the beginning of the historical and archaeological study of the Christian monastic movement, which is an important turning point in its history. According to Heussi, separation from society is the main feature of monasticism and the most diversifying item from previous ascetic practices.

New Methodological Perspectives: Monasticism Viewed by History and Sociology

The so called renewed interest for monasticism began in Europe between the 1960s and the 1970s, when Christian monasticism was overwhelmed by the social sciences. The English medievalist Giles Constable (1974) argues that a comparative and sociological approach to the monastic phenomenon has become mandatory. It is the only way to overcome consolidated clichés and dichotomies such as eremitism/coenobitism, action/contemplation, itinerary/ stability – thus approaching the monastic ecology as an entire set of relations between the monasteries and the surrounding environment. Sociologist of religions – in the 1970s – came up with a new vocabulary drawn from contemporary language to describe monastic phenomena: through the notions of marginality, symbol, and utopia (Parrinello 2010). According to Albert d’Haenens (1985) the greatest challenge of all in the study of monasticism is represented by the analysis of how the event of conversion become an everyday practice of life in a group of individuals who shared spaces and time schedules. The author argues that, once established, the monastic community will undergo an evolution, going from a phase of utopia to one of institutionalization, sedimentation and social integration. The origin of monastic formation is marked by a process of laceration. The shifts that entail an evolution and a practice of ideas and values, the monastic multiple-identities, and the network of processes by which these are

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structured, are the new focuses of the study of monasticisms. Two notable terms used by D’Haenens are: structure and process. Monastic formation is structured by a network of processes. It is a structure as well as a network of traits which create a social system. If by process we intend a happening of events in time which are related to one another in different ways the monastic experience has to be considered as a varying strategy of community-building and aggregation. D’Haenens considers monasticism as a variety to be noted among other social entities, such as cities, towns, the family (1985: 19). On one hand, the family is considered as a social organization that differs from monastic life; on the other hand, the cultural model of the family is considered functional for the introjections of the religious alternative model that the monastery wants to reproduce. Jean Séguy’s perspective allows us to point out the performative aspect of utopia. Séguy considers utopia to be the ideological system, even if it can be distinguished between written utopia, referring to the imaginary and anchored to ideology, and practiced utopia, which is the practice through which the system of values is transformed (Séguy 1971: 331). In the process of practice, the utopia modifies and adapts to the context of belonging. From this perspective, utopia is not simply a notion. It is above all a process. As for any other group, processes form the monastic reality itself, along with its connections, the space of the monastery, temporality and corporality: this utopia relates to the past, clashes with the present, with the aim of obtaining a better future (1971: 332). Peter Brown (1988), the “father” of the studies of Late Antiquity, observes a real symbolic revolution which stands as a turning point in the study of ancient Christianity. Brown argues that monasticism might be considered as a secret revolution which uses ascetic spirituality as a hidden culture, a trait of change and transformation of Mediterranean Christianity. The holy man represents Brown’s fortunate conceptual invention: a lens through which it is possible to analyze any known Christian anti-institutional phenomenon and through which it is possible to re-write the history of ancient Christianity and consequently that of monasticism. In the second half of the twentieth century, scholars, historians and sociologists of Christianity speak about monasticism as an historical object (with no difficulty in using the verbum to define the res), to re-analyze it according new categories (Solignac et al. 1980) and by easily associating monasticism in primis to Christianity: if today one still considers most of the definitions contained in dictionaries of religions, one would notice that they all refer almost exclusively to Christian monasticism (cf. Massein 1993, Varenne 1993, Boureau 2010).

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Monasticism or Aasceticism? A Comparative Analysis

The most recent and innovative comparative studies consider above all asceticism and its practices rather than monasticism itself. In Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, Geoffrey Harpham (1987) broadly explores the relation between asceticism as a cultural system, from a perspective mutated by Clifford Geertz (1966). Asceticism is a form of individual resistance to mainstream culture; through asceticism one can embody antagonisms, oppositions and tensions without destructing the system itself. It is an inner dissent, an inner dialectic, allowing the mainstream non-ascetic feeling to dominate, live and reproduce itself. It is the contradictory trait that generates the opposite poles of tensions while letting them coexist. In their work on asceticism, Wimbush and Valantasis (1995) speak of an ascetic impulse that has been – from meditation and fasting to celibacy and anachoretism – an enduring and complex phenomenon throughout history. Offering a sweeping view of this elusive and controversial aspect of religious life and culture, Asceticism looks at the ascetic impulse from a unique point of view. Cross-cultural, cross-religious, and multidisciplinary in nature, these essays provide a broad historical and comparative perspective on asceticism. Four major themes are related to the notion Asceticism, each of them cutting across religious traditions: origins and meanings of asceticism, which explores the motivations and impulses behind ascetic behaviors; hermeneutics of asceticism, which looks at texts and rhetoric and their presuppositions; aesthetics of asceticism, which documents responses evoked by ascetic impulses and practices, as well as the arts of ascetic practices themselves; and finally politics of asceticism, which analyzes the power dynamics of asceticism, especially with regard to gender, cultural and ethnic differences. In 2008 Richard Valantasis went through many of the most important works on asceticism of the past (from Weber to Foucault), noting the social function, and the centrality of relations generated by practices and performances which involve wilfulness and power in creating a cultural and symbolic universe that would be new. According to Valantasis, asceticism “is a universal phenomenon” (2008: 35) and as such it has to be considered and studied: as a rupture with mainstream models and original power schemes. We analyze Christian and Roman ascetic forms that confirm Valantasis’s theory on asceticism: the phenomenon might be considered as a performance of resistance capable of generating a new alternative subjectivity, which is within a dominating outside social or religious contest. In his introductory chapter, Gavin Flood (2004) defines asceticism: etymologically, the word stems from the Greek word askesis (or exercise). Asceticism

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for Flood is the performance of bodily discipline or denial for the sake of a tradition-specific transcendent goal. Asceticism is the shaping of a life in accordance with a textual and interpretive tradition. Being as it is interpreting authoritative texts, asceticism is a performance of memory; that is, the embodied acting-out in the lives of believers of the remembrance of what the tradition passes on. In the process of forming the ascetic self there is, through traditions, a paradox in the ascetic self between the eradication of the will (or self-will) and the affirmation of the will in its transcendence over the body. By discovering structural similarities in the ritual processes that form the ascetic self among the various traditions, Flood makes a comparison of the various types of subjectivity experience within Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian asceticism. Oliver Freiberger’s attempt is also interesting when analyzing the criticism of asceticism systematically (2006, 2009). Ten studies present cases from both Asian and European traditions: classical and medieval Hinduism, early and contemporary Buddhism in South and East Asia, European antiquity, early and medieval Christianity, and 19th/20th century Aryan religion. Focusing on the critics of asceticism, their motives, their arguments, and the targets of their critique, these studies provide a broad range of issues for comparison. They suggest that the critique of asceticism is based on a worldview differing from and competing with the ascetic worldview, often found in one and the same historical context. The book demonstrates that examining the critiques of asceticism (intra-, inter- and extra- criticism) helps to understand the complexity of religious traditions and their cultural contexts better. The comparative analysis, moreover, shows that the criticism of asceticism reflects a religious worldview as significant and widespread in the history of religions as asceticism itself is. The general framework emerging from this historical overview is a comparison between asceticism and ascetic practices: Christianity plays a crucial role in these by forming interpretative categories of asceticism, such as the prevailing negative conception of asceticism (intended literally as negation/privation). However, the issue of a comparison between monasticisms, because charged by more epistemological risks, remains less considered in this field of knowledge.

Does Trans-Cultural Monasticism Exist?

The attempt to study and compare monasticisms involves one major risk: that of a descriptive and no hermeneutical perspective, and thus that of wildly

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assuming – through an all-inclusive lens – that anything might be called monasticism. This is what has been done by Raymond Pannikar (1982 cf. Dreuille 1999), whose effort at simplifying the object of study stresses how the monk’s search for a new innocence is a universal archetype, valid both in the West and in the East, across time and space. This is what happens also in some encyclopaedias attempting a general definition of monasticism: Georg Weckman, while defining “Monasticism” (2005) considers it forged by Benedictine tradition, but to this more restrictive view, he adds a broader definition including various Christian (orders of mendicants, Franciscans, Dominicans and other religious orders) and non-Christian traditions (Sufi confraternities, Essenes, Lutherans, etc.). For this aim, he develops a list of universal distinctive traits of monasticism as a common ground in which various traditions are included: that of enjoying a distinctive social status in a distinctive framework in which to establish one’s social relations; that of following a specific program or life discipline; that of being separated from ordinary human existence while longing for an individual realization; that of celebrating the monastic status by making a choice among the different traditions. Beyond these universal traits, Weckman also spots frequent traits variously characterizing the monastic phenomena such as life in a community (presence/absence, mandatory/free, continuous/periodical), the lasting of the monastic status (lifelong or temporal), the affiliation (total or partial) and last, the poverty/ simplicity of lifestyle. This perspective includes in a same definition more or less any phenomenon of social aggregation – not only those within religious traditions – but also within other social contexts of communitarian life, such as that of social castes or certain social classes, forms of aggregation of ethnic and religious minorities, and even some political militant groups (Harpham 1987). However, some studies have offered an interesting attempt in approaching the matter from a cross-disciplinary perspective, comparing monks, monasteries, monasticisms starting from specific case-studies with a special attention to sources and terminology (Creel and Narayanam, 1990, Silber 1995, Herrou and Krauskopff 2009).3 These studies mark an important starting point: that of considering monasticism rooted in native terms which define the phenomenon. The term monasticism itself is rooted in a Christian ethical and religious history and this has in fact influenced the semantic field of its area of knowledge; the term is referred to people living in a community and adopting a coenobitic or hermitic lifestyle. 3 For a perspective on comparatism, see also Johnston 2000.

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Our investigation, through a cross-disciplinary methodology represented by history and anthropology joined together, aims more to analyze the different expressions of those phenomena that define themselves monastic in a specific time and space frame, than search for a generic and at the same time characteristic trait of monasticism tout court. The time and space frame is a context resulting from an evolution in time of specific historical events; therefore we will consider monasticism from a synchronic and diachronic perspective, borrowing these terms from the academic area of linguistics.4 Through this approach, we consider helpful referring to the concept of family resemblance presented by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations (1953), and later adopted in many different areas of knowledge starting from the end of the 1950s. The well known idea that concepts such as game, number and (we can add) monasticism – would lack essential traits, seems particularly useful in the study of a contemporary phenomenon in a complex context (Remotti 1990). The aim is not that of comparing monastic phenomena coexisting in different parts of the world or merely coming from different religious traditions. The goal is rather to analyze how a specific territory, such as Northern Italy, has witnessed the settling of new monastic forms, borrowed from other traditions including those foreign to the specific local culture, and how these new form coexist with the more traditional forms of monasticism also adopting their terminology: monastery, monk, monasticism etc. As a result, the aim of the research will not be that of answering the question whether or not it is possible to find a transversal monasticism in the different world traditions, but to understand what social, historical and economical dynamics have produced a trans-cultural monasticism in Italy, which has originated from a Christian substrate while borrowing culturally distant traits: mixing them, translating them, adapting them to new contexts. The result of these dynamics is unedited phenomena, difficult to define and still mostly unexplored. The concept of family resemblance will help the investigation move through the complex universe of contemporary Italian monasticism. The starting point will be that of choosing the case studies among those various forms of community organizations located in the territory who define themselves as monasticisms, because they are related one another in different ways. They use the same word to define those phenomena that are culturally distant, stressing a 4 In the Saussurian sense of the term, drawing the analyzed phenomena from the temporal flow, which means considering them contemporary and co-exisitng with the research itself, and focusing on the organization and reciprocal connection among them.

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family resemblance with one another. If the Italian word monastero/monachesimo (fr. moine/monastère; eng. monk/monastery) can be associated to words coming from distant cultures such as āśram and sangha, it is because the monastic phenomena are today looking for equilibrium in cultural coexistence or in hybrid cultures (Canclini 1998) which has only recently become mandatory in the religious and monastic Italian panorama. The lack of precision in self definition does not necessarily involve a loss of meaning of the term itself, but a constant construction of its multiple aspects, often connected with strategies of settlement and integration of a community, survival and negotiation of identities at a local level. Monasticism is thus considered not only through texts, but especially through the practice of life, inside habits, norms and everyday actions. This implies the observation of how the rule is practiced, and if is there a difference between norms and practices. Family resemblance will allow the investigation to shift from an emic level to the etic one and back. The emic level of the research considers the selfdefinition of monastery as the pivotal trait to include the case studies in a more generic research project on contemporary monasticism and to consider them synchronic expressions of a monastic phenomenon, whatever this might be; the etic level of the research considers those actions connected with the set to scene of monasticism, paving the way for comparison of the different case studies and to their prospective and retrospective integration in complexity.

About the Case Studies: Spatial and Temporal Limits

The geographical area in which the case studies are enclosed is also a culturally constructed space: Northern Italy and the Padan plateau. Territorial separations which do not necessarily correspond to historical events and political administrations have accompanied the history of the Italian nation since the unification, starting from the archetypal division between the North and the South, which encloses both the old southern question and the far more recent northern question (Bonomi 2008). Nonetheless, the Padan plateau is a territory characterized in its history by an important process of industrialization extended later in time to other areas of the country. It is appropriate only to mention the complex issue of industrialization and the great social and cultural transformation it has brought with it. However, what is interesting is that the Northern part of Italy has witnessed those processes especially related to the so called post-industrial phase, such as the crisis of the productive models, the crisis of

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representation and the depletion of the middle-class (Picchierri 2011), and in particular, the re-definition of economy and politics, education, family and religion (Giordan 2010). The chronological turning point for these processes is the period between the 1960s and the 1970s of the twentieth century. Deep economic and social transformations in post-war Italy generated cultural and intellectual ferment and change characterized by a greater pluralism. Specific and non-residual religious forms promoted the renewal of traditional religions and the birth of new means to relate to the sacred. Roman Catholic Christianity was involved in the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which represented a normative and organizational rethinking of the monastic phenomenon. These innovations determined two important developments in the history of Christian monasticism: the birth of the so called new monasticisms (Torcivia 2010; Palmisano 2010a, 2010b) and the renewal of the traditional monastic communities (Benedectine, Cistercian, Trappist, etc). Catholicism, however, was not the only religion involved in the process of innovation. The big transformation brought about new cults and religious movements coming from Asia which spread in the northern part of the country at first, and later all over Italy, thus introducing oriental monasticisms. What emerged from these transformations was a monastic cultural pluralism (Giordan 2010) which promoted diversity and relativity as essential elements for understanding the everyday practices and systems of values permeating the sense of life in the new monasteries. Our research compares three case studies belonging to different religious traditions – Hinduism, Zen-Soto Buddhism, and Christianity – located in the same geographic area, which is inhabited exclusively by monks and nuns of Italian nationality. More precisely, we are studying a Hindu monastery (Gitananda āśram, www.ashramgita.com), a Zen monastery (Shobozan Fudenji, www.fudenji.it), and a Cistercian monastery in Pra’d Mill (Dominus Tecum, www.dominustecum.it). From now on, to name the case studies we will use the following abbreviations ga, sf, and dt. All three monasteries were established after the second half of the 1980s. ga was founded in 1984 by an Italian yoga teacher named Swami Yogananda Giri (born Paolo Valle). During the 1970s he travelled to South India, where he became a disciple of Swami Gitananda Giri, a guru of Pondicherry who invested him with the status of samnyasin. ga is actually is inhabited by 20 members: 10 of them have the status of samnyasins and the remaining that of brahmacharin. ga is also the legal registered address of the Italian Hindu Union (Unione Induista Italiana, uii), a network of associations that officially represents Hinduism in Italy, whose Honorary Chair is Swami Yogananda Giri.

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Shobozan Fudenji was founded in 1984 by Shūyū Narita Roshi, 28° abbot of Todenji (Akita, in Northern Japan), and his disciple Fausto Taiten Guareschi, an Italian instructor of martial arts. The Sawaki Kōdō Dharma was first imported in Europe at the end of the 1960s by Shūyū Narita Roshi and Taisen Deshimaru Roshi, who taught a new form of Zen which suited both the cultural and social needs of the European disciples of that time. Today sf is steadily inhabited by a nucleus of 10 ordered monks and nuns – whose present abbot is Fausto Taiten Guareschi – and by two novices, but the monastery welcomes throughout the year a variable number of monks, nuns and lay men and women in connection with the periods of seshin (withdrawal and meditation), seminars and other cultural and spiritual activities. Like ga, also sf is legally registered in the Italian Buddhist Union (Unione Buddhisti Italiani- ubi). The Italian Parliament has recently approved an act of agreement (Intesa) that recognizes uii and ubi as exclusive interlocutor of the Italian State. The monastery Dominus Tecum was officially founded in July 1995, when two monks from the abbey of Lérins, France, left their monastery in order to establish a new community affiliated to the Congregation of Immaculate Conception, which belongs to the Cistercian Order. The official founding act was signed by the abbot of Lérins on March 25, 1998. Up to now other monks have joined and the priorat in Prà d’Mill has never stopped growing. Along the years many works have been conducted in order to refurbish the original nucleus of buildings (a little chapel, a grangia, a little palace and the old farmhouses), in the land offered by the family Isola thanks to the interest and the intermediation of Leletta d’Isola, a women very keen of monastic life and a member of that community since the 1980s. Nowadays the monastery is inhabited by 14 monks: 11 with solemn votes, one with simple votes, one regular oblate and one novice. The three monasteries are located in places which resemble one another: they are all isolated, on top of hills, and surrounded by woods. The buildings are mostly the results of a refurbishment of previous typical houses or sites: ga is located in the mountains near Altare (in the Northern part of the province of Savona) in an area once used as a camping site. Some of the buildings of the āśram were originally built as camping facilities, while a big temple devoted to the Divine Mother Sri Lalita Mahatripurasundari and several minor chapels and houses were built in a Tamil architectonic style typical of south India after the āśram foundation. sf is located on top of a hill near the thermal town of Tabiano: its original nucleus was a three floor country house (in Italian cascina) with a 40,000 square meter garden: when the cascina was refurbished in 1990s, the first

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nucleus was implemented with a new one floor building provided with typical Japanese sliding doors and a broad Dharma salon. dt – located in a Valley called “Infernotto” – is composed by a secluded part reserved to monks comprising a refectory, a library, the cells, and an internal courtyard. The heart of the monastery is the Church, inaugurated in 2004, while another part is permanently under construction in order to broaden the part dedicated to the pilgrims and hosts: the big refectory, a hall, the shop. If the three case studies do resemble each other as members of the same family, the object of the investigation is multiple: the monasteries are in fact located in a territory which is culturally determined by a Catholic tradition, but all three of them are bringing about radical and heterogeneous cultural and religious innovations; they suggest (ga-sf) distant traditions like the Buddhist and the Hindu ones, or they transform and reinvent a consolidated tradition (dt) like the Cistercensian one.

A New Monastic Methodology

Beyond the family resemblance concept, which is a useful theoretical tool to overcome the Christian-centrism embedded in the area of study of monasticism, other methodological tools are necessary to investigate, compare and connect the many different social organizations we include in the family of monasticisms. The question is to understand how to build a common ground on which the game of connections will let us identify resemblances and differences, convergences and breaking points. The first issue concerns terms, words and meanings. The word monk (just as monastery and monasticism), as said before, is rooted in Christian tradition. Adopting these words is an obvious choice for Christian communities such as that of Cistercian monastery dt. But what is the meaning of these words when adopted in different contexts? If the aim is to look beyond Christianity’s borders, to understand communities such as ga and sf, two linguistic issues emerge, and they could be applied at different levels: one is the translation of the terms; the other is their use (be it translated or not) among the social actors (Clifford 1986). The three case studies act within a frame in which it is impossible to suppose a pure and simple distinction between the researcher and the researched, between the knowledge derived from research and that elaborated by the researcher. Since the case studies are historically new, the choice of the terms used in the various contexts are intentional rather than deriving from an inherited tradition. Our methodology includes considering the role of the researcher

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as the producer of a knowledge that will be examined, used and often elaborated by the interlocutors and social actors of the field, rather than just representing a mere collection of data. This dialectic dimension of the research might involve the strong risk of rendering the work of researchers prescriptive rather than descriptive. In particular, adopting rigid categories to verify the usage and applications of the terms and concepts (for example monaco, saṁnyāsin and bhikkhu) of the traditional belongings of the case studies, risk adhesion to old labels. This operation would turn the analysis into a prescriptive one, aimed at classifications and categorizations based on prejudices. This methodology turns out to be that tassonomic categorization of the social fact that has been long criticized by social sciences (Remotti 1990). On the other hand, our attempt is that of tracing the network of connections which derive from the family resemblance perspective, thus analyzing the terms from an emic perspective, considering them as a starting point for a comparative analysis of the monastic phenomenon in Northern Italy. Perhpas dt represents the clearest case study, where naming the monastery and articulating self-definitions as monks stand for choices of important values inside a religious tradition. In the case study of ga, the community calls itself āśram, even if its organizational model is more similar to mațh. Members of the community, however, do not hesitate to define themselves as monks or nuns or to call ga a monastery. The Sanskrit term for monk would be that of saṁnyāsin, but in these contexts it is easy to witness the formation of many neologisms for the residing members of the āśram: instead of the word mațhaddari, for example, members of the community tend to define themselves with the italianized term ashramiti. Only the word designating the leader is never translated: Svami Yogananda Giri is called and self defined guru, and sometimes mahanta which might be translated as abbot. In sf the leader Fausto Taiten Guareschi is always called with the Italian Catholic word abate inside the community, but during official functions or public representations, he will then assume the Japanese word roshi – enlightened teacher. In those texts originating in different religious traditions, the lexicon adopted to define the phenomenon – as well as monks and monasteries – is various and complex. As an example, one could mention the Hindu tradition, in which the word saṁnyāsin – literally meaning those who renounce – has been translated in western languages both as ascetic and as monk, and it is the most common word to define these religious figures (Bouillier 2009). The words indicating the spaces and places for the gathering of the ascetics seem to be more ambiguous, since they are mainly two: āśram is where a group of ascetics gather around a Guru (teacher), mațh is where a permanent community with a consolidated history resides. The difference between mațh and

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āśram is that while mațh is permanent, āśram is a temporary gathering. Both places are translated in western languages with the word monastery (Yocum 1990, Clémentin-Ojha 2006, Bouillier 2008, Bouillier 2009). In Buddhism the ambiguity of translation is just the same: while the word bhikkhu (feminine bhikkhuni) literally means beggar, it is translated in English with the word monk, but rarely with the word ascetic (Suzuki 1983, Gombrich 2009, Bianchi 2012). In Zen Buddhism spaces and places are of difficult translation too (Wood 1957): the word dojo which literally means place of the way involves various practices (from meditation to martial arts) and cannot therefore be translated with the word monastery. This short overview shows that the linguistic level is useful to trace the network of connections and resemblances that characterize the monastic family.

Tracing a Network: Themes to Explore

Having made an effort to clarify the terminological sphere, we will now continue by taking into consideration the structural traits of monastic communities. These traits can be traced back to the transversal themes through which we have analyzed the case studies, trying to understand similarities and differences beyond the language level. A distinction of the traits must be made starting from two levels of analysis: the collective one of relational data – based on the observation of the community as a whole – and the individual level of attributive data – centred on the individual components. These two levels are analytically separated but deeply interrelated. The themes that characterize the individual dimension can be drawn from a basic empirical research: the status of people, their grade of acceptance of the monastic ideal, their adhesion to monastic institution or the temporal continuity of their adhesion, the behavioral typologies and the norms of behaviour in different fields of social action (type of renouncement: material, symbolic, or the habitus of sexual or alimentary temperance). For example, while dt has a traditional homogenous male composition, ga and sf have a mixed gender composition: monks cohabit with nuns. The logics that rule these situations are the fruit of the adaptations of these communities to a foreign cultural context. These data can be collected through a basic empirical survey, which will lead to identify the traits that distinguish the profile of those belonging to the three communities. The collective level might also provide further attributive data, in this case considering the individuals as part of the whole and exploring the composition of the communities from a socio-demographic point of view: age, gender,

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backgrounds etc. These items are useful to define the profiles of the three communities as collective aggregations of monasticisms: for example ga and sf are all Italian communities, while dt includes a member from Romania. A further step will be that of analyzing the organization of these institutions and the means through which common life is regulated by normative for what concerns rules and disciplines – such as the Benedectine rule, the Vinayapițaka discipline, or the absence of a rule. From this perspective the pivotal issue seems to be that of comparing the three different organizational models of the communities both from a synchronic and diachronic point of view. On the one hand, the internal hierarchies of the monasteries provide a fertile ground to reflect on the roles of leaders and leaderships; on the other hand, the monastery as a whole occupies a hierarchic position among different networks. The synchronic perspective focuses on the relations between the congregation and the original orders and other similar or affiliated monasteries – even outside Italy. Meanwhile the diachronic perspective focuses on the relation between the monastery and its historical tradition. The relational data aimed at this purpose are collected through the interaction between empirical and documentary analysis: this is where anthropology and history meet in a crucial cross-disciplinary methodology that shift from the synchronic to the diachronic level to identify the dynamics and processes which last in time and have to be considered as a whole. These themes allow us to picture the typical profiles for each of the three monastic experiences. Conclusion The real challenge of the comparison is the shift from Wittgensteinian family resemblance to that tracing of real symbolic connections necessary to approach monasticism in the contemporary global world in an appropriate and impartial way (Amselle 2001). The plurality of different monastic forms expressed by the variety of their means of organizations and the specificities of the paths chosen have to take into account the complex social political and cultural factors that determine it, while at the same time considering the common traits which invest, connote, and form that vast universe of experiences we might call the monastic family (Giorda and Sbardella 2012).5

5 Grants for this research originate from Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation under the sponsorship of the University of Turin, Department of Historical Studies.

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Freiberger, Oliver. 2006. Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical Accounts and Comparative Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. —— . 2009. Der Askesediskurs In Der Religionsgeschichte: Eine Vergleichende Untersuchung Brahmanischer Und Fruhchristlicher Texte. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Geertz, Clifford. 1966. “Religion as a Cultural System.” Pp. 1–46 in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by M. Banton. London: Tavistock. Giorda, Maria Chiara and Francesca Sbardella, eds. 2012. Famiglia monastica. Prassi aggregative di isolamento. Bologna: Pàtron. Giordan, Giuseppe. 2010. “Towards a Common Sense Religion? The Young and Religion in Italy.” Implicit Religion 13: 261–274. Gombrich, Richard. 2009. What the Buddha Taught. London: Equinox. Harpham, Geoffrey G. 1987. The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Herrou, Adeline and Giséle Krauskopff, eds. 2009. Moines et moniales de par le monde. La vie monastique au miroir de la parenté. Paris: L’Harmattan. Heussi, Karl. 1909–1913. Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. —— . 1936. Der Ursprung des Mönchtums. Tübingen: Mohr. Jaspert, Bernd. 2006. Mönchtum und Protestantismus. St. Ottilien: Eos Verlag. Johnston, William M., ed. 2000. Encyclopedia of Monasticism. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. Massein, Pierre. 1993. “Moines bouddhistes.” Pp. 1347–1350 in Dictionnaire des religions, edited by P. Poupar. Paris: puf. Palmisano, Stefania. 2010a. “La vita e la regola: Una ricerca organizzativa sulle nuove comunità monastiche in Piemonte.” Vita Consacrata 46: 578–602. —— . 2010b. “New Monastic Organizations: Innovation, Recognition, Legitimation.” International Journal for the Study of New Religion 1/2: 49–63. —— . 2011. “Ambiguous Legitimation: Grassroots Roman Catholic Communities in Italy and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies.” Temenos 47: 31–60. Pannikar, Raymond. 1982. Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as Universal Archetype. New York: Seabury Press. Parrinello, Rosa Maria. 2010. “Monachesimo cristiano.” Pp. 1078–1119 in Dizionario del sapere storico-religioso del Novecento, edited by A. Melloni. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1078–1119. Peterson, Erik. 1948. “L’origine dell’ascesi cristiana.” Euntes docete 1: 195–204. Picchierri, Angelo. 2011. Sociologia dell’organizzazione. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Remotti, Francesco. 1990. Noi, primitivi. Lo specchio dell’antropologia. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri. Séguy, Jean. 1971. “Une sociologie des sociétés imaginées: monachisme et utopie.” Annales e.s.c. 26: 328–354.

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chapter 15

Monasticism and Society in Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch Paul-André Turcotte Among the classics of modern sociology both Max Weber (1864–1920) and Ernst Troeltsch (1855–1923) have dealt with various aspects of monasticism without having studied it in a systematic way. Their way of dealing with the subject, by notations and short elaborations, inscribes itself in an intellectual scheme of both sociologist-historians. One had a background in economics, the other was a philosopher and exegete. A shared perspective does not mean an identical point of view. Discussion is required. Ancient monasticism and that of the Middle Ages retained the attention of the first master, and the socio-historical perspective, from its origins to the modern period, can produce constants and singularities. The comparison between the occidental and oriental Christian forms and non-Christian monasticism is directed toward the study of asceticism as the rationalization of existence. Theorization is often contextualized, rendered historically concrete in many perspectives or incursions which consider the dimensions of monasticism as a religious and historical formation. We will consider various processes that are part of this socio-historical profusion regarding monasticism under the aegis of religious virtuosity, modernity and rationalization, relations with the Church, the sect and mysticism (Turcotte and Lambert 2012, Turcotte 2012).

Religious Virtuosity and Monasticism

The religious field, according to Max Weber, is not limited to the simple relations of domination between the priest and the prophet on the one hand and, on the other, the lay person. Rather, religious actors are interrelated while, at the same time, distinguish themselves between the specialists and experts in religion such as the magician, the prophet, the priest on the one hand, and among non-specialist, in the figure of the lay person. Religious virtuosity does not define a character of the religious field. It belongs to the priest or the layperson, in so far as it is a possible property for one or the other. The prophet, who defines the virtuoso in the first place, can be a priest or a lay person, preferably the second. Monasticism, in so far as it is a body of religious and

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ascetical virtuosities, takes up its place in relation with specialists and nonspecialists in religion. It constitutes a Stand, to the degree that it monopolizes a certain prestige in society on account of a capital of symbolic goods which belong to it (Weber 1947: 253–254, 260, 309–310). Monasticism can hence be understood as a genetic process, namely the passage of the religion of the virtuosos to the religion of the masses. This aspect is correlative to the Weberian concept of religion. Weber placed the phenomenological and historical knowledge of his time in a sociological form which he partially reconceptualised, in relative opposition to Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. Here we rely upon the perspective of a reconstitution, knowing that Weber refused to provide a systematic conceptualization of the theme. According to Weber, religion derives its source from human experience. The option of an ultimate value – be it philosophical, religious or otherwise – gives meaning and direction to life. An orientation of existence is given which derives, from its emergence to its working out, from intimate convictions, beyond economic and political factors. The destiny of each person is built on concrete choices and decisions in which long-term consequences in a world in which differentiation and competing values prevail. In doing so, human relations take on a sense, from a subjective vision of things, with elements which are globally non-rational. Consequently, the specificity of the religiosity of a society, irrespective of its dimension, does not hearken back to the simple reflection of material or ideological interests of a social class. It responds to the psychic and spiritual needs of its believers. Among its necessities there is the pursuit of a sense of suffering, the search for existential and symbolic coherence of a logic of the comprehension of the injustice and malfunctioning of life – among other ways through the effort of justifying, among the factors that make up its condition, fortune or misfortune, with regard to success, wealth or good fortune (Séguy 1988). Religion is equally a body of beliefs and rites, rules of life and interdictions. Formed in this way it allows human beings to access salvation, to face suffering, injustice and death, to make sense of the absurd and of dereliction. These activities and functions are used to foster specific social ties, to establish a specifically religious field of power relations and reception. These relations differ according to the religious actors, especially on account of the virtuosity of religious life due to a personal charisma as a result of revelation, the ascetic cultivating an active method of personal conduct in life, the believer or nonbeliever concerned about managing the ordinary affairs of life, with its convictions facing this world and its challenges ranging from the economic sphere to the cultural one. Salvation is sought in an other-worldly or inner-worldly version, in one direction or in a mixed one following a more or less random

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orientation. Other factors come into play, the cardinal points of religious organizations – extension, intensity and interiority (Séguy 1988). Virtuosos of religion continue to produce a response intellectually to the quest for meaning and salvation, and to provide a rationally admissible solution to the problem of evil through redemption, and to disqualify magic as a means of salvation. It is different for those who do not have the musical “ear” for religion, while showing an interest in salvation. On the one hand, monks, charismatic communities, sectarian groups and reformers seek salvation based on a subjective necessity or an interior distress within an active search for a meaningful purpose, a way of life that gives unity with oneself, with other human beings and the cosmos, that is to say, the supernatural of everyday life. On the other hand, the formation of the laity, which is not part of religious virtuosity, ensures the passage of religiosity, moderated by needs which derive from interiority, to a religiosity that bears the mark of problems that go beyond the question of salvation, the problem of sense close to the cultural needs of the masses and organizational constraints, far from theological considerations about the purpose of life in this world (Ouédraogo 1997, 2006). The transition, a process of transformation, gives rise to transactions tied to the interpretation of the world, to the way of salvation and the relation to the world. The arrangement in which it consists, the reciprocal relationship in the recognition of distinction, with its mediations and transactions (Turcotte 2006), ensures the perpetuation of the religiosity of virtuosity. The reception of such ideas by the masses and their influence on daily life pass through various channels of communication. Moreover, arrangement, instead of being a step in a process or promoting syncretism, is the start of the quest for meaning, as it crosses religious production and the organizational basis to ensure its connection with the institutions and organizations of the social environment (Ouédraogo 1997, 2006; Turcotte and Remy 2006: 40–41). Monasticism is, socio-historically, one of the institutional forms of religious virtuosity, particularly with respect to its ascetical practices. The monk continues to achieve control of his self by the repression of natural impulses, which are obstacles to union with God in the way of his salvation. He is the only human being living a methodical life in the religious sense of the term, which affects his behaviour, in the economic domain among others. The monk is brought to rationalize his behaviour, which leads to the rationalization of organization. This is logically controlled by the symbiosis of the whole and the part. The organizational articulation has a bearing on economics. In this regard the possible scenario consists in the passage of existence ensured by rationally anti-economic means, such as searching for food and begging, streamlining individual economy in a relativizing organization in response to the needs

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of an activity or undertaking driven by an ascetic virtuosity. Relativization thus practiced produces a perverse effect, if need be, accumulating profit and wealth. By the conditions and effects of the rationalization of conduct, but not exclusively, the organized religion of virtuosity in monasticism arose between prophetic religion and the religion of the masses. Asceticism does not own a prophet. Monasticism oscillates between the two forms of religion, without identifying clearly or exclusively in favour of one or the other. It is closer in meaning to the expense of the other, depending on circumstances, but also with the self-definitions of its raison d’être and its relation to the world or to the institution of the Church. Various compositions are possible, shaping figures, well specified or ambivalent by the dual membership, such as that of the priest who is also a monastic. The orientation toward prophetic religion, the crown of the religion of virtuosity, becomes exceptional. It has all the chances to snuggle in the imagined project or, if it becomes practiced, hatched with the excitement of the origins before the accommodations of routinization. In the first phase, union with God takes place through the personal charisma of the spiritual experience out of the ordinary, without institutional mediation explicitly recognized. In the second phase, union with God is achieved through specific methods, and only by them. Methodical teaching introduces the practice of asceticism. The ascetic charisma becomes routinized: asceticism no longer offers salvation first, it becomes self-control by the rationalization of conduct. Work becomes one of its constitutive elements, while formalization and organizational centralization progress. Once the process is completed, the monk becomes part of the daily economy, which does not prevent him from doing what others cannot do. Monastic works demonstrate this, like those of sectarian groups. The impossible is within reach of the routinized monk in whom a dose of charisma remains more or less consistent. The latent radicalism of monasticism, independent as it is of personal charisma, is able to activate itself in a condition of exploitation by the civil power, Caesaro-papist or other, or the ecclesial institution. Asceticism is equated with unquestioning obedience, subject to hierarchy. Placed at the service of the institutional church or civil authorities, monks become disciplined troops a streamlined bureaucracy of officials. The ecclesiastical law of religious and the constitutions of each religious order ensure continued independence, relative to the general right of the ecclesial institution. Contesting asceticism gave way to subordinate asceticism, with its mystical negation, the decline in the individual path of salvation, its human and spiritual drama. Under such conditions, the critical force of asceticism emerges sooner or later, even if its expression is diverted from or directly in the tension with the founding

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charisma: the effervescent origins on the one hand, while on the other the arrangement with the Church, hence its institutional charisma, and the world (Weber 1947: 286, 319, 325, 335–336, 785–786, 788).

Monasticism, Asceticism and Modernity

Ties of monasticism and the work of Weber relate not only to virtuosity, but also to the process of the socio-historical rationalization of Western modernity. Asceticism is given a place of prime importance as an element of social distinction and as a vehicle for the rationalization of Western society compared to other societies. Various mediations are involved in the advent of modernity, including agents that are Christian organizations alongside virtuosos with personal charisma. Through mediations, monasticism contributed, along with Protestant Puritanism, to the advent of modernity, the rise of the rationalization of social life, including religion, without managing to eradicate irrational elements (Weber 1978: 116–119, 151–152, 183–184). Weber did not complete an analysis of monasticism similar to the study of Puritan sects, however. Rather, he limited himself to some notes just as he did for the origins of Christianity. Monasticism has its share, directly or indirectly, in the genesis and development of the typical products of Western civilization that are rigorous science, rational law, rational harmonic music, painting subject to the laws of perspective, a rationalized economy as in capitalism. An organic way to design and act passes through rationalization. For example, European capitalism is based on the relative mastery of the irrational impulse of the desire for gain, a control associated with the pursuit of efficiency and profitability. Moderation of profit is largely due to a historical double influence: the asceticism of the Puritan ethic, linked to the need to acquire the certainty of salvation, and property management, including the mendicant monastic religious orders. Either side operates in a conjunction between ascetic ethics, highlighting the method and discipline in the conduct of existence, and the development of talents and resources under the aegis of reason, creativity and an ability to predict the influence of hidden forces or the manipulations of magic. This development encompasses economics, religion (wisdom, theological, moral and spiritual), politics and the modern state, law, mathematics, science and cultural production, art. Mentalities are transformed by the demagified rationalization of representations and the conduct of life, without moral or intellectual progress being accepted as a given, without a total abandonment of the non-rational attached to values, representations and religious practices. Equally the contribution is

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not confined to the material effects of ascetic ethics. It includes others in the symbolic order and knowledge (Weber 1947: 787–790). The roots of this decisive shift go back to ancient Judaism, to the covenant between God and men, calling them to transform the world according to ethical standards. The Puritan sects are in line with this alliance, just as monasticism is an heir of Pauline writings. Both sides of the rationalization of existence and its influence on society go through asceticism. The latter, we know, is the first leader in the Weberian characteristics of monasticism. Combined or not with elements of virtuoso religion, or vis-à-vis the latter, it marks its relations, mediated with the social or economic classes, prestige and money, intellectual life, rationalization of action and work, the accumulation of wealth and economic competition (Weber 1947: 279, 286, 325, 326, 332–333, 335–336; 1978: 169, 196). Overall, and in synthesis, asceticism, as a method of rational self-control and development of organic life, is revealed at the heart of the deployment of religious virtuosity of monasticism and its relationship with the world and the Church, in an ambivalent relationship of protest or criticism or attestation, that according to their periods of life, from the institution of the beginning of integrative institutionalization, in agreement with situational factors and the degree of submission to the control of ecclesiastical or civil authorities. (Weber 1947: 788).

The Church, Sect, Mysticism and Monasticism

For Max Weber, like Ernst Troeltsch, religious ideations, such as those of a political nature, come to influence behavior in society, in so far as they are part of daily life and, through mediations, especially with institutions or through exceptional charismatic leaders (Turcotte 2009: 14–17). Christian ideation is expressed in historical mediations such as the Church or the socialized activity of salvation, the sect and monasticism which resemble it, alongside the mysticaltype. This last ranges from the complete lack of organization to meeting in elastic structures. The sect is characterized by association. It admits as members only those who are personally qualified from a religious point of view. The intensity outweighs the extension of the Church-type, correspondingly, the distinction from the world, if not its renunciation, is given importance, not an arrangement with otherness. The relation of arrangement is actively sought by the Church, suffered by the sect, and particularized and negotiated, by monasticism, which accepts the inclusion in the ecclesial institution. The induction of changes through transactions and the mediation of the arrangement-type which Troeltsch demonstrates in his analysis, leads to

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changes in the organization, including its representations, and to that degree it has been an agent of change in reciprocal relationships which are not fused with alterity (Séguy 2006). Up to a certain point, we are faced with conflictual interrelations. What does this mean? The organization, just like the individual, places itself before the other according to the representations that it constructs. The social relation in question is traversed both by instrumental rationalization, that of relations between means and ends, of the ethics of responsibility, that weighs the consequences of action, of self-investment, through a rationality that has values of a symbolic nature and an ethics of conviction, that of the engagement for a cause, of belief, without taking into consideration the possible external effects. Several factors intervene that derive from individual aspirations or psychic elements which are subjective; objective ones are contextual or derived from a historical heritage. They are selectively tradition or the status quo, emotion, affectivity, confidence, the rational, the cultural, the economic or the political. These factors characterize the kinds of legitimation of the relation of authority, which we understand as its criterion of exercise and reception, according to tradition as the reference, the rule or the charisma, heroic virtue, or exemplary value (Weber 1947: 124). It participates in the public affirmation of radicality, that is to say, the self-defined capacity of identity and the self-resolution of conflicts, relative to alterity and the regulation of conflicts in global society. (Turcotte 2012: 423–425). Considered from the point of view of social relations, arrangement hearkens to a terrain where differing interests can express themselves to reach an agreement between actors in conflict, of a symbolic and institutional order (Turcotte 2006). This is true in the Judaeo-Christian history of virtuoso relations of religiosity with the world or the mass of believers. On this issue the ideas of Max Weber cannot be separated from those of Ernst Troeltsch. The positions of the latter, a philosopher and scholar, historian and sociologist, academic and politician, confront Christianity with expressions of modern consciousness, especially to demonstrate the autonomy of religion from other spheres of society, including culture and economy. This autonomy within interdependence varies up to the point of inversion, with respect to historical conditions and types of Christian religious organizations (Séguy 1980, Dumais 1995). For Troeltsch, religion is an experience that is at once historical and reflexive. It does not consist in a simple response to a need for meaning, and its foundations are based on facts that are objectively identifiable and become particularised. Consequently the consciousness it expresses comes in the form of a reflexive morality and a cult with its rituals, definitions of belief and regulations, in reflection, and the philosophical and theological tradition and with

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its customs and conventions. These components of religion weave continuation in history. Permanence under these conditions undergoes mutations and subsequent diversifications with historical-social transformations, which prove to be endless in a certain sense. Modernity, insofar as it is a distinctive trait of society and religion, establishes the principle of individual autonomy. The Reformation and the Renaissance brought assistance to the decision to place distance before the constraints of intellectual, political and ecclesiastical authorities. Similarly, the mystical type of Christian life leads individuals to overcome established religious structures. Catholic participation in the process of individuation is restricted to mysticism. Theology and Catholic organizations have no affinity with the modern world (Séguy 1980, Dumais 1995). Troeltsch’s mystical-type is more than just an addition to the Weberian typology of Christian groups including the church and the sect. According to him Christianity is rooted in a spiritual experience out of the ordinary, as reported by the Gospels and other New Testament writings. Reference to this foundational experience is the guiding principle of its historical presence. However, with what conditions did the representations and organizations which stemmed from the New Testament writings mark cultures? By what mediations and due to what factors have they produced decisive effects on speech, especially philosophical and theological discourse, social relations and institutions? How can this vis-à-vis serve as a reference to questioning the relevance of socio-religious Christian faith and its institutions in the current situation? In the analysis of the social teachings of churches and Christian groups, Troeltsch engages in a synchronic and inter-Christian comparison over nineteen centuries. He shows that Christian social ethics is certainly not an absolute in time and space. It changes at different times, depending on the adjustments and arrangements of its constitutive elements with the otherness of the world. Social ethics, from the Gospels to the Christianities of the late nineteenth century varied, depending on data characterising historical societies, depending also reports of tension and mutual organizational forms of Christianity – the Church, sect and mysticism – and mixed forms of monasticism in Catholicism and Protestantism in the Free Church. Bilateral changes are due to economic, political or cultural factors, and in relation to philosophical or theological elaborations, whether or not in harmony with the representations and inputs from other places or areas of the Church and society. On behalf of the Gospel and the New Testament, and the case of the early Christian Church, Christian sects maintain negative relationships with the world, ranging from problems in everyday relationships with their environment to dissent from the State. If concessions or accommodations are made,

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then it is likely that there will be more of a chance that they will brought into effect rather than being explicitly recognized. The most spiritual are virtuosos who have definite ideas about the world, while criticizing it. As for the sect, more actively chosen or circumstantial grounds make a certain degree of agreement with alterity possible. The Church-type actively seeks these terrains to penetrate culture and mark the founding texts and their interpretations, new or old, which are constitutive of tradition (Séguy 2006). Monasticism participates in these tensions as refusal or arrangement along its historical forms, whether it be in affinity with the sect, the Church or with spiritualism. Compositions in one way or another are multiple and historically, more personalized, individuated by the spirit and practice of each community or religious order. The capacity and mode of transactions between the religious organization and the world depend on externalization, on public demonstration which is ideologically based. Mystical spiritualism is given to individual arrangement, not collective or communal, due to a spirit of relativization of practices, rituals or other, and the design of the membership of the Church as a communion of saints and not an institution or community. This double exteriority of the Church includes rituals, beliefs, dogmatic formulations and some constraint, at least spiritually. The Church is an organic whole covering the diversity of individual positions on the scale of the practical receipt of a means of salvation. In this it differs markedly from the sect, an organization first associative in character, which claims, in the name of a vision of the things of life, which are its own, a particular way of living and thinking, as well as the ability to resolve by itself the relationship between followers (Séguy 2006). We have here the main features of a cognitive minority, the equal of monasticism taken by itself. The coalescence of these three forms of the Christian organization is a historical fact, even if one wishes to claim any borders that are closed to other forms. Monasticism is a clear case in this regard. Troeltsch defined it analogously as a partial ecclesification of the sectarian motif. It does not constitute a sect in the Church, but an adaptation of sectarian motifs inside the church. These patterns appear to interact without merging with those of the Church. The mix ranges from the approximation to the Church and the world, on the one hand, yet, on the other hand, the withdrawal of the sect (Troeltsch 1925: 151, 171–172). The aspect of interiority and externalization accompanies the variation in one direction or the other. Troeltsch advances the historic possibility of a monastic Church with the Irish case or the monasticization of the sect, as well as historical affinities, in movement, of the church and sect, and the sect and the church (Troeltsch 1923: 810–812; Weber 1947: 786).

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The sociologist historian of Christianity, as a philosopher and in an exegetical analysis of texts, differs from Weber’s emphasis on monastic protest in relation to ideologies and operations, whether sectarian or in the ecclesiastical Catholic version. In doing so, it focuses instead on inter-relational monasticism, especially in the light of the sect, the Church and mysticism. The emphasis is placed notably on the conflicting nature of integration into the Church. Monasticism extends Paleo-Christian radicalism in its Pauline version. It replaces the expectation of Christ’s return with asceticism, which resulted in the withdrawal from the world without condemning it. As for the Church, it intends to recover monasticism to its advantage. However, an explosive element remains in it, even in latency. Does it not support the assertion of the individual, personalized, we would say today, in the way of salvation, the equality of all before the rule, including superiors? Does it support the fraternal sharing of material and spiritual goods, the active participation of members in decisions affecting them and other elements that it shared with the sect-type or the mystical-type of Christianity? In the history of Western Christianity, monasticism proves the bad conscience of the institutional Church (Troeltsch 1923: 107–108, 110, 122–126). These indications, however, do not cover all branches of the relationships of coalescence. Troeltsch refuses to gather scattered annotations in conjunction with historical facts or elements of theory. He identifies the intricacies of monasticism in relation with other Christian organizations to articulate and render explicit the levels of complexity involved throughout historical variations. Monasticism is taken apart and considered almost like a sect and as a subordinate and integrated body in this dual capacity of performing duties in the Church. The historical process of institutional and ideological integration results in a partial ecclesification of sectarian motifs, ceding to the resurgences of the sect-type or the mystical-type and tensions of various kinds. Points of analysis, constants, emerge in many patterns, which once identified, are grafted onto a whole with specific traits which characterize a type of ideal Christian group. Scrutinizing the relational socio-religious ramifications of monasticism refines the motifs or the traits of different ideal-types. The latter, once constructed, constitute guides to understanding the reality outside of the situations retained, but equally in the process of their manufacturing, including the testing of hypotheses. This is especially the case in the analysis of multiple historical workings of monasticism in which Troeltsch displays himself as a sociologist and draws elements of conceptualization, within a framework which owes much to Weber, and corresponds to his own conception of religion, especially the Christian ideation, in addition to the genesis and deployment of modernity.

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The Diachronic Typology of Monasticism

The contribution of Troeltsch, decisive as it is, lies not in the invention of concepts. It gives little importance to a theoretical scheme about monasticism. The focus is primarily on socio-historical analysis, a continuation of the work of Adolf von Harnack, Weber’s other undisputed reference. These analyses draw displacements and characteristics from various historical forms of monasticism, following the periods of its development in the West: first that of the desert, then the medieval feudal-rural, then the medieval urban-bourgeois type, and then the modern. A new historical form does not erase the previous, which continue to exist at least as a vestige of a previous time and not without resilience or resurgence. Diachronic typology prolongs Weberian questions, starting with asceticism, religious virtuosity, the relations to culture and economy, all in light of Troeltsch’s intellectual project. The first kind of monasticism offers a general complex, whether it be in the form of communal life or that of the hermit. Evangelical radicalism leads the monk to escape the world in favour of deserted places outside of civil and religious institutions, and practicing a spiritual experience turned mainly to the Gospels and the foundational writings of Christianity. These monks devote themselves to an austere asceticism in a physically hostile environment, stay away from ritual sacramentalization, ecclesiastical rules and public government. Masters emerge from a life dedicated to prayer and meditation on the Paschal mystery, in the mystical imitation of Christ. In ancient Catholicism monasticism expresses a critical distance, mainly with respect to property, sexuality, the State and the Church. Insofar as it still has many features which are sectarian or mystical, monastic life confirms and supports the milieu of Christians who are not monks. Its position is undefined, even if it is quickly placed under the authority of bishops. The monks serve the Church in their own way, which is not without a certain institutional subordination and competition with the clergy. Various designs of Christian life coexist, and the choice of monasticism as the primary determinant fails to win over the hesitations of the Church (Troeltsch 1923: 176, 179, 359). Monasticism in the medieval Church is feudal-rural or bourgeois-urban. One and the other are integrated in the ideology of the Church as sacramental grace, and so they are subordinate to it. The monk’s salvation depends as much on obedience to authority and the sacrament as it does on ascetic virtuosity. It is at the service of society, such as agriculture and culture, developing the idea of the social gospel in the previous period. To serve all, in a social and religious way, is a pivotal element of the monastic vocation. Another branch of service is the function of the ascetic priest for the salvation of all. To this end it

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is important to increase the treasury of merits in the communion of saints participating in the passion of Christ. Christian virtuosos, especially monks, are able to provide the merits which are not often held by ordinary Christians. In doing so, the monks reinforce the medieval idea of the communion of saints, and as suppliers of secondary graces, they are useful to the Church in the institutional distribution of grace. In addition, monastic orders will be in agreement with Canon Law while maintaining their own law which assures a certain autonomy. The rule of life favours a means of Christian perfection, that of the regulars, among others available in the Church. This monasticism is linked to the upper layers of feudal society from which priests are recruited, alongside lay brothers belonging to the lower layers. In the late Middle Ages it sought to revitalize ordinary Christian life by awakening preachers and the example of the practice of Christian virtues. Orders of this kind have been groups of ascetic virtuosos who have cultivated the Christian virtues and the ascetic rationalization of human existence, which have made economic and scientific contributions to society through education and the advancement of knowledge, which have shown themselves to be specialists, as with non-monks, of the flourishing of irrational religiosity in defined rules. All is intended to serve the interests of the Church for which, if the tasks of Christians in the world are inferior to those of the clergy and monks, those Christians are no less ordered to salvation because of a continuum of the asceticism of the commandments of God and the Church to that of the evangelical counsels. This is the dual ethics in question. The relative sacralization of secular activities can integrate religious and secular life, which is not unique to the practical model of the evangelical counsels. The Benedictine rule rationalizes daily life between periods of rest, prayer and manual labour, whether physical or mental, including the copying of manuscripts alongside subsistence tasks and other relevant knowledge or technical practices. Both sides participate in a unitary ideal of civilization in which the Church affirms itself as the sole reference of culture, where it defines the purpose of the social whole and gives these purposes the practical ability to achieve their goal, including education, religion, the State whose entire purpose is directed to religious purposes. To develop such a synthesis a system encompassing social activities in the religious system is supposed, avoiding in this way the gap between the Church and the world. This reading of medieval society is shared by Weber and Troeltsch, whose analysis has shown that the Middle Ages was not limited to the socio-religious system in force under the aegis of the Church, or that the latter, with flaws and gaps, had housed an abundant diversity of ideologies and practices which was source of recurring conflict. The

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method used in the medieval analysis remains too little known: generally global systemic views which are factually and ideologically convenient are preferred. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century, bourgeois-urban monasticism underwent the effervescence of the foundational moment, in favour of urbanization accompanied by a release from medieval guardianship. The serf who managed to reach a free town was freed and joined the ranks of artisans and the urban proletariat. In an atmosphere of liberation from submission and the creation of a new kind of man, sects were arose such as the Catarhs and Waldensians, and religious orders such as the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Hermits of St. Augustine. This last group was one of those small movements of hermits which solidified into an urban religious order. For nearly two centuries, the Franciscans sought recruits who did not belong to the nobility. Opposed to the urban mentality in their infancy, the Franciscans and other new orders rallied and became the engine of the integration of the city in the Church. They used newcomers to combat sects, and especially to submit this urban mix conveying ideas and social relations of unprecedented freedom, the means of production for a new kinds of emerging social classes. Besides preaching, the advancement of knowledge, education and other insertions, the mendicant friars developed a secular piety through third orders. So the requirements of asceticism spread out beyond convents, contributing to the rationalisation, in the economic sphere among others, of existence, while setting limits on the protesting strength of asceticism within the alignment of the teaching and discipline of the ecclesiastical institution. Meanwhile the Benedictine rule had ended the uncontrolled escape from the world and asceticism considered wild, especially of Celtic monasticism, in order to subordinate man to its will, to impose self-control, while reversing the supremacy of the abbot over the bishop. At the end of the Middle Ages, the feudal and mendicant orders forged a synthesis, having been a model in their own way, monasticism became fully integrated and subordinated to the institutional Church (Troeltsch 1923: 176, 203, 227, 230–238, 249; Weber 1978: 789). Monasticism in modern times experienced an institutional condition identical to that of bourgeois urban monasticism, namely subordination to the ecclesiastical bureaucracy and the service of the Church in its various components. Among the attempts to modify the movement, some foundations in the sixteenth century sought to affirm a sectarian tendency, but the trend in this direction was quickly controlled by compliance with the requirements of official ecclesiastical approval. These traits may exist in individual behaviour or localized within a group where they are diluted. The intention of recreating, but on new foundations, both the Church and society as a whole, seems present in some of the foundations of religious congregations in the nineteenth

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century. They are likely to be mitigated, if not pushed into unspoken relationships, with a Church that now holds all authority and power with respect to the principles and methods of the Christian life, which was questionable before the fifteenth century. At the same time, the clergy continue to counteract the influence of the religious by monasticizing themselves, and in this way they compete on their own ground. Clerics themselves create groups which are quasi-monastic within consecrated religious life. In this case, the rationalization of existence for utilitarian purposes, whether social, religious or clerical, in conjunction with the composite nature of spiritual practices, faces more than once the first recruits who protest while highlighting a spirituality, original in their eyes because it is based on an exceptional personal experience, which is able to ensure, under autonomous management, certainly relative, coherence and direction in the management of their own work and daily life (Troeltsch 1923: 810–812; Weber 1947: 787–790).

Monasticism as a Cognitive Minority

The social condition of monasticism, arising from the socio-historical overview of its forms and its workings as a quasi-sect which is partially ecclesiastified can be conceptualized in terms of a cognitive minority. What does that mean? Understood in this way, monasticism requires a worldview that is not granted in many respects by that which is dominant in society and the mass of believers, the whole institutional Church. A body of persons clearly affirms a difference, a symbolic order, by its own way of seeing things and conduct of life. Social affirmation through individuals who give life to the group by their membership, their voluntary adherence and commitment to the pursuit of goals which are explicitly formulated and assumed, internalized through a personal path. These groups know how to negotiate, within the possible limits, how to be socially recognized, the ability to be masters of their internal relations and with those in the outside world. So they self- define their purpose while respecting the regulations of the institutional Church and those of the society around them, even to the point of, where necessary, claiming exemptions or accommodations which are adapted to circumstances, while also attacking openly what they see in their environment as inadmissible. The influence sought in the conscious interrelation of the distinction and connection with the company and its regulators is far from obvious. Radicalism in this sense is expressed, relatively speaking, at the height of power relations in society and the Church (Turcotte 2001). These elements of monasticism, taken as a cognitive minority, are consistent with the conceptualization of

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traits or reasons advanced by Weber and Troeltsch in their description of the workings of monastic history and society with regard to the interplay of virtuosity and modernity – relations with the Church, sect and mysticism. A detailed and critical analysis remains to be done, especially with regard to Troeltsch, now that the notations and elaborations of both historical sociologists have been collected and framed (Turcotte and Lambert 2012). References Dumais, Alfred. 1995. Histoire et foi chrétienne: Une lecture du théologien Ernst Troeltsch. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Ouédraogo, Jean Martin. 1997. “Des religiosités de virtuoses aux religiosités de masses: aux origines du compromis selon Max Weber.” Social Compass 44: 611–625. —— . 2006. “Virtuoses, laïcs et compromis religieux chez Max Weber.” Pp. 91–131, in Médiations et compromis: Institutions religieuses et symboliques sociales: Contri­ butions à une relecture des classiques de la sociologie, edited by P-A. Turcotte and J. Remy. Paris: L’Harmattan. Séguy, Jean. 1980. Christianisme et société: Introduction à la sociologie de Ernst Troeltsch. Paris: Cerf. —— . 1988. “L’approche wébérienne des phénomènes religieux.” Pp. 163–185 in Omaggio a Ferrarroti, edited by R. Cipriani and I. Macioti. Rome: Siares. —— . 2006. ”Intensité-Extension.” Pp. 47–61 in Médiations et compromis: Institutions religieuses et symboliques sociales – Contributions à une relecture des classiques de la sociologie, edited by P-A. Turcotte and J. Remy. Paris: L’Harmattan. Troeltsch, Ernst. 1923. Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I. Tübingen: Mohr. —— . 1925. “Das stoisch-christliche Naturrecht und das moderne profane Naturrecht” (1911) in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. IV. Tübingen: Mohr. Turcotte, Paul-André. 2001. “The Religious Order as a Cognitive Minority in the Church and in Society.” Social Compass 48–2: 169–191. —— . 2006. “Compromis religieux, régulation et socialisation – Arrangements, Regulation and Socialization.” Social Compass 53: 449–453. —— . 2009. “Les transactions sociales de la religion: de la médiation au compromis.” Pensée Plurielle 21(2): 13–25. —— . 2012. “Le monasticisme dans la sociologie de Max Weber et de Ernst Troeltsch.” Claretianum 52: 405–427. Turcotte, Paul-André and Arthur Lambert. 2012. “Das Mönchtum und der religiöse Orden nach Max Weber und Ernst Troeltsch / Le monasticisme et l’ordre religieux chez Max Weber et Ernst Troeltsch.” Claretianum 52: 428–503.

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——  and Jean Remy (eds). 2006. Médiations et compromis: Institutions religieuses et symboliques sociales. Contributions à une relecture des classiques de la sociologie. Paris: L’Harmattan. Weber, Max. (1922) 1947. Grundriss der Sozialökonomie Part III: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, vol. I and II, Tübingen: Mohr. —— . (1920) 1978. Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus in Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Religionssoziologie. Tübingen: /Mohr.

chapter 16

Séguy and the Monastic Utopia Enzo Pace The first time Jean Séguy1 came to Padova to hold a series of lectures, he asked me if he could stay in a guest accommodation at a monastery. That was in 1983. His request posed no problem: right in the historic center of Padova, not far from St Anthony’s huge Basilica, there is a Benedictine monastery with an original nucleus that dates back to the 6th century, which was restored in the 17th century to the form that we see today. This is where Séguy stayed, to his own and the monks’ mutual satisfaction, as the latter soon came to appreciate his 1 Jean Séguy (1925–2007) was Directeur de recherche at the cnrs. He is one of the leading names in French sociology of religions since wwii. He first studied English language and literature. He attended high school in Annaba (St. Augustine’s ancient Hippo), Algeria, where his father was responsible for the tobacco works. As he said himself (cfr. S. Fath, Cours de sociologie de Jean Séguy, http://blogsebastienfath.hautetfort.com/ publicly available online since January 2009), it was here that he accidentally discovered Protestantism, or rather an Adventist version of it. After staying in Egypt, he returned to Paris, where Henri Desroche (another leading figure in French sociology of religions) convinced him to apply to the cnrs in 1960. As Danièle Hervieu-Léger wrote, Séguy was grateful to Desroche “until the end of his days, for having converted the professor of English that he had been into a researcher into the sociology of religions” (cfr. “In Memoriam Jean Séguy,” in Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 2008, n. 41, p. 155). Séguy had already made a name for himself when he published Les sectes protestantes dans la France contemporaine in 1956 (Paris: Beauchesne), which stemmed from his dissertation at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, where he had found a master on the history of Protestantism of the calibre of Emile-Guillaume Léonard. From then on, his interest focused increasingly on the dissident, non-conformist and sectarian movements in Christianity, generating research on hitherto unexplored topics (as in the book Les assemblées anabaptistes-mennonites de France. Paris-La Haye: Mouton, 1977) as well as on contemporary issues, sometimes revisited from the viewpoint of Weber’s sociology (like Les conflits du dialogue ou réformer l’Eglise. Parcours wébérien en douze essais. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1973). He was a careful and critical reader of Weber, and of Ernst Troeltsch too, thanks to his excellent knowledge of German. He dedicated two works to the latter: Ernst Troeltsch et sa sociologie du christianisme (Paris: Cercle E. Renan, 1961) and Christianisme et société. Introduction à la sociologie de Ernst Troeltsch (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1980). He was director of the journal Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions for many years, contributing articles and commentaries, as well as publishing more than 200 reviews, all of which goes to show his prodigious capacity for writing and an intellectual curiosity that stayed with him almost until the day he died.

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intellectual and interior qualities, and when Séguy returned a few years later for a second series of lectures, the monks offered him the room normally reserved for the Bishop. I had known Séguy since 1977 and had already learned a great deal from his way of re-reading the classics. It was he who introduced me to Ernst Troeltsch, making me see how Christianity could be analyzed using sociological tools, still taking its historical dimension into account, but using a grid for interpreting it that could serve as a compass in both senses of the word, i.e. helping us to find our way in the great sea of history and also enabling us to broaden or restrict our range of vision with ease to suit our needs. With Troeltsch, we can trace abstract ideal types of ethical-spiritual models and see how they generate a like number of diverse organizational models, just as we can exercise our minds in analyses of more circumscribed issues, such as the development of asceticism in Christianity and how it came to be a part of the monastic experience. For Troeltsch, asceticism and mysticism were the keywords to help us embark on research in this field with the right mindset. He also saw asceticism and mysticism as a sort of cognitive map with which to find his way to understanding the complexio oppositorum typical of Christianity – and of Roman Catholicism in particular.2 He considered monasticism like an open-air laboratory in history and society, where people with a calling to follow Christ (sequela Christi, Matthew 19:21) have been trying to combine the ideal of detachment from this world without denying the beauty of creation reflected and resplendent therein, to be ascetically separated, segregated from the world, apparently concealed within the monastery’s cloisters, but mystically at one with the salvific tension that the world expresses. Ex captivitate salus. What interested Séguy, in the wake of the classical studies by Weber and Troeltsch, was the ambivalence and, at times, even the paradox of monastic life in relation to evangelical radicality, and its claimed ability to combine mystical contemplation with an ascetic lifestyle. In particular, Séguy was fascinated by the sociological dimension of mysticism, the third type of socioreligious aggregation that Troeltsch discussed in the Soziallheren,3 i.e. the 2 The brief essay by C. Schmitt, Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form. München: Theatiner Verlag, 1925 (tr. Roman Catholicism and Political Form. Westport (ct): Praeger, 1996, on this notion of complexio oppositorum remains unsurpassed. 3 Die Soziallheren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen. Tübingen: Verlag J.C.B. Mohr, 1912. The first English translation dates back to 1931, followed by an Italian one in 1941, while the text has yet to be translated into French.

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mysticism, or rather the spiritualismus, that the German sociologist saw as a possible matrix of organizational forms in tension (not in antithesis) with both the model of the church and that of the sect. This provided the backdrop for Séguy’s intellectual curiosity regarding monasticism. He considered this an explosive topic, in the sense that it could be broken down and analyzed to reveal a precious indication of the latent conflicts within the Catholic Church and the various methods used to govern them. Séguy also saw monasticism as the historical precipitate of how the Catholic Church had come to a compromise with the world, while inherent in the various forms of monasticism (and especially those inspired by the radicality of the evangelical message) there has always also been a more or less implicit or explicit criticism of the ethics of compromise. It comes as no surprise that Séguy should label monks as utopians, though actually meaning to speak of something else, i.e. of how the monastic utopia is potentially and sometimes explicitly a form of radical protest, an expression of the malaise experienced by those who strive to put into practice what Troeltsch would call the absoluteness of Christianity, shunning any sort of compromise with the orders of this world. The utopia practiced by the monks is seen by Séguy as an alternative model of society and, at the same time, as a way of imagining a model in which the church is a genuine alternative to society and to the forms of power (economic, political, and so on) on which the latter relies. The element of tension that the monastic utopia brings to the surface lies in exactly this: monks withdraw from the world to show how they imagine a perfectly Christian life should be, where what counts is contemplation (possibly in active form, combining prayer with work within the walls of the cloister), but at the same time they express the wish to avoid seeing the way of salvation invented and practiced by monks and nuns incorporated and assimilated in the mindset and unique model proposed by the Church with its hierarchy, sacraments, and apparatus of power. This is an idea that we find already in Troeltsch when he makes the point, in a chapter of the Soziallheren on mediaeval asceticism and monasticism, that monasticism has become ecclesiastical, swallowed by and subject to the Church’s global government, and the Church tends to make people submit not to asceticism, but to the priest and the sacraments, making monasticism answer first to the bishops, then to the Pope. Monasticism thus becomes a tool of government used by the Church, a service order (so, if I am permitted this play on words, it is hardly surprising that we should speak of religious orders), and the force of the utopian idea is defused. This is like applying Robert

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Michels’ iron law of oligarchy4 to the organizational model of the Catholic Church.5 According to Séguy, monasticism stems from the desire for a reawakening that has recurred cyclically in the history of Christianity (and in the Catholic and Orthodox churches in particular). It initially arouses positive critical energies driving for liturgical and theological reform, for a moralizing of customs and a return to the values of evangelical poverty. These energies are then gradually reabsorbed in a process of routinization of the charisma of the various founders and animators of movements of spiritual revival, with a parallel institutionalization of their movements, which are simply converted into religious orders, obedient to the authority of the Pope. The “ecclesiastification” of monasticism essentially means eclipsing the utopia of which it was interpreter and spokesman. Here again, it is no chance that Séguy should be interested in this particular aspect of the monastic phenomenon, as we shall see from reading the article that follows, which is neatly summarized in a paragraph quoted below: …. From this point of view, one can see the interest that the detailed study of the negotiations and the conflicts would have − negotiation appearing as one of the forms of conflict − the negotiations and conflicts which lead from a primitive project to the rule, to the constitutions, then to their practices, in all the coenobitic creations where the state of conservation of documents would allow this approach. A similar study would lead us to understand how and why a radical movement ad intra becomes either a Church, but often a sect ad extra, or an order within a Church. In either case, one finds oneself generally before a utopian project for social change6 often before the same project.

4 A pupil of Max Weber’s, Robert Michels is known for having stated this unavoidable law that makes political oligarchies occupy key positions in a party and bureaucratize its political actions. The reference is in Zür Soziologie der Parteiwesens in der Modern Demokratie. Lepzing: Werner Klinkhard, 1911 (tr. A Sociological Study of Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, Hearst’s International Library Co., New York, 1915; a second, more accurate translation was published by Free Press in 1949). 5 Cf. E. Pace, Il carisma, la fede, la chiesa. Introduzione alla sociologia del cristianesimo. Roma: Carocci, 2012. 6 “Even when the social change is refused, for then the retrogressive project refers to the past as a golden age and not as it was really lived. It aims thus also to a social change. Whether it provokes or not is another question.”

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In this sense, another issue that Séguy found intellectually fascinating, following in Troeltsch’s footsteps, concerns how a sect, a utopian movement (animated in nuce by a wholly Christian community life project) of the sectarian type can turn into an order in the Church’s institutional system, a rule regulated by the supreme authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The alternative, and the pages of history are full of examples, these movements could refuse to be normalized, abandon the church system, and carry on alone. When monasticism remains within the Church, Séguy explains that its utopia is, at best, intram ecclesiam. But, we might add, this means that the contradiction between integral asceticism and ecclesiastical monopoly of the ways and means of salvation persists, remaining latent, though it may occasionally resurface and explode. In a book written by a Benedictine abbess7 of a cloistered monastery, just outside of Milan, the above-mentioned tension surfaces very clearly. She writes: With the arrival of new cultures and new peoples, we find ourselves in a situation similar in some ways to the times when Benedict was driven to found the monasteries, an impulse that effectively prompted him to contribute to the construction of Europe. But it is still hard to say whether we can make such a mark on history today as Benedict succeeded in doing, especially if we insist on being mere proud custodians of an ancient tradition [the italics are mine]. The nuns in their convents live more in the cultural undergrowth, while in the main the male monastic communities are clericalized; their cultural level may well be higher, but often (in Italy at least) they do not face the challenges posed by the subculture where, in my opinion, one might see the signs of the new, rising culture.8 The female version of monasticism is actually a good example of how ecclesification has left little space for the even more radical utopia inherent in the original driving force of so many monastic experiences toward an ascetic evangelical model. Paradoxically, just because the female version of monasticism was considered a second-class citizen, a variant of the numerous male monasticisms, the nuns’ search for a model of community, of a religious way of life spent in contemplation, even to the point of practicing perpetual silence and total isolation from the outside world, has always given rise to a separation from the world that has been translated by the ecclesiastical organization into 7 Cf. I. Angelini, Mentre vi guardo. Torino: Einaudi, 2013. 8 Cf. Angelini, cit.: 39.

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a gender-based distinction that reflects the androcentric and patriarchal nature of the church. The little research underway on the topic9 shows that it is in the female monastic communities (often with the Benedictine nuns forming the avant-garde10) that we can see the discomfiture of those who wish to rid themselves of the penetrating gaze of the Catholic hierarchy and try new ways of living the utopia, as well as striving to see the question of women’s role in the Church finally debated without hypocrisy and further delay. In actual fact, the article by Séguy that appears in this volume, translated into English for the first time, concerns the particular topic of monasticism, but if we look more carefully. we find what it focuses on goes much higher up. In other words, we cannot fully grasp what Séguy says about monastic utopia without bearing in mind his analysis in the book Les Conflits du Dialogue (1973). Already in the title, this book lets us imagine Séguy’s theoretical perspective and animus in dealing with an issue that was highly topical at the time (soon after the Second Vatican Council), i.e. ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. To underscore the title, the cover contains two further indications that might surprise anyone new to Séguy’s work: the first is Church reform, the second a Weberian approach in 12 essays. I would say that we find the very essence of Séguy in this far from straightforward way of introducing himself to a potential reader: it links a topic of current affairs (dialogue in the Catholic Church) with a theoretical perspective of some depth and undeniable methodological relevance (the explicit reference to Weber) and, at the same time, to a moral and intellectual hope that he nourished and that accompanied him throughout his life, i.e. Church reform, or Reformkatholizismus,11 an expression that Séguy liked very much. 9

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Cf. C. Chiurato, S. Palmisano, “Nuove comunità monastiche: la re-invenzione della tradizione,” in Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 2012, n. 2, pp. 217–240 and I. Jonveaux, Le monastère au travail. Paris: Bayard, 2011. At least, this is what emerges from an investigation into the exposure of the monasteries in internet. See E. Pace, La comunicazione invisibile. Le religioni in internet. Milano: San Paolo Edizioni, 2013. This formula refers to an attitude that developed in Catholicism in Germany between the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th century. It differs from modernism in that its exponents intended not to criticize the grounds for the dogmatic structure of the Catholic Church, but rather to introduce reforms to improve the quality of the clergy’s training and promote a more incisive participation of lay people in the life of the Church. One of the most representative exponents was Joseph Müller, author of the book Der Reformkatholizismus die Religion der Zukunft. Berlin: Gödel, 1899. A summary of the content of this work is contained in Reform Catholicism, Religion, Past and Present, Leiden: Brill online 2013 (http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/religion-past-and -present/reform-catholicism.COM_024561.

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He once used this term, when interviewed by Guizzardi and myself, to recall the intellectual background behind the Archives de Sociologie des Religions, later renamed the Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions,12 in order to summarize the state of mind of a whole generation like his own, which had hoped and even fought, as of the Second Vatican Council, for a dialogue between Catholicism and modernity. To sum up, what I mean to say is that, for Séguy, reforming Catholicism meant turning our attention to those who had tried to put the evangelical utopia into practice without leaving the Church, letting us imagine another world – another possible society – no longer subject to the logic of compromise with the world that characterizes Catholicism’s type of church organization. 12

I allude here to the book dedicated to the story of the journal, published under the title Sapere e potere religioso: La rivista Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions. Bari: De Donato, 1981, in which we introduced and translated a selection of articles that had appeared in the journal, written by Jean-Pierre Deconchy, Henri Desroche, François Isambert, Paul Ladrière, Emile Poulat and Jean Séguy (this last was entitled “L’ascèse dans les sectes d’origine protestante,” and appeared in issue No. 18, in 1964).

chapter 17

A Sociology of Imagined Societies: Monasticism and Utopia Jean Séguy1 Is the concept of utopia, which is fashionable today, operational in the context of historical sociology? Given that an ideal-type of utopia, described later, can take on a heuristic value, what can be said of monasticism as a utopia, and what prolongation does it offer for history as it does for sociology? The present article has no ambition other than to reply to these questions, by means of an exercise that is both theoretical and practical.

Ideology, Utopia and Monarchism

Karl Mannheim, in a famous work (1956), studies mental representations as social forces, by opposing ideology and utopia. This dichotomy of the ideal-type kind reveals, according to him, an essential differentiation between two antithetical kinds of collective ideation.2 The former tends to reinforce the existing social order in favor of the domination of the classes in power; that is, Ideology. The latter, or utopia, proposes to change the order in force by inculcating within a collectivity, or an important part of a collectivity, the desire to transcend its situation. In other terms, all protestation is utopian in so far as it resorts, to express itself, not to a rational analysis but to imagined elements, to the ideal imaginary. Does this mean that all no rational ideation would be, inversely, a protesting utopia? No, because ideology itself belongs to this domain. Mannheim justifies his dichotomy by the notion of sociological functionality: utopia does not play the same function as ideology. The interest of this analysis would thus lie in its objectivity. Unfortunately it finds itself linked to a philosophy of history that renders it less operational. In any case, and there lies our principal objection, it fixes too strongly the reality in which utopia can, according to us, become ideology (in Mannheim’s own definition), and vice 1 This chapter was first published in French in 1971 (Séguy 1971). The present translation is by Geoffrey Capner. 2 This expression of collective ideation comes from Durkheim and is not found in Mannehim’s work.

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versa, or such ideation plays successively, or at the same time and at different levels, one role rather than another. It is also not very clear why the dominating social classes should not produce utopias. Nor is it clear why myths should enter into the category of utopia, if the latter mobilizes crowds for social change. Nor, lastly, is it clear why utopia should belong exclusively to the domain of ideation. Can one not come across utopian practices? Mannheim’s views allow, however, an interesting placing in perspective of a whole aspect of western history too long confused with its teratological margin, or with Engels, Kautsky and Bernstein, with the ineffectual precursors of Marxism (e.g., Engels 1969, Kautsky 1895, Kautsky and Bernstein 1895, Marx and Engels 1968, Engels 1951, Desroche 1965). Moreover, Mannheim’s work has the merit of emphasising the importance of ideas in the social process and to show the role of the bourgeois intelligentsia in the mutation (Mannheim 1956: 225–229). Finally, it allows one, and this is its major interest, to recapitulate, under a single label, phenomena apparently dissimilar (sects, millennial phenomena, diverse written utopias) and to place them within history in particular, in relation with the increasing rationalization of thought. Next to Mannheim we can place a contemporary Marxist philosopher, Ernst Bloch. His dense work stimulates imagination, but complies badly with the demands of history or of sociology. An exegete has been able to detect in his work six different types in the utopian domain: 1. Medical utopias (miracle remedies); 2. Technical utopias (alchemy); 3. Urban and architectural utopias; 4. Geographical utopias (unknown lands of fables and tales, etc.); 5. Artistic utopias (above all, music); 6. Religious utopias (sects, heresies), etc. As can be seen, the field of utopia is here opened to infinity and its contents reduced to the imaginary world. For Bloch, utopias assume three social functions: 1. to manifest the existence of what is possible to others; 2. to allow the imagination to encroach on reality; 3. to facilitate the engagement of the intellectual in the construction of a better world (so Furter 1966). It is difficult to see how these “functions” could be used to structure something other than a philosophy of history, more open certainly than that of Kautsky, but also dependent on an ideology not operational in sociology. The problem would be rather, for the last-named, to know what social situations provoke manifestations of the imagination (or of an ideological change), allowing it to be institutionalized (or on the contrary hindering it). Lastly, it is a question of understanding what happens when protesting imagination is embodied in cultural works. What is, in other words, the dynamic of practiced utopia? In any case, sociology of the imagination or of the imaginary world does not seem to be possible stricto senso. At the limit one could talk of sociology of imaginary societies – those of religious heavens as utopias – or

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sociology of imagined societies – those of religious or socio-religious protestations: sociology, in short, of other societies. When talking of a practised utopia and of “other” societies, we enter into the thread of Henri Desroche’s suggestions. As early as 1950, in Signification du marxisme, he associates theoretical Marxism and monasticism, in particular concerning the regime of property (1950: 137–138). This idea, taken up implicitly in certain pages of his Marxisme et Religion (1962: 75–83) and further in his Socialismes et sociologie religieuse (1965: 119–121), today emerges in a questionnaire on Homo utopicus used as a basis for a seminar of the E.P.H.E., 6th section (1969–70). Comparing Signification du marxisme, here taken up in terms of a utopian alternative, applicable, as a research hypothesis, to sects and co-operative communities, readily named by the author, in other places, as practised utopias, with written utopias, with Messianism and Millennialism, with certain “Back to Nature” movements such as the Cargo cults, and lastly with cenobitism. Without conferring a meaning on history, this work plan attempts to draw a framework applicable to History in its irreducible plurality. Holders of specific dossiers are requested to state if and how the facts that they know can be considered as utopian, in the sense that they might outline replacement projects of the society where they manifest themselves; other family, other ecology, other everyday life, other people, other pedagogy, other regime of property, other economic system, other political system, other religious society, other festive society. The explanatory commentary added by Henri Desroche to this last alternative; “the collective feast, liturgy and sociurgy; ecstasy and atheism,” irremediably calls to mind Saint-Simon (cf. Desroche 1969) as it does Marx and Engels. This finale does not indicate, let us repeat, a will to dictate a meaning to History. It reminds us, however, that the research undertaken by Desroche originates in a reflection on Marx and on the sects apprehended in antithetical terms of “New Christianity” and of “Pre-Socialism,” even if with a touch of interrogation. The relationship with Mannheim or Bloch’s schema remains very close. All that is other runs the risk of being a utopia, even though the alternative is not presented here explicitly as cumulative nor linked with class warfare or with precise socio-political significations. This line of inquiry seems rather to lead toward a differential typology (“What is the content of this alternative or rather what are these contents and even what are their variables and their subvariables?”). But this concern for pluralization is also pursued by that of “recurrences”: “Does not this conjugation of variables and of recurrences construct itself according to a set of combinations, even a structure which could be that of a utopian humanism, that of homo utopicus?” According to ideas developed at length in his Sociologies religieuses, Desroche seems here to want to replace

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a sense of history by a structure, of a kind perhaps more phenomenological, in Wach’s meaning, than structuralist. We would rather be tempted, for our part, to aim at a non-normative socio-historical understanding in the meaning of Weber, but above all of Ernst Troeltsch, to approach this problem. We shall do this later, in the manner of a hypothesis, concerning Monasticism.

An Ideal-Type of Utopia

As a methodological preliminary we should try to outline an ideal-type of Utopia.3 Will it allow, better than the attempts of Mannheim and of Bloch, to clear our field of investigation? We would like to do just that, even if it seems rather presumptuous. In the hope of a possible discussion, we propose the following ideal-type.4 One calls Utopia every total ideological system aiming, implicitly or explicitly, through a call to the imagination alone (written Utopia) or through some transition of practice (practiced Utopia), to transform radically the existing global social systems.5 Written utopias give the best representation of this phenomenon as they describe, by situating this utopia, most of the time outside of all known geography, as a society new in all domains, in a more or less radical way, but globally specific. The call upon imagination should not however create an illusion. A written Utopia constitutes a protesting, rational and realistically founded criticism of an existing social situation (cf. Bottigelli-Tisserand 1966). The utopian, often a bourgeois without any possibility of acting on the existing circumstances6 or an intellectual rising socially also bereft of practical 3 The most important works in French on this subject (which our research does not ignore even though it does not always refer to them) include Ruyter (1950), Muchielli (1960), and Duveau (1961). The conception of Marcuse deserves to be mentioned as pertinent to our theme in more than one respect as well, but in a philosophical and praxeological line which is not coherent with the sociological aims that primarily interest us here. 4 On the ideal-type as a tool of research, cf. Weber (1958) or Freund (1966). 5 Thus, in certain ecclesiastical utopias it is explicitly question of the transformation of the Church or of a Church. But if one looks more closely – and that often means one sees beyond the intentions of the author – no questioning of the Church or of a Church can be envisaged without calling into question the societies in which they exist. 6 This is obvious in the case of Thomas More, as in that of Campanella, a bourgeois as a cleric but also a peasant through his family origins, and otherwise a Millenarian to the same extent, either among most of the utopians of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, or with JeanValentin Andreae. It is probable that Utopia fills, in modern societies, part of the functions of millenarian messianism in traditional society (cf. Pereira de Queiroz 1968). But what can be

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means of acting on the immediate situation, usually showing a deep understanding of the socio-political and economic mechanisms to which he proposes an alternative. From this point of view, the written utopia differs from the literary novel or works of imagination, usually aesthetic and not very political, by its will to protest. The utopian appears, then, as one who perceives a society “other,” because he has devoted himself to a prospective analysis of the possibilities of the situation. In this sense, he is always non-revolutionary. If he wanted revolution and class warfare, he would act in searching for the political means of furthering his plan (program, political party, organization). Practical utopias (acts, religious orders, churches or new religions, diverse units of life and consumption in common, etc.) realize only partially the project of a written utopia. Implicitly at least a “written” utopia (thought out, if one prefers) always precedes a practical utopia. The gap between the one and the other can be explained by reasons of social dynamics or of political tactics. Nonrevolutionary by its very limitations, the practiced utopia can however become revolutionary, and fail, because of this, under the blows of the powers that be.7 It can, on the contrary however, become institutionalized. It then lives as all social phenomena, that is, it gets caught up in the co-ordinates of time and space, until it becomes an established order. After the Kingdom, the Church. Between the written utopias, such as those of More, Campanella, and so on, and the preaching put in to effect a “New Gospel,” a carrier group intervenes. This group necessarily belongs to a dissatisfied portion of the population, but not necessarily the most underprivileged section from an economic point of view. Doubtless it would be more accurate to speak here of social levels – or of individuals coming from social levels – deprived of the possibilities of political action and having come to realise this,8 or also, in certain cases, of members of groups who fear to see the power soon escape from them in the reality of its exercise.9 Moreover, utopia, whether written or practiced, or even written and practiced (Cabet, for example) obeys a type of functioning or a specific regulation. It calls upon the past against the present in view of the future.10 This appears

7 8 9 10

said of Millenarianism in the Protestant domain, above all in America? One doubtless has not analyzed sufficiently the difference between Messianism and Millenarianism. They are perhaps two historical types with distinct significations. In the case of Thomas Münzer or that of the Kingdom of God of Münster. This feature is close to the utopia of “Spiritualismus” according to Troeltsch (cf. Kolawowski 1969). In the case of retrogressive utopias. No matter what the distance between the present, past and future. The latter, in particular, can be very near the present: “The time comes and has already come” (John 5:25).

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clearly in Christian religious utopias, but more in the written utopias than in those which are practiced. This call upon the past can find itself obscured by a reference to the “elsewhere,” which is in general a reference to a supposed primitive element situated differently. In spite of, or because of, this structuring of the time specific to the utopia, the latter can be intra- or extra- ideological – that is, referring to the same content as the society it contests, and proposing a new regulation for it (Wach’s “protest within”) or offering a new content with a new regulation (Wach’s “protest without”).11 We shall return again in this essay to the question of the possible passage from within to without, of the homothetic to the inverse or to the charismatic. It is a significant and delicate problem. From what has already been said, one can perceive in what way utopia is different from myth. The latter supposes a cyclical conception of time, that of the eternal return; the former concerns societies for whom the time of history is open – modernity is a virtue, hence the link between utopia and the philosophical concept of progress. However, in reality, forward and retrogressive utopias (i.e., for or against social change) will be found. Thus Bonald and De Maistre, or Dom Guéranger, wish, by their writings or their practices, to inform the future of a mythical past as a ne varietur rule of societies with no future.12 This reference to the past differs from that of the progressive utopia, for which the future does not reproduce the past but carries it to an always open fulfilment. At least in theory – for, to take the written utopias literally, one has the impression that their authors desire static societies where time, purified by novation, becomes cyclical once more. When the utopian project becomes an institution, for example in the sects, one often witnesses the creation of societies closed to the future referring to a relatively recent past and for all intents and purposes normative – because they are telescoped, in the collective memory, with the times of the origins.13 However, the original project militated for the opening of time. This contradiction of the “written” (or of the dreamed) 11 12

13

Wach, Johachim. Sociology of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944, 2nd part, chapter V, 156–205, in the 1958 re-edition. The anti-revolution referring to the ante-revolution, mythologized through reference to a natural law or to a model revealed divinely. In the writings of Dom Guéranger, it is curious to note the multiplicity of references to the past: the “Ages of Faith,” the “Apostolic Church,” the “Fathers,” the “Middle Ages” and to confront them with his avowed ideal: the Church of the sixth through ninth centuries. We can note here that a particular utopia can present a blending of pro- and retro-regressive traits. It is often the case in religious orders, where such a practice finds itself sacralized by reference to the founder while it was imposed after his death.

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and of the lived does not prevent utopia from differentiating itself from myth, in that the latter disappears rather than opens itself out. Utopia, on the contrary, always remains, even when withdrawn, waiting for an opening.14 Hence the re-activation of an ancient utopia, embodied in an institution, by a new one, and the impression felt by some that they can be accumulated. In reality, they do this only retrospectively, through the known desire of all novation to exorcise one’s parricide through reference to a justificatory genealogy. Marxism, after the sects, from which it has moreover borrowed this bias, thus built up a “cloud of witnesses.”15 But refusing the operative reality of the history of ideas, it distanced itself genetically, and not without ambiguity, in pretending to carry its “precursors” to their unconscious fulfilment, by the passage to revolution and to atheism. It is to recuperate this weight of history and its share of dynamite that Mannheim and Bloch resorted to the forced opposition between creative utopia and reactionary ideology. For us, utopia is an ideology16 as well as a practice, in itself of indeterminate character. The mediation of the concrete situations can, alone, give a meaning to the type of structure and of functioning sketched in these lines. Only a social dynamic – the real and the lived that are always plural and take their singularity from this fact – can say what goes where, and not for all that giving a direction to history. The ideal-type presented here is a simple heuristic tool. Its exact equivalent cannot be found in reality. Nonetheless, as with every ideal-type of the Weberian kind, it enables, or should enable, the apprehension of that reality and to map it out, Can it achieve this function better than the tools proposed by Mannheim, Bloch and Desroche? We tend to believe that it can, above all concerning the first two. By placing the accent on the mode of regulation or of social functioning, on the opposition between the written and the practiced, and lastly on the relationship utopia-protestation, itself diversified according to the real regulations of the one and of the other, we believe we procure the objective means of delimiting the utopian reality. The field of application of these tools is not, for all that, reduced, concerning Mannheim and Bloch, but helps to structure them better. One thus avoids introducing just any object into 14

15 16

Thus in the Baptist sects, where circumstances can empty of its first signification baptism reserved only for adults, but where this tends to find itself again – or to find an equivalent – as soon as circumstances allow it (cf. Seguy 19). From Engels to Bernstein. we have studied a case of this type and commented the general problem of the “cloud of witnesses” (Seguy 1968). In the ordinary meaning of the term in sociology: the structured whole of representations proper to a group.

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the domain of research, or to do this through a totally arbitrary decision. Lastly, in renouncing a sense of history, or a non-dialectical opposition between infraand super-structures, one avoids all reduction of the ones to the others. In the same movement, one enables research to free itself from false alternatives such as “final analysis” or of “original causes.” History, in which only the social becomes totally apprehensible, does not know a beginning and even less a fulfilment. In ascertaining this, we drag utopia out of the utopian domain. For that matter there is no need to make a list of utopias. But we can study as a utopia, if that enables highlighting some interesting aspect of the real, all the socio-historical structures that employ the functioning described above. Or furthermore, one can thus reveal utopian traits in less characteristic ensembles, and measure the distance that separates the latter from our ideal-type. This will reveal its value, particularly when one wants to judge practiced utopia – that is to say, “institutionalized” – as we shall do below with reference to monasticism. A last explanation is necessary. By considering a given structure as utopian, we do not mean that its initiators all wanted to create a utopia, in whatever sense that may be, or that their protestation is equivalent to a revolt or a revolutionary intention. Except in certain cases, where the authors have expressed an explicit intention in this sense, we talk of utopia or of protestation as significations revealed through a sociological interpretation.17 We place ourselves at the level of what is probable and not what is necessary. Are human sciences ever capable of affirmations of a more certain order?

Utopia, Charisma and Institution: The Monastic Case

Now that our perspectives have been clarified, can we speak of a monastic utopia? The following pages will show how and within what limits.18 To facilitate this analysis, we propose from now on, without this dichotomy covering the opposition between written utopia and practiced utopia, to distinguish two domains in Monasticism: the domain of charisma (in the Weberian sense) and 17

18

Sociology can take into account, in order to estimate the possible impact (direct or indirect), the interpretation that the interested parties make of their activity, but it also seeks to reveal the significations that the interested tend to hide from themselves behind the ideology of their group. All these forms of interpretation do not mutually exclude themselves. For existing treatments of the sociology of monasticism [at the time of this writing], cf. Emerich 1955 and Moulin 1964.

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the domain of the institution. The domain of charisma covers that of eremitism, either uni-dimensional (“solitaries seeking perfection”) or coenobitic (organized in common). Within this coenobitic eremitism a charismatic area can be identified, where frequenting a spiritual master freely chosen for his personal qualities structures a circle of disciples, and a hierarchical or institutional area where the spiritual master, who has become the abbot, directs a coenobitic ensemble already differentiated. With this sub-type we enter into the domain of the institution. It differentiates itself from eremitism, still independent from existing institutions,19 in that it generally maintains with the latter a relationship of subordination. Restricting ourselves to structures, we propose to distinguish five sub-types within this type: (1) political coenobitism (or monasticism): that which reflects the diverse and federative structures of the antique polis (Pachomius) or which assures the functions badly fulfilled or abandoned (Basil); (2) family coenobitism based on common property of a patrimony of land and its exploitation by a large and widespread spiritual family, recalling the Roman familia (Benedict); (3). feudal coenobitism (Citeaux, Cluny), whose organization and governing structures reflect those of the feudal society in which this sub-type was born; (4) communal coenobitism, in particular, but not exclusively, that of the Dominicans, whose constitutions introduce into the monks’ lives the demands of democratic control dear to the medieval communes; (5) the monarchical sub-type, which can be “episcopofamilial” – the regular canons leading a life in common and forming, under the authority of the bishop, his family. He governs them directly or through mediation,20 or in modern times, the countless feminine congregations – above all – under diocesan canons. It can also be pontifical, as in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), with its centralized government under a “Superior General,” and its immediate dependence on the sovereign Pontiff.

History and Utopia

A typological distinction rather than a global typology, this clarification of an abundant reality perhaps leaves to one side certain aspects of the monastic or 19

20

At least in the early centuries, for in the Middle Ages or up to the 17th century, there are some hermits institutionally dependent. But during the Middle Ages, the free eremetic phenomenon persisted in the West and the East. For the West, the phenomenon has been quite well studied these last few years in the variety of its aspects (cf. Colloque de la Mendola 1965). Poggiasoalla (1968) shows the diverse significations of the phenomenon during the periods mentioned. A type is always susceptible to variations according to the place and the time.

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coenobitic phenomenon. It matters little here. Enough for us to have underlined two aspects: first, the dependence of the monastic structures, up to the sixteenth century, on a relationship with those of global societies. In other words, “practised” monastic utopia has its limits, the very same as those of the structures or systems of plausibility of an epoch or of a place. The reference to the past thus appears conditioned, and the constant telescoping between the immediate past and its mythical reference to in illo tempore. The community of the Acts is always perceived through the lens of lived history. Moreover this explains why at a more modern epoch, religious creations could be created, especially in a post-revolutionary situation, no longer with reference to this prototypical community, but for example to the Family of Nazareth, whose devotion has asserted itself, for different reasons and in different ways, and which better allows the highlighting of the values of dependence than those of creativity and of equality. Or else, in “lived” spirituality, one will re-interpret the community of the Acts in function of the Family of Nazareth: the charisma through the institution, for the Family of Nazareth is seen, itself, in the perspective of the traditional family that one is trying to save.21 Secondly, our distinction brings to light from the sixteenth century the emergence, with the Jesuits, of a type of coenobitic structures independent of those of the global society. Not that the Jesuits can be considered as free of all conditioning, but here integration seems to be more into the Church as a society antithetic to global society rather than to the latter. This is not surprising, to the extent that, from the 16th century, Catholicism little by little assumes the appearance of a counter-society. This aspect would appear even more clearly if we took into consideration at this point societies and congregations linked to the tridentine reform and the policy of losing cultural identity carried out methodically, as much by the reforming post-tridentine bishops as by the

21

It is the case, for example of the “Sainte-Famille de Bordeaux,” founded in 1820, and whose initial project was, if one can say, global. It regrouped in an institute with diverse and supple structures, Christians living in the world (clerical and lay), men and women and nuns. Through different aspects, the first organization foreseen to become a congregation of women among others (cf. Veuillot 1942) brings to mind the Shakers studied by Desroche, even though the attitude regarding the family was able in the one case and in the other to take on perhaps contrary significations. This remains yet to be seen. When shall we have comparative studies of this kind? When shall we have, quite simply, socio-historical studies of orders and religious congregations? (For a very remarkable historical study in this direction, for the French 19th century which was fertile in religious creations, cf. Zind 1969.)

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diverse religious formations linked to their work.22 The post-revolutionary period should be studied in this perspective, with all its foundations, male and female, in which and through which is expressed the struggle of the Church against modern society and its ideals. In other words, monastic or coenobitic utopia has nothing utopian in the common sense of the word. Once the period or the domain of charisma is past, in general history as well as in all religious creation, or in many of them, monastic utopia is practiced in an institution and its form is that given by the general orientation of the relationships between the institution Church and the world. When the Church confirms at the maximum the structures of the latter, one sees the creation of coenobitic institutions testifying that these same structures within the limits of a utopia that is nonetheless real, even if it is conditioned, as we shall see below. In other words, the monastic institution is thus a counter-society institutionalised indirectly through a Church tending to regulate both the global society and its counter-societies. On the contrary, when the Church loses the regulating control in the global society, it becomes itself a counter-society, and the coenobitic institution then appears as the channel par excellence of integration in the ecclesiastical institution. Monastic utopia is, in this particular case, a protesting force ad extra (different from the meaning given by Wach to the term “protestation ad extra”), as regards the world and no longer, in general, as regards the Church, even though this is not impossible at least to a certain extent. In fact, all project of “religious life” nearly always includes, what seems to us, in its genesis, a contestation of a state of the Church or of certain aspects of the real practice of a social level, or a group or of a part of its members. The “world” that one criticizes is always represented in the Church as well. From this point of view, a precise and differentiated study of the concrete use of the couples Church and Christian world (or pagan), worldly and religious, etc., in their reciprocal relationships, and the practises that they have covered in the history of Christianity, would reveal themselves most enlightening. 22

By “policy of losing cultural identity” we mean the struggle against traditional practices, considered as witchcraft. The prelates who introduced the Tridentine reform in France were active in this domain. It is enough to read the the synodical statutes that they adopted to realize this. Their attitude toward traditional “festas” (charivaris etc.) is in the same vein (see Broutin 1956, as well as the studies of Joseph Aulagne on the diocese of Limoges, of Louise Welter on that of Clermont or of Jean-Marie Vidal on the reforming bishops of Pamiers [in particular Caulet]). The same movement at that time and in Brittany, around the famous “Missions Bretonnes,” In these, what we would call a “folklore” is attacked and a civilization is destroyed.

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Domain of Charisma, Eremitism 1. One dimensional 2. Cenobitic 1. Charismatic 2. Hierarchical

Domain of the Institution. Coenobitism



1. Political 2. Familial 3. Feudal 4. Communal 5. Monarchical

episcopo-familial pontifical

Monasticism and Conflict

In any case, in historic reality, the classifications mentioned above differ, overlap and telescope. They can nevertheless be used as a common thread for a differentiated history of monasticism. They enable us to translate the influence of the global social structures on the monastic institution in its different phases, and should expose policies of maintaining, lateness, brakes on change, and doubtless also advances. Here we could not be farther from sectarian heterodoxy than, for example, the classical circumstances of the Waldesians faced with the Franciscans, the Lombard Umiliati, heretics beside their Catholic colleagues – through tolerant, it is true – that of the Cathars in their double confrontation with the disciples of Bertrand d’Osca and of Dominic de Guzman,23 or those of such a group of the Alumbrados confronted with the Company of Jesus (cf. Bataillon 1967) – to cite just a few examples of this “within” and “without” dialectic, at first sight universal, and probably indicative at the level of sociological interpretation. Before going too far and to make sure that we get there with greater certainty, let us note the presence of the trinity – delays – braking – advancing – within 23

See the works of Paul Vicaire and those of Christine Trouzellier, as well as the four Cahiers de Fanjeaux, in particular the second, Vaudois languedociens et Pauvres Catholiques. Toulouse: Privat, 1967, is pertinent to this question.

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orthodox communities, in several ways: First, in their origin: every monastic creation appears as a protest against a previous form of the monastic institution in the most general meaning of the term, against a state of the Church considered as unsatisfactory, against an ensemble of social relationships (in the Church and in the global society) explicitly or implicitly accused by the new foundation.24 This contestation, even when pacific, is accompanied by a demand for a return to the primitive monastic ideal – a revival considered by its opponents as a novation. And it is really a question of just that, from a sociological point of view, for the primitive project to which one refers (the vita apostolica of the Fathers of the Desert or the classical rules, those of Saint Benedict and Saint Augustine in particular) is necessarily always reinterpreted through the mediation of the socio-cultural co-ordinates of the time, the place, of a tradition experienced by a group, itself particularized, differentiated, conditioned, and because of this, innovatory. Thus, the latter finds itself faced with a delaying opposition, against which it protests in order, in its opinion, to integrate better the monastic project in the real world referred optatively to an ancient myth that becomes utopia through a forward projection.25 The established authorities (monastic, ecclesiastical, or temporal) play a role in the conflict, more or less chaotic according to the case, but which cannot fail to explode, a role either of delaying or of braking or of both at the same time. At one extreme, they hinder the new project from coming to fruition preferring the status quo to any change. From this attitude can be born a heterodox group, often of a monastic or brotherhood structure, and which, when the two arms help each other, will disappear or will become – at a happy minimum – significantly hampered in its growth by persecution.26 At another extreme, these same authorities can integrate the novation. But this, we have already foreseen, directed explicitly against a single institution which is no more than a sub-society or a sub-culture, takes on from itself, another much vaster significance. Thus, in a religious order such as the Benedictines, the will, 24

25

26

At the very beginning the protestation against the Church compromised by the world. That is what, with others, we consider is behind the official ideology of the life in the desert seen as “martyrdom” or as a “second baptism.” In the hypothesis where the monastic change is motivated by the global change of the society or represents one of its elements, it emerges from what we have already seen that such a cenobitic transformation can undergo, on the contrary and willingly, in countercurrent to global change. Every human project is both active and acted, and determined in the very place where it determines. This is the case of the Umiliati or the Waldensian heterodoxies. Troeltsch, to whom we owe, after Max Weber, the sociological type of the sect, did not sufficiently notice, that his description only conforms entirely to the sects after the Reformation (cf. Séguy 1972).

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at a particular time, to go back to the manual labour of the Rule and to the primitive practices limiting ownership to the lands necessary for the maintenance of the monks, is not a question of “pure spirituality.” This demand criticizes a policy – that of the authorities in place – and a tradition easily declared sacred and untouchable by the supporters of the status quo. Indirectly it calls to question both the whole ecclesiastical society and the global society. In fact, the hierarchy, right to the very top, justifies, sanctions and promotes (administratively) the contested practice and possibly profits from this situation, even economically. This established ecclesiastical fact finds itself linked to a configuration of the global society, for example feudal, and to a set of relations between the Church and the society which make the interests of the one those of the other, at least in certain domains. To such an extent that the claim for poverty or of more poverty, of new attitudes, in any case concerned with poverty and thus wealth, will be perceived, more or less clearly but correctly, as a questioning of an organization of the economy and of certain social relationships linked to its control. From then on, the interpretation of the project of monastic change should continue, if the authorities assume responsibility for it, toward the transformation desired by the different people in charge of the profane and religious societies. Most of the time this supposes a compromise. The search for a different monastic society is, in the sociologically envisaged reality, a project for a different society, more or less radically changed according to the case, but inevitably different and, at least in this respect, possessing some utopian traits. Its integration will thus be accompanied, as if by necessity, and with a very rare exception where the interests of all the areas of our dialectic of the change converge, by the alteration of the attempt of monastic novation. If the latter is in its genesis a protest against the delay in change,27 its integration in the ecclesiastical and global structures will not continue, in the best of cases, without control of the change through the intervention of the non-monastic authorities. The utopia becomes a stake-holder of the plan which promotes it or 27

We have already explained that the monastic project could also be a refusal of global change, without doubt it can also be that of ecclesiastical change. The reform of Port-Royal by Angélique Arnaud represents this aspect of things. One will note that dissidence in the catholic field, after the Council of Trent, tends to remain a church-type which emerges either in the “little catholic churches” (Jansenist, Old-Catholics, etc.) or in church-orders (the Mariavites, for example), or in church-less orders. This last type is well represented by the “Ordre de la Mère de Dieu,” a fundamentalist dissidence born in Quebec a few years ago. The Lazzarettist experience (cf. Moscato and Pierini 1965), which started, in the ninteenth century, as a Catholic brotherhood and finished as a church-less Order, eventually like a sect in many respects, is not without interest for our propositions.

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makes it ineffective, according to the circumstances, but which, in any case, transforms it. From this point of view, one can see the interest that the detailed study of the negotiations and the conflicts would have – negotiation appearing as one of the forms of conflict – the negotiations and conflicts which lead from a primitive project to the rule, to the constitutions, then to their practices, in all the coenobitic creations where the state of conservation of documents would allow this approach. A similar study would lead us to understand how and why a radical movement ad intra becomes either a Church, but often a sect ad extra, or an order within a Church. In either case, one finds oneself generally before a utopian project for social change often before the same project.28 But historians rarely manage (let us say euphemistically) to explain to us satisfactorily why, not even always how, this differentiation of a single aspiration to change is created. One cannot, in this domain, satisfy oneself with recording the administrative decisions and their acceptance or refusal by the ones or by the others. Between the project and the decision, mechanisms exist that have never yet been really studied. By paying attention to their functioning in real cases one would doubtless detect, through a sociology practiced on the ecclesiastical organizations which would be for us, in this instance, a posteriori, a “socio-mancy,” nuances until now imperceptible, which limit from their genesis the projects that are finally integrated, and the traits on the contrary, finally radical of those that were to inspire a sectarian movement. One should then question oneself on the ensemble of socio-historical co-ordinates, approached in minute detail, to try and delimit the ultimate causalities – or what one can call by these misleading terms – of the ad intra and the ad extra. In a first stage of research, approximations would be, in any case, welcome, as well as the hypotheses of the experts of the historical dossiers concerned. One would thus arrive, little by little, to take advantage of Troeltsch’s famous hypothesis (1961: 360, 809–811) on the religious order as the “ecclesification” of the sect, either to invalidate or confirm it, or more probably and in an even more desirable way, to nuance it and to explain it, making it usable for a historical sociology. For what we are interested in here, one would perceive thenceforth a double process: that which leads from the utopian project to a utopia practiced extra ecclesiam or to its practice intra ecclesiam. Maybe one could also construct, either a model or an ideal-type of the utopia practiced in each of these two cases and compare them. In any case, it would become 28

Even when the social change is refused, for then the retrogressive project refers to the past as a golden age and not as it was really lived. It aims thus also to a social change. Whether it provokes or not is another question.

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obvious – which seems to have escaped the notice until now of historians and of far too many sociologists – that the religious order, on equal terms with the sect, represents one of the attempts that are made by a society affected by change to restructure itself. At the same time it would help the sociology of utopia to situate itself in relationship with that of social change.

Monasticism as a Utopian Society

From what we have just said, one can doubtless already attempt to put into perspective monasticism as a utopia – that is to shed light on the limits of utopia practised intra ecclesiam. We shall limit ourselves, on the whole, to structures and to practices established by rules and constitutions and without the pretension of showing ourselves exhaustive. The analysis will follow the scheme proposed by Desroche and will be subject to other specific limitations, in the same way the truly utopian effervescence of the primitive projects, nearer the practice of sects, will escape from us, as we shall ignore once more, and voluntarily, the fictitious monasticism of written utopias.

Monasticism, an “Other” Society: The Man-Woman Relationship

Monastic utopia puts the man-woman relationship up to question in many ways. First, it rejects marriage, as do the Shakers or the Cathars.29 Secondly, it creates uni-sexual communities. Thirdly, it establishes new relationships between the sexes thus separated. Either complete separation: the Jesuits, for example, refuse any second feminine order. Or modal separation; thus most of the masculine orders – in most cases the first founded – have or have encouraged a second order whose spiritual management they generally assume, often giving advice for everyday running of their ministries. But this dichotomy of subordination does not exhaust the whole reality. At the origin, the male founder and the feminine element have often entertained friendly spiritual relations whose anomic character is obvious in the best cases. In certain examples, the woman plays the role of primus movens, and one witnesses the birth of a feminine order governing a masculine one, overturning the general order of factors generally admitted in western society. Thus the Brigittins and Brigittines of St Bridget of Sweden (cf. Berlière 1923, Graham 1901, Hojer 1905). 29

Which does not mean that the refusal of marriage is the same in all cases, from a sociological point of view.

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One also finds an order composed of men and women who place themselves under the government of an abbess. This happens with the Brigittins, already noted, but also in the congregation of Fontevrault. The questioning of the relationships between the sexes can go even further, when a spiritual and physical neighbourhood is replaced, in at least one case, by cohabitation, at least relative. Thus again with the Brigittins, in the first form of their project. Here, the overturning of the traditional relationships between the sexes attains its maximum, the very separation of the sexes following the monastic tradition becomes contested. One will not go so far as free love and plural marriages such as been found in certain sects, the community of Oneida being a classical example (see Clark 1949, Bestor 1950, Holloway 1951). But in certain famous cases, of women – let us mention Mme Bruyère, Abbess of Solesmes – can reach a point where a woman directs the spiritual life of the monks in their relationships, not without a link with the bundling (or Bei-schlaf ) practiced in such and such a sect (cf. Hostetler 1963: 160–161). It is significant that the ideology of mystic marriage should find its origin in the monastic tradition. As much a rationalization of the libido and its urges, one has the right to see in it a trait of coenobitic utopia, and one will not be surprised to find it strongly contested and controlled in history. In a more general way however, the manwoman relationship in monastic life reflects the inequality of the sexes in global society. But it procures for women the prestige of a religious institution, placing them in a favourable position in global society, as much with the one as with the other sex. Possibly and through the bias of the influence of the monks and nuns on the education of men and women, the practice of monastic utopia in this domain can be reflected on the transformation of the relationships between the sexes. The possible influence of the written and oral spiritual direction of the cloistered nuns by monks in the birth of courtly poetry in the eleventh century has been noted (see Bezzola 1940). In another way, practiced monastic utopia can valorise the virginity of the young girls and matrimonial chastity, thus raising, in a certain way, through the regulated strike, the status of woman, and refining the conceptions and the practice of the relationships between the sexes. The monastic project certainly emerges there as an “other” society even if in the restricted limits by the controlled acceptation of the rules of the ecclesiastic society and of the global society.

The Town-Country Relationship

Country folk have always fled toward the town, and the latter have always governed the former. Coenobitic monasticism appears linked during a large part

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of its history with the flight from the town toward the country or better, the wilderness. The monk leaves the world, its “pomps and its works,” to find God in the desert where the woman “clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” is “nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent” (Revelation 12: 1, 14) – both a monastic and sectarian theme at the same time. The desert appears as a place of struggle, of waiting, of hardship, that the official Church has rendered comfortable by baptizing the world. Thereby, the martyrs of the desert rejoin John the Baptist whose example and cloak were to be reclaimed by a whole medieval tradition of wild hermit life (see Delaruelle 1965). This withdrawal, in the beginning individual, soon became a community phenomenon, even before St Antony and more certainly, with Pachomius. The pachomian monastery, appears as an economically, judicially, religiously, and perhaps politically self-supporting town (see Cousin 1956: 53–54). The monastic church becomes a city. Doubtless holy, as with every sectarian community made up of volunteers having made a pact with God and among themselves that their perseverance should be submitted to an everyday control which could result in dismissal – thereby a city or a sectarian colony. A city nonetheless not disinterested in the outside world, for in fleeing the world the community passes judgment on the outside world and on the Church that sympathises with it. The monk participates as well – from early coenobitism and until now – in the life of the Church in the world to make it into a world-Church, that is to say, to take it to the desert.30 And the Church will perhaps be “monastified,” but not for all that “sectarized,” for coenobitism would become worldly. Nonetheless, the coenobium was to keep, down the centuries, a latent function and a utopian attraction. The Jesuit Reductions in Paraguay, a sectarian monasticism of the highest degree, because it was a world, a society, an ethnic group which became monastic, far from the world…Christians, who bear witness, by the reactions that they stimulate since then, for or against, this role of a prototype. They are attacked with the monks. They are praised with the coenobites. In any case, they are considered as a model of a different society, of a revolutionary potential, appreciated in different ways (see Haubert 1967). But not all coenobitism is rural or situated in the desert. The temptation of the desert, nevertheless, remains permanent, even at the town gates. The Franciscan is both rural and urban in his origins. If he becomes above all urban it is through necessity. The St Augustine hermits continually cross the boundary between the two, as do the Premonstratensians. The Dominicans would like to be urban, but on condition that they have their country place 30

Let us not forget the history of the Church in Egypt (IV–VI centuries).

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where they can meditate on what they are to preach later, as much in towns as in rural villages. The Jesuits, born in Paris, settle in important towns. The country calls them for their ministry, not for retreat. But every Jesuit house has its country place for relaxation but also for meditation, even though in the very beginnings of the Company of Jesus, every Jesuit constituted his own country within himself, practising his Exercises in the house where he lived, even if it is in the centre of Paris. Houses of retreat were rapidly established in the country or became, in the towns, like many country-places because of the silence that reigned and the surrounding parks. If need be, the Jesuit has at his disposal, nonetheless, for his wilderness “every stretch of land of the world where there is any possibility of gathering some fruit to the glory of God,” and where it is “his vocation to go.”31 It is precisely in the desert of the New World transformed by that into “a World New” that the Reductions were established where Guarini, Messianism and Jesuit eschatology were to meet. Further north on the same continent and in the perspective of the Tridentine Reform, which was a reform both of society as well as of the Church, were to be founded the Huron Reductions, counterpart of those of Paraguay, but also a Jesuit counterpart of theocracy as the Quebec Sulpiciens and Carmelites who endeavoured to create a new world of faith on the rivers of a Babylon that they wanted to transform into Sion. All these examples seem to speak with one voice. All coenobitism is attracted by the country or the wilderness, in the same way that every utopia is situated on an unknown island (Thomas More, Roger Bacon) or in a single town (Campanella, Andreae) or in designed towns with ultra and pan-monastic structures in the middle of an Edenic countryside (Thomas More). But here it is important to be wary of illusion. Monastic utopia is a prototype and not an archetype; and in lived reality, monasticism is often less than utopian. Hence the need for continuous self-reform, to go back to being a sect once more, to the reference that it continually pretends to reconstruct, just like sects. Here, the example of the Early Fathers or the primitive spirit or the nostalgia for the community of Jerusalem become so many utopian references. But it is also with diverse socio-historical meanings, varied and contradictory. Thus the “country” of the houses of the Company doubtless represents more an integration into the mores and models of social prestige of the sixteenth century bourgeoisie than a strong attachment to the tradition of the desert. Nevertheless, St Ignatius had practiced the life of a hermit. Then it is through the practice of the Exercises, fruits of this experience of protestation, that the bourgeois and Jesuit countryside will become a desert once more. And for 31

Third of the “Common Rules” of the Company of Jesus.

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those who were to carry their desert within themselves, Father Rodriguez wrote the classical Traité de la perfection chrétienne, the little mystical, breviary of all noviciates of the Company. However, here, the most frequent references, with the documents from the General Fathers and the writings of Suarez, are those to the Fathers of the Desert. As if, in the order turned most explicitly toward the world, the prototype utopia of coenobitism had to be present. But, here again, one must distinguish. The socio-religious meaning of the desert does not seem to be the same among the solitaries or the coenobites of Egypt or with the Jesuits. For certain among them it means fleeing from a world doomed to failure, for others cultivating an asceticism which will allow them to live in the world in order to transform it.32 In the same way, the country of the utopias is not the desert of the Fathers of Egypt or the “retreat” of the Sulpicians. It serves the town, from an economic point of view in particular, but the town governs it and informs it. If it is a desert, it is because one leaves it for the towns. The latter, on the contrary, are often built following a type of monastic geography, improved and adapted, in the same way that their constitutions are often inspired by monastic rules (Prevost 1969: 34, n 2). Here we do not have a flight into the desert but a rational exploitation of places outside the town. It is a little as if, all of a sudden, the celestial Jerusalem, installed in a pre-millenarian situation had emptied the desert of its devils. One has found again an Eden, not far after all, from the monastic utopia ideally practised, where the feudal pioneer-monk renders fair justice in his town-in-the-desert. (On the ambiguity of the feeling of medieval man faced with his desert, that is above all the forest, see Le Goff 1965: 169–171). Reality, one knows, was in history more nuanced. But the fact of the monastery as a model becomes imperative, admirable if not always to be imitated, and a utopian reference for the written utopia – a little as later Marxism was to see in the sects of communal life the proof of the prototype of the viability of the necessity of communism. (See the famous Beschreibung by Engels translated into French in Desroche 1965: 93–115).

Everyday Life Relationships

Utopia always proposes to create inter-human daily relationships different from those of the society it contests. This is also true for coenobitism. To the 32

Hence Ignatius’s insistence on internal frame of mind, his opposition to external obligations, and the preference he expresses for contemplation (mediation) counter to the material clôture. The “preferred virtues” of a saint can take on sociological meanings.

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bishop, a person of hierarchy, invested with a sacred character, monasticism opposes the abbot, elected and dismissible, or the prior, temporary in theory, or furthermore, at least in the early stages, the charismatic personage. If one owes him some respect it is as a son toward his father and not as an inferior to a superior. Still in the early stages, he will share totally the life of all the other monks (habit, food, dwelling, etc.) without distinguishing himself. From this standpoint, the wearing of the same habit, sharing the same table, the same meals, taking part in the same manual or intellectual work, having access to the same specific tradition, the use of the same furniture, the same buildings – all that forms a framework of the usual means of monastic life, takes on a utopian significance with respect to the Church in the world, where inequality finds its justification in ideology. The monastic diet with its abstentions, its preferences and so on plays a role of protestation and of utopia. Referring to a primitive practice of the order or of the Church, even going back to Christ and the Apostles or to John the Baptist in the desert, it evokes and realizes, already in quantum fieri potest, celestial Jerusalem, where one no longer needs earthly nourishment. The socioeconomic character of protest of these practices need not be underlined. Let us emphasize, on the contrary, how, in fact, this utopian regime in sects never lasts longer than the primitive project. No more, moreover, than the organization of time, in general more solid. Here we should evoke the problems of the evolution of the divine office and those parallel to the place of manual work in western monasticism. This also in regard to exemption from services and, lastly, that of the reduction of the time spent in the choir in the new foundations, since the 13th century. This reduction does not occur without an inverse tendency of inflation and duplication, or even of vicariousness. The Jesuits – “jesuita nec cantat nec jejunat” – first of all liberated from the choir-service for the ministry thus becoming, with the passage of time, the organizers of pompous ceremonies – extra-liturgical, but nonetheless acts of worship, in the very name of the necessities of their ministry. Be that as it may, monastic life was subject to a specific division of time differentiating it from profane life, even when ecclesiastical. Utopians often tend to organize the timetable of their hypothetical populations following monastic principles. Doubtless this is for two reasons: to protest against the lack of rationality in the daily life of actual societies, while at the same time to proclaim their will to build perfect societies. In this way, they rejoin the subjective sense of the monastic organization of time, “redeeming the time,” according to the expression of the apostle Paul (Ephesians 5: 16) and proclaim, as far as possible, the imminent coming of a time no longer subdivided when, in particular, there will be no more night (Revelation. 21: 25). This is the meaning of the Vigil, but

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this, precisely, was not to be taken up by Utopia, as it is considered irrational and harmful to health. In fact, monastic utopia here appears more utopian, in the usual meaning of the term, than written utopia – at least when it in fact practices, really and fully, worship during the night. This is of little importance, in any case, in itself, rather it is to illustrate that there is a monastic structuring of time which makes the monastic institution a different society in the very ordering of everyday life.

Class Relationship

Mannheim opposes ideology to utopia as the social project of the dominating classes to that of the dominated classes. From the viewpoint of the class struggle inspired by Marx, he sees in utopia, as one might say, the ideology of a progressive liberation of the oppressed. This conception can be contested, as too praxically oriented, in any case, to make us pass from the contingent individual to the scientific generality. It nonetheless raises a passionate question – that of the carriers of monastic utopia. Are they oppressed, from a sociological point of view? At the very least, do they belong to social levels or groups that are deprived of influence constitutionally or by social change? This question can be answered only by a detailed study. What are the social origins of the coenobitic founders and reformers? Does a difference in this domain it explain the differentiation of ad intra and ad extra, when the same initial movement splits in two? One should be able to know this as one should be able to follow the evolution – or the non-evolution – in the socioprofessional origins of the members, through time. In other words, studies should be initiated in this domain, as patient and minute as those already carried out on sects, and thus outline a monastic dynamic. In this way the sociological signification of monastic foundations could be better understood, or one could better differentiate the life really lived from the proclaimed ideology. Does monastic utopia create a micro classless society? If so, is it to obtain a sanctuary of equality for the oppressed? In this case, monasticism should recruit its members in the lower classes. This was what took place, to a large extent, in the Egyptian desert of the 3rd–4th centuries (Cousin 1956: 54). But not completely: St. Antony was born into a relatively well-off family of modest landowners. St Benedict, in the 5th century, was a patrician. The great wave of the flight towards the desert, in the 5th–6th centuries, in the West, caught in its nets many large landowners. This phenomenon should doubtless be associated with the parallel ending of slavery in antiquity and with the

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contemporary transformations of the techniques of work and exploitation. In the end, monasticism could then appear as a retrogressive colony, now, in the familia, the social framework which collapses in global societies. Sects have experienced phases of this sort (cf. Lalive d’Epinay 1968). From that time and in this particular case, monasticism would be a retrogressive utopia, a compensation for a cultic frustration, possibly of socioeconomic origin. This would explain how, in certain of its characteristics, monasticism, across the centuries, reproduces so easily the class relationships of the global society and of the Church, with their inequalities. This can happen in two ways, either at the origin, in the epochs when the Church appears as a retrogressive counter-society, or during the institutionalization of a project at first open but which closes during the passage of time or with the demands of its integration in the ecclesiastical society. As it is a question of class relationships inside monasticism one should, however, ask oneself if it is ever abolished in favour of absolute equality. A priori, it would seem that it is never really the case in the domain of an institution, and even in that of a charismatic phenomenon, restrictions remains numerous. Only one-dimensional monasticism represented by populations of isolated hermits excludes subordination. The moment that groups form in the interior of the charismatic space, the charismatic link creates relationships of subordination. But these are accepted spontaneously. Here we find again, the more general problem of authority in voluntary groups where it is imposed on those who choose it and where it receives a balancing effect, either of its weakly formalized character or of its constitutive limitations. In any case, this authority springs from a recognized charisma, and not from the membership of a determined class or social group. The “development of charisma as a routine” later transforms these primitive data. To sum up, even in the best cases, monasticism does not seem to offer an abolition of social inequality, but it never seems to conceive this inequality in the same way as that of global society. Thus, it really offers an alternative to class relationships existing in global society. But this last affirmation should also be qualified. Monastic ideology makes a virtue out of obedience, and when authority belongs specifically to the same dominating classes both in the world and in the monasteries; all monks of dominating origin do not govern. Equality in obedience is thus created giving to a greater or lesser degree a utopian character to the class relationship in monasticism. The authors of written utopias seem to have been sensitive to this aspect of things and the governors of “nowhere” resemble more “enlightened abbots.” One must ask, however, whether or not the term is more synonymous with that of “enlightened despots” than the “companions”

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of an egalitarian adventure.33 In this instance, utopia does not appear very “utopian,” and it is important that this fact should be stressed. In one aspect at least, monastic equality seems a primitive reality. Monks are laymen, and when introduced into the desert, priesthood procures no right to govern, any more than does birth or social success. In this aspect, monasticism appears really utopian compared with the Church, for it introduces an alternative in social relationships within the religious institution. But the criticism goes further insofar as the fact that this protestation is directed implicitly at the nature of the relationships between the Church and the World and aims at bringing about a change. In any case, equality between monks and laity in history never lasts long. The ideal is constantly re-interpreted going so far as to mean the contrary or the inverse of what it apparently says. The hierarchical model (officials of the monastery benefiting from privileges, ordinary monkpriests having more privileges than the ordinary lay non-priests) became widespread from the lower Middle Ages, and it was translated even in the architecture, the diet, the costumes, and the organization of lived time. Indeed, even before this time. For example, the foundations of St Jerome are models of class-based societies. Admittedly, reforms were periodically mooted, against the inequality installed in the sanctuary of egalitarian protestation. But certain inequalities take their place (as if taken for granted) in the ideal model of monasticism, thus the institution of the “Lay Brothers.” In the 16th century, Ignatius Loyola renewed the monastic project, eliminating all inequality among his disciples. Domestic work was from then on shared between all the members of the new order. But soon the ideal of complete equality had to cede before the pressure of the accepted ministries which rendered difficult the practice at first envisaged. Thus came into being the temporal coadjutors who, if they did not know how to read should not be taught (cf. Halliger 1956). Global society got the better of utopia. Subsequent congregations, imitating or adapting to their own case the Constitutions of the Company of Jesus, adopted without batting an eyelid the internal differentiation of the latter. At least among the Jesuits, however, an equality in costume and dietary regime were maintained. Even better, the distinction between spiritual coadjutors and professed monks was so well concealed that they often pass unnoticed outside the Company. In fact, it is an atmosphere of diffused paternalism based on a mystique of demanding obedience that allows 33

This has been remarked concerning More, Campanella, and J.V. Andreas. Nonetheless, there are some democratic utopias. This is the case, in particular, of those that developed during Cromwell’s Commonwealth (cf. Seguy 1968: 93–100).

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the illusion of an egalitarian brotherhood to prevail in our minds. On a closer inspection, one realizes that the Company has passed, in its history, through all the phases going from anarchical individualism, to devotion to a charismatic leader, then to an egalitarian mystic and an ideal of obedience which has become famous perinder ac acadaver, supporting a strongly hierarchical society and emerging finally in a total support of conceptions of subordination of the profane and ecclesiastical worlds. The utopia of a community without a superior that came from the project sealed by the oaths of Montmartre has yielded to an entirely realistic practice of an authoritarian centralization under the banner of obedience. In the Ignatian case, which is not only well known but well documented, a concise analysis, from a sociological point of view, would reveal something of the passage from charismatic informality to the domain of an institution where, when practiced, utopia flounders in the banality of everyday life. Such a study could well show, in any case, that the local squires, who, with no hope of social advantage, founded the Company as a protest against a world they could not enter, quickly became allies of the bourgeois society that they refused.34 Thenceforth, their order started recruiting in this social class and the high nobility. But the original equality from that time only remained a shadow of itself, while the mystique of obedience took on forms foreign to the first thought of St Ignatius. Thus monastic utopia as a criticism of class relationships finished by becoming bogged down in the support of governing classes and the preservation of the established order. This phenomenon reveals itself strictly parallel to that observed in the Anabaptist Mennonite Assemblies, where one passes, in three centuries and perhaps considerably less, from a radical criticism of the State, the Churches and the world, to the upholding of their values – from the refusal of war to the “veteran” mentality. This parallelism reveals itself heuristic, even concerning the origin of the recruitment. In both cases, in fact, under the impulsion of external forces and following an impeccable internal logic, one witnesses at the same time an upheaval in the social position of members and significant transformations of practices and beliefs, in particular concerning equality in everyday contacts. But in the one case as in the other, there had been, in the beginning, a utopian project for a different society reduced in both time and social space to the maintaining of another society (and, in this case, a ghetto society). 34

By accepting, in particular, the existing economic order concerning the solution given for the problem of poverty (colleges and “houses of education” donated and endowed with productive wealth) Ignatius had, we know, a clear conscience of the importance of this decision (cf. Loyola 1959: 10, 20–29, 141–145).

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Are these different ways of being different still utopian? Doubtless, in one way, for the adjective, placed before or after the substantive maintains a distance. Nonetheless, as it concerns a religious order, utopia should become retrogressive in order to find, within the institution, the opportunity of continuing aliquo modo. On the contrary, in the sect there remains the solution of a schism and of a new beginning – a possibility which is not to be put aside for the Order, though within the limits described above. The reform of the Order supposes an understanding regard from the ecclesiastical and secular authorities and the acceptation of frontiers that are not the spirit of the first pioneers of the frontier. Monastic utopia ad intra is always subordinated. That is why, where its liberty would seem to be the most assured, in circumstances where the Church rebels against global society, the monastic project has to become retrogressive to nourish a ghetto ethos. Let us consider the 19th century creations and restorations and the difficulties of those who chose a liberal type of existence (the French Dominicans, for example). If every aspiration to a utopian change must necessarily cope with the sluggishness of social grace, as manifested in history and always ambiguous, monastic utopia seems the most vulnerable to these epiphanies. Within the Church, where coenobitic orders enter, the only equality that exists is that which hierarchy tolerates for its good confounded with the good of the institution.35 However, the criticism of everyday contacts remains possible – to a large extent – only through the presence of these seeds of utopia that are monastic creations. In this aspect, very fine analyses are called for. They would not weaken our affirmations; rather, they would reveal, in particular, that the presence of orders in the institution transforms its structure, in theory pyramidal, into a plan of multiple entries susceptible, at the same time, to govern and thus to tone down the protestation and the utopian subject, but also to allow them to express themselves and, by that, to influence the social processes, both internal and external. Limitations and possibilities of existence are sometimes synonymous, sometimes antinomic. Even in the retrogressive monastic projects – those which, for example, after the Revolution, tended to reintroduce into the Church and to make sacred 35

From the moment when the differentiation between clergy and faithful becomes significant or meaningful for salvation, to which the former are promoted to the status of a channel (or way of access) for the latter. From then on, the good of the institution and of the class that administers it merge to such an extent that the faithful assure their salvation only if they submit to the clergy. From then on, one can no longer contest the practice of the clergy in attacking the ideology on which their power is based. One sees by this that integrated monasticism could never show itself completely radical. This clearly marks one of the limits of monastic utopia practiced ad intra.

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ancient types of social relationships, proposed implicitly or explicitly to global society as remedies for its difficulties – the utopian signification finds itself eliminated. In fact, the sociologist perceives behind the speculations on the Family of Nazareth, for example, a desire to return to out-of-date models in global society or that of privileging a specific model to a particular social level, but the intention of those concerned seems different. It refers its project to the Apostolic epoch or a classical Middle Ages which constitute a criticism of lived reality in and outside the Church of both this epoch as well as that which preceded the Revolution.36 In fact, this type of utopia was to inspire a global project, that expressed by the “social” encylicals of the popes until Pius XI and in the first Action Catholique. That is both the reality and the limits of the genre. In addition one should distinguish here between the desired consequences and those that are indirect and long term. Perhaps, then, one would be led to consider as more important the utopian importance of such and such a coenobitic foundation of the 19th century.

The Governing-Governed Relationship

These reflections should not let us forget certain cases where, apparently at least, an attempt was made to overthrow, institutionally, the class relationship within of the governing-governed relationship, for example in the military Orders or at Valombreuse or Grandmont (cf. Becquet 1958; Becquet 1961:1505– 1514).37 In these cases, the lay brothers are owners and administrators of the goods of the community. At first sight, the oppressed class, since the lay brothers belong through their recruitment to the lower classes of society, seem here to govern the ruling class. But let us beware, for the ignorant lay brothers would not know how to administrate. On the contrary, the illiterate can make good soldiers, and soldiers cannot all have the same rank. In the orders of this type utopia runs the danger of being only apparent. Doubtless the criticism of the governing-governed relationship, frequent in the sects during their charismatic stage, as in the orders during the effervescence 36

37

This is clearly the case with Dom Guéranger who, in his polemics always attacks mores, practices and conceptions of the pre-Revolutionary clergy as of that of his time. One notes the same movement of thought with the novelist Karl Huysmans (in l’Oblat and La Cathédrale in particular). This similarity can be explained by the frequent references to the works of the founder of Solesmes, which were familiar to Huysmans. See the work of Dom Becquet, Jean and notably “La règle de Grandmont” In Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique du Limousin, 1958: 9–36, and “Etienne de Muret” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, Paris, Beauchesne, 1961, t. IV, col. 1505–1514.

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of their creation, should be searched for elsewhere. One will pardon the paradox, only apparent, of apprehending it in the evolution of monastic obedience.38 In the beginning of the desert is the man, alone, the hermit. He obeys God rather than men. The law of nature, if not natural law, pushes him to search for the communion of his fellows in solitude. From their propositions or their examples he takes what he wants, the ones he considers are signs from God. Little by little, however, the habit grows of choosing a master, in the beginning at least, both in life and in the ascetic struggle. The new ones visit the older ones, observe them, listen to them. They become part of their school. The spiritual master replaces the bishop, faltering or contested, the charismatic replaces the functionary of the institution. In this liaison, which becomes formalized little by little, the governing-governed relationship presents a certain number of specific characteristics. The master does not impose himself. He is chosen by the disciple, and the disciple will leave him when his own charisma opposes that of the master, no matter what the reason. The authority of every master originates in his personal charisma, recognized by those who willingly come under his authority. Even when the spiritual guidance thus included changes into strict training (see the writings of Palladius or those of Cassien, or the Apophthegms of the Fathers), the governed will always be able and on his own decision, in the conscience of his own charisma, to leave his master or choose another or choose nobody, or to become a master himself, if only one disciple accepts his guidance. The governor thus governs – to a certain extent – those who want to be governed. By analyzing in detail the early eremitic texts of the first centuries of the desert, one would even notice, probably, a non-univocal governor-governed exchange. It is not necessary to underline the contentious character of this kind of social relationship, far from the towns and their bishops, far from the sacraments and the liturgical celebrations,39 often, in any case, far from the transformations which, between the second and the fifth centuries, made the bishop and his clerics the obligatory link of all Christian life in the Church. A whole society – profane and ecclesiastical – finds itself put up to question in the master-disciple relationship in the desert. An alternative society is thus adumbrated, at least implicitly, in which social relationships are voluntary and, in the final analysis, non-constraining. In theory, or for a short period it is true, 38 39

What follows is largely dependent upon Knowles 1966: 69–94. At least, in this sense that the role of sacraments is reduced to a minimum. The service becomes more important, if only by the time it takes, than the celebration of mass, itself inserted in a minimum of ritual ceremony, except for the habitual presence of a bishop.

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for in the lived reality this relationship of functional and elective obedience soon solidified into models where the primitive choice and liberty were to be forgotten, if not willingly hidden. Obedience to the chosen master will then become a goal in itself. With the first coenobitic creations – and that of Pachomius in particular – the governor-governed relationship remained functional, but in a different way. In fact, thenceforth it was a question of obtaining from the monk – the solitary living in a community – a form of discipline enabling the functioning of an integrated society outside the world and, for that, the spiritual master will transform himself into an initiator of a way of life. The friend, the elder, the companion chosen for his charisma and not for his function or social origins was to become a link in the chain of a tradition to be transmitted, a functionary of an institution to be perpetuated, the spokesman of an abbot. This abbot himself would tend to act as a bishop in the desert. The formula “for each hermit his bishop” was dead from then on, and the opposition between the solitary and the coenobitic monks already appeared, and was to continue until the 15th century, when the bishops were to integrate almost definitively the desert into the town, only leaving for the individual mystic the solitude of the monasteries.40 In the West, at least, but also in the East, to the extent that monastic eremitism would appear, in general, it was institutionally linked to organized coenobitism. In this passage from the “mono” to the “ceno,” which historians have not analyzed with all the necessary finesse that could be brought to bear, the spiritual father becomes the abbot, and like the bishop in town, another Christ. Charisma becomes functional and in so doing takes on a constraining aspect until then unknown. This was not because all the monastic rules foresee, right from their first origin, different punishments, sometimes physical, for rebellious monks. The new legislation went even further: it makes the monk feel guilty by demanding that he should consider the abbot as Christ himself.41 To obey the abbot is to obey God. From then on, as in the worldly Church, spiritual perfection in the desert passes through submission to a functional authority assimilated to that of the divinity. One must obey the abbot, as, in the town, one would have to obey the bishop or the civil functionaries.42 One submits to this monastic discipline, more paternalist doubtless than that of the bishop, but this submission is voluntary and can be ended. In this sense, it remains 40

41 42

One should study, in a utopian perspective, the eremitic resurgence up to the 16th century and the dialectic of mono- and of cenobitism with reference to the mystic and to religious individualism. Already in the Rule of Pachomius. As far as the latter are concerned, all things being equal.

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utopian, an aspiration to a non-imposed society, which could impose itself. But individual liberty remains from that time constrained.43 From the time of Pachomius in Egypt, or that of Basil in Syria, obedience to superiors becomes the monastic virtue par excellence. However, the aspiration toward a governor-governed situation in which the governed remains the ultimate master of his conscience while remaining – voluntarily – governed, was to continue up to a certain point. St Benedict’s Rule makes the abbot the only master of the monastery. If he seeks, proprio motu, opinions on his government, nothing obliges him to follow the recommendations. Nonetheless he is himself subject to the Rule, the prototype of the monastic way of life. In a small community he knows every one of his monks, and his control over them resembles more that of a father over his family rather than a colonel over his troops. In this way, obedience here stems from close relationships comparable to those of the classical Roman family, moderated by voluntarism and commitment in a common enterprise. Conflicts can easily be settled by face-to-face confrontations. But as the monasteries become larger and larger and more densely populated, with abbots playing ecclesiastical and profane roles in the world, the Rule finds its interpretation in uses, customs, habits, concessions, tolerances, etc. Possibly, it is deformed and practices veil or contradict the primitive project. It then becomes a question of reforming, in general against the abbots. But what if these abbots represent Christ himself? A serious problem is raised here for the monastic conscience. The Cistercians – or the renegade monks from Cluny who were to become the Cistercians – solve it by recalling the forgotten theory: abbots also are subject to the Rule. Thus, to follow the rule ad apicem litteræ, according to the slogan of that time, they have to recede – to place individual conscience before obedience due to superiors according to Romans 14: 3. Saint Bernard was to become the spokesman of this trend. After the apostle, he was to repeat: “omnino non expedit spiritum velle extinguere,” and also, “perfecta obedientia legem nescit.” Citeaux, so impregnated with the feudal spirit in its structures, so integrated into global society in its conceptions of government, begins with a return to the desert where each hermit was his own bishop. Here also, of course, social grace was quickly to override charisma. One had to wait for St Francis of Assisi and the 13th century to see the contestation of the governing-governed relationship reappears. For St Francis, neither the rule nor the superiors constitute ends in themselves. They should help in the achievement of his project as he sees it: the imitation of Jesus 43

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Paris: Bloud et Barral, 1882, IIa-IIae, q. 104, art. 5, ad. 3 and q. 186, art. 5 to 4.

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Christ. And it is, for him, the “heart” that decides: “anima” (“feelings” as the Puritans and Pietists were to say). If, every sin obviously excluded, a brother believes that he should take such and such attitude, should leave for such and such a ministry dictated by his “anima,” his “minister,” his “servant” – such are the appellations of the Franciscan superiors – should leave him free to act and not dismiss him. Here the abbots should take on the role of fathers once more, putting human minds to the test and not extinguishing them. Should one underline the character both protesting and utopian of this conception? One has also, in any case, to mark its limits. St Francis inherits a whole ecclesiastical and monastic culture. He does not repudiate it. Rather, he attempts to reconcile it with eremitic liberty, at that time a living tradition in the west, especially in Italy, and of which St Francis remains the most prestigious representative. Of this liberty generally one has not a clear idea. It was immense, tolerated rather than appreciated by the authorities, in the State as well as in the Church, leading to revolts such as passive piety, to sects as to orders, to frenzied sermons or to orthodox catechisms. The Waldensians represent these movements as do the Franciscans, and this comparison illustrates the difficulties of integration. With St Francis the ad intra was to dominate the ad extra. But this viable adjustment was entirely centred on his charisma which, after his disappearance, was to give place to integration. This, we know, was not achieved without some tragic episodes. Spirituals like the Waldensians and Cathars were burned at the stake. The Franciscan order, to continue living within the Church, had to reinsert itself into the tradition which, down the centuries, made the abbot into an episcopal or pontifical Vicar. The anima was to be forgotten in favour of the declarations of Saint Francis on the submission due to the priests of the Roman Church. His obedience to Brother Elias was to be underlined when, during the last years of his life, he wanted to obey a superior in everything. Anima-animus, the theme is not just Claudelian. In sociology it is the opposition of charisma and the institution. The utopian critique, in order to be practiced, has to face martyrdom and quickly disappear, or to submit to authority and forget itself. What is the situation of the Dominicans in these debates? This order has apparently never experienced the happy anarchy of the Franciscans. With a single goal in mind, preaching the gospel, it dotted itself with functional structures, in which an obedience of a traditional monastic type is due to all authority, revocable and temporary. Saint Thomas in his Summa44 insists on the classical point that the monk or nun owes obedience to his or her superior, as long as the orders of this superior contradict neither divine law nor the Rule. 44

Saint Thomas, ibid., Ia-IIae, q. 19, art. 5 and art. 6.

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In addition it falls upon the monk to prove a possible violation of one or the other. Certainly, he teaches, the conscience even badly formed obliges him (see note 79). But submission to a superior remains the surest way of obedience to God. With the Company of Jesus, in the 16th century, the history of the conceptions of obedience in religious life comes to an end.45 Here, at the definitive state of the institution, utopia exists, certainly, but not in the sense that one could imagine. In fact, St Ignatius requires of his disciple total obedience, at all times, in acts and convictions. It is not enough, in this case, to do always what the superior commands. It is also necessary to do well, to convince oneself that one’s Order is the best possible and to want to do what one does in carrying it out. This is a conception influenced by the most consistent philosophical concept of nominalism, refusing to reason the capacity of attaining truth. It is then of little interest whether one is right or wrong. The superior surely gives the best orders possible for the spiritual good of his inferiors, as he plays the role of Christ. One therefore cannot do any better than obey his orders, if they do not go against the law of God, nor against that of the Church, nor against the Rule. In any case, the inferior should, in order to disobey in good conscience, prove that the order received contravenes his values. The nominalist influences of this ethic of religious life, the necessities of organised action, the theories concerning obedience to national monarchs, the dynamics of centralization in the Church are not enough to explain the Ignatian conception. One can also see in it a form of utopia, the first truly universalist coenobitic utopia, on the scale of a new world, a religious response to the discovery of the New World. Millenaristic-Messianic insinuations are probably not foreign to this conception. In any case, St Ignatius certainly seems, by adapting for his disciples the perinde ac cadaver of St Francis, to construct a project of society where every man would integrate perfectly the ideal Christian order which alone allows one to approach serenely the final goal: complete theocracy (see Bataillon 1967: 13, n. 37). Without going so far, one can, in any case, attribute to him an ecclesiastical utopia, that of a Church where, good or bad, popes and bishops dispose of workers (operarii) in their service in vinea Domini, transforming the Christian people, in spite of – in the indifference to, one could say (in an Ignatian term) – all the weaknesses of those who should set an example. Here, obedience plays a tactical and therapeutic role. It does not destroy criticism, it is a permanent “critique,” In voto. In the lived reality, it will transform itself rapidly into petty officiousness or paternalism, 45

In fact this history continues or starts again before our eyes, with the ‘Aggiornamento’ of the orders and the religious congregations.

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experiencing the fate of all integrated protestation which always finishes by playing in favour of that which it originally contested. To such an extent that it remains difficult to find the utopia of the beginning, the debates in the Company of Jesus after the Council of Trent bear witness to this fact (cf. Rondet, 1964: 125–140) – notwithstanding the fact that one should not forget that at the outset the Jesuits were a group of men refusing all superiors and all vows of obedience. No historian has yet been able to explain this hiatus to us. Nor how, from the radical individualism of the Exercices, one passed to the altogether non-democratic centralism of the Constitutions. The contradiction disappears if one regards the Jesuit obedience in an eschatological theocratic perspective which refers us to a utopian model. Conclusion The interest of the ideal-type of utopia used here will, doubtless, enable a coherent interpretation of historical events that are at first sight dissimilar, without establishing historical genetic relationships among them. This putting into perspective will reveal the outline of a social dynamic which is the object both of history and of sociological conceptualization. The example retained here – monasticism – does not exhaust all the possibilities of utopia as an ideal-type. One can ask oneself if all social change, insofar as it gives rise to the ideology that makes it possible, does not necessarily go through, in the West at least, a utopian phase (contrary, perhaps, to Marx (1959: 16–19; cf. Ansart 1968). In this case, the working model described in this chapter would assume a capital importance for the studies of ideologies of change, including revolutionary ideologies.46 Moreover, by distinguishing between written and practised utopias, following Desroche’s suggestion, one gives oneself, as shown in this chapter, a possibility of analyzing in the same breath both the beliefs and the practices as social phenomena. This is perhaps 46

Cf. Rocher 1968, who writes “L’idéologie révolutionnaire est essentiellement refus total et rejet d’un présent, au nom d’un avenir qui doit être entièrement différent…Rompant avec le présent, et le passé immédiat, l’idéologie révolutionnaire propose ainsi de rejoindre un passé ancien dans un avenir idéalisé, plus parfait que ce que l’homme a jamais connu” (271–272) This concords perfectly with the current analysis. The following problem remains to be studied: Monasticism and Revolution. Everyone at present has in mind the role of the Buddhist monks in Vietnam, that of the community of the Fils de la Lumière at Qumran, and certain links between the Catholic religious orders and revolutionary and counter-revolutionary activity in certain Western European and South American countries at the moment. One should go further than simple impressions.

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to be borne in mind to revivify the studies “of practice” – and not only religious practice – and to transfer them from sociography to sociology, which is to say to an explanatory perspective. References Ansart, Pierre. 1968. “Marx et la théorie de l’imaginaire social.” Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie.45: 99–116. Bataillon, Marcel. 1967. “D’Erasme à la Compagnie de Jésus: Protestation et intégrations dans la Réforme catholique du XVIe siècle.” Archives de Sociologie des Religions 24: 57–81. Becquet, Jean, 1958. La règle de Grandmont. Limoges: Guillemot: 9–36. —— . 1961. “Etienne de Muret.” Pp. 1505–1514 in Collectif, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité ascétique et mystique. Paris: Beauchesne. Berlière, Ursmer. 1923. Les monastères doubles aux XIIe et XIII siècles. Bruxelles: M. Lamertin. Bestor, Arthur E. 1950. Backwoods Utopias. The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663–1829. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Bezzola, Reto. 1940. “Guillaume IX de Poitiers et les origines de l’amour courtois.” Romania 46: 145–237. Bloch, Ernst. 1962a. Das Geist der Utopie. Frankfurt-a-M: Suhrkamp. —— . 1962b. Thomas Münzer als Theolog der Revolution. Frankfurt-a-M 1922: Suhrkamp. —— . 1963. Thomas Münzer théologien de la révolution. Paris: Julliard, 1964. Bottigelli-Tisserand, Marcelle. 1966. Introduction to More’s Utopia. Paris: Ed. Sociales. Broutin, Paul. 1956. La Réforme pastorale en France au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Desclée (2 vol). Clark, Elmer T. 1949. The Small Sects in America. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Colloque de la Mendola. 1965. L’Ermetismo in Occidente nel secoli XI e XII. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Cousin, Patrice. 1956. Précis d’histoire monastique. Paris: Bloud et Gay. Delaruelle, Etienne. 1965. “Les ermites et la spiritualité populaire.” Pp. 212–248 in L’Eremitismo in Occidente nei secoli XI e XII. Milan: Università cattolica del Sacro Croce. Desroche, Henri. 1950. Signification du marxisme. Paris: Ed. Ouvrières. —— . 1955a. “Dissidences religieuses et socialismes utopiques.” Année Sociologique, IIIe série 1952: 393–429. —— . 1955b. Les Shakers américains: d’un néo-christianisme à un pré-socialisme?. Paris: Éd. de Minuit.

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Index Abbesses  34, 45, 48n22, 300 Asceticism  3–21, 25, 27, 73, 80–82, 93–97, 137, 144, 229, 243–248, 264–266, 271, 279 Authority  xv, 50n25, 77, 91, 103, 110–111, 146–147, 150–168, 306 Benedictines  3–21, 40, 73–76, 82, 88, 91–93, 102, 193–194, 202 Body  4, 9, 56, 60–65, 81–83, 97, 126, 155 Buddhist Monasticism Buddhist Monastic Women  207–227 Soto Zen Monasticism  211–220 Theravada  214, 215n Tibetan Karma Kagyu  208 Urban Buddhist Monasteries  228–240 Zen  191, 198, 256 Canon Law  xv, 22, 49n24, 93, 103–104, 272 Carmelites  40, 55–71, 112 Catholic Church  26, 70, 79, 103, 140–142, 279, 297n Catholicism  26–27, 80, 141, 143, 167, 187n2, 252, 271, 282n11, 283 Charisma  82–84, 154–169, 199, 263–267, 291–295 Church (type) 279–280, 293, 298 Cistercians  15, 23, 104, 313 Cloistered Life  25, 34–53, 55–71 Coenobitic Institutions  9–12, 55, 294 Conflict  42n18, 84, 87, 98, 101–104, 295–299 Contemplative Spirituality  186–206 Contemporary Korea  228–243 Cultural Protest  21–34 Customers  78–85 Desert Fathers  6–7, 17, 72, 91, 142, 145, 153, 158 Diakrisis  156, 168 Diaspora  171, 178–185 Double Ethics  24–28, 31 Early Monasticism  6–9, 11, 16, 18 Eastern Christianity  35n1, 91, 99, 102n6, 133–150, 170, 172 Economy  11, 17, 32, 71–87, 264–267

Elder  138–140, 145–148, 150–169 Ethnography see field work Female Monasticism  34–55, 73, 76, 207–228 Field work  55–71, 82, 110 Research methodology  69 Folklorisation  21–34 France  39n12, 55–71, 73–74, 76n2, 140–145, 184 Great Britain  207–228 Greece  133–149, 151 Habit  9, 97–101, 217n20 Hinduism  42, 188, 252–258 History of monasticism  4–15 Intermonastic Encounter Movement  186–206 Interreligious dialogue  88, 188, 195–197 Italy  34–55, 243–261, 76, 78, 105, 243–260, 314 Lectio Divina  42, 92–96 Liminality (Victor Turner) 207–227 Liturgy  5, 13–15, 58, 90–93, 182 Liturgy of the Hours  15, 58 Oecumenical Liturgy of the Hours  93 Megatemples  234–236 Minority  27, 171, 212 Mixed gender  97–101, 256 Modernity  17–18, 21–34, 76–77, 189, 265, 268 Monastic church  181, 269, 301 Monastic products  29, 71–87 Monastic Quest  201–202 Monastic Space  13n, 34–38 Mount Athos  133–150 Mysticism  16, 53, 65, 95, 186, 190, 244, 266–270, 278 National Identity  176 New Monastic Communities  87–107

322 New Spirituality  107–130 Nuns  22n2, 34–55, 55–71, 80–81, 98n3, 99, 209, 211n8, 281 Obedience  47, 62, 146, 150–169, 306–316 Ora et Labora  4, 9 Orthodox Monasticism see Eastern Christianity Other-worldly  18, 33, 167 Politics  23, 25, 33, 39, 61, 170–185, 251, 288 Korea  228–240 Religion and Spiritual Revolution  111 Revival  126, 137, 171, 192 Second Vatican Council  22n3, 87, 187–189, 252 Sect (type)  17, 103, 266–270, 281, 298–303 Secularization  21, 25–26, 28, 52, 109–111, 125, 167, 235

Index Self  22, 82, 93, 100, 110–113, 119, 123–126, 152, 167, 210, 263 Separation  23, 34, 39, 50, 52, 55, 207–227 Silence  3, 17, 32, 48, 56–69, 90, 156 Social integration  238, 245 Spiritual kinship  139, 146 Statistics  84 Syria  170–185 Tradition  107–112, 123, 125 Great Tradition  134–138 Re-invention of monastic tradition  87 Transition  53, 207–227 Trappists  104 Utopia  3, 16, 21, 74, 78, 84, 101–104, 246, 277–283, 284–319 Virtuosity  14n, 25–26, 151, 261–266 Vocation  22, 26, 28, 31, 38, 41, 84, 100, 137, 191, 197