Monastic Clergy Research Articles

The Romanian Orthodox Church between the Alliance for the Union of Romanians and the Putinist Temptation: Ultranationalist Propaganda Among Orthodox Clergymen and the Russian War Agaianst Ukraine

The present essay details the intricate relationship between the Romanian Orthodox hierarchy and the conflict in Ukraine on various levels (philanthropic, social, ecclesiological, political). While most of the Orthodox bishops in Romania continue to voice their concern about the war, few condemn the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church in endorsing the military involvement of Russia in Ukraine. Another factor that contributed to the moral anaesthesia of the Orthodox bishops has to do with the silent political preference for the pro-Russian, ultranationalist Alliance of the Union of Romanians party (AUR). While the Romanian Patriarchate condemned vehemently the political instrumentalization of Orthodoxy, against the official position of the hierarchy, a part of the regular and monastic clergy still nurtures admiration for Vladimir Putin, seen as the main benefactor of the Orthodox Church worldwide and his pro-Christian policies.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY OF A LIBRARIAN OF MONASTIC BOOK COLLECTIONS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE: CHARACTERISTICS, FUNCTIONS, FEATURES

In the proposed article by Viktor Sokolov «Professional activities of a librarian in medieval Europe’s monastic libraries: characteristics, functions, peculiarities» the information concerning the activities of a librarian in Western European monastic libraries in the middle ages is analyzed and summarized. The relevance of this study is due to the need to study the specifics and development of the functional duties of monastic librarians, which have not been studied before, against the background of the formation and evolution of monastic libraries in the Early middle ages. The purpose of this article is to identify and characterize the features of the activities of librarians of monastic libraries in medieval Europe (mainly Western). The methodology of this scientific work consists in the application of both general scientific research methods (description, comparison, analogy, deduction, induction, analysis, etc.) and historical (historical-comparative, historical-typological, chronological, etc.) methods. Methods of terminological analysis, analysis of dictionary definitions, etymological and word-formation analysis, bibliographic and other research methods were also used. The article explores the main areas and areas of activity of a librarian in Western European monastic libraries, as well as some features of the development of book and library business in monasteries through the prism of the functional duties of a librarian. The content and significance of his professional activities in the dissemination of reading, education, development of book and library business are analyzed. The study made it possible to reveal the peculiarities of the interpretation of the terms that determine the activities of the librarian of Western European monastic libraries in the middle ages, in particular, the term «armarius» in modern book science and library research. The main factors and features of the formation of the meaning of the term «armarius» in the process of becoming a professional activity of monastic librarians are revealed. The scientific novelty of the work lies in expanding the understanding of the professional activities of the librarian of Western European monastic libraries in the period, mainly, the early middle ages and revealing the significance of his activities in the development of not only book and library science, but also the spiritual culture of the middle ages as a whole. The study shows that monastic librarians played an important role in organizing systematic reading among monks – both individual (including for educational purposes, in the form of obedience) and collective – using the method of reading aloud to familiarize themselves with the content of certain (predominantly theological) books. The position is confirmed that for the monastic librarian, a wide education, erudition and knowledge of books was considered an indispensable feature of his professionalism. Performing professional tasks at the proper level required from the monastery librarian certain analytical abilities in working with text, knowledge of several foreign languages (including ancient ones), detailed content of religious books, the ability to describe books and compile catalogs, as well as perform various functions that require conscientiousness, accuracy, ingenuity, etc. The article shows that the monastic librarian had to organize the work of the library at the appropriate level and monitor the proper use of books by the monks, as well as monitor their reading needs. The librarian not only supervised the work of the monastery library, ensured the preservation of books and control over their proper use, but also actively engaged in book business through the management of the scriptorium, controlling all stages of book creation. Conclusions. The activity of the monastic clergy, including monastic librarians, spreading the Christian doctrine, thereby contributed to the spread of literacy and reading among a certain part of not only the monks, but also the population as a whole. Gradually, writing became an integral part of monastic life, where books and libraries occupied an important place. The decisive place in these processes was occupied by the librarians of the monastery libraries as the keepers of book collections and bearers of the spiritual and educational mission, book culture among the clergy and laity.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE TERRITORY OF NADDNIPRIANSKA UKRAINE AT THE END OF 40-S OF THE 19TH – THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

An attempt of analysis of written sources of the history of the Roman Catholic Church on the territory of Ukraine at the end of 40-s of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century was performed in the article. Such types of sources as act documents were selected due to the type-specificity principle. Concordat of 1847 as an international agreement between Vatican and the Russian Empire has become a crucial object of analysis. The legislative acts included into “The full collection of laws of the Russian Empire” are considered among the documents of the authorities engaged in the study that are crucial legislative acts the power of which was extended on all administrative and territorial units. The documents of religious organizations are represented in the study by the bull of “Diocesan separation” written by the Pope of Rome Pius IX.Business documentation, statistical materials, among of which is “The first general census of inhabitants of the Russian Empire in 1897”, are considered in the study. Moreover, “Diocesan Gazette” – an official periodical of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire is presented in the study. Compendiums dated of the second half of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century are a particular type of written sources, namely they are represented by “Commemorative books”, for example, an issue: “The Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Poland and a list to secular and monastic clergy in Lutsk-Zhytomyr diocese and Podillia province” that contained essential statistical information as well as records regarding a hierarchical structure of the diocesan clergy of the Roman Catholic Church on the territory of Naddniprianska Ukraine in defined period.

Działalność organów bezpieczeństwa Polski Ludowej wobec wybranych zakonów męskich w województwie koszalińskim w latach 1950-1975

After the World War II Poland was included in the Soviet Union zone of influence. The second half of the 1940s was marked by the sanctioning of the communist power, which attempted to gain control of all the spheres of life. One of the most difficult assumptions to be implemented was laicization of the Polish society. The Catholic worldview significantly affected their conduct and way of thinking, which clashed with the atheism promoted by the communists. This is why one of the security organs’ priorities was surveillance of the monastic clergy, whose prestige was continuously being undermined in the eyes of the faithful.

Behind the Abbot’s Back. Clerics within the Monastic Hierarchy

This article shows the impact of clerical ordinations of monks on monastic communities of the late antique Latin West. Its first part demonstrates how the clerical hierarchy introduced by monk-presbyters and monk-deacons challenged the purely monastic power structure - based, above all, on the abbot’s supreme authority. It turns then to three organizers of monastic life active in the sixth century - Eugendus of Jura, Aurelian of Arles, and Benedict of Nursia - who, each in his own way, ensured that the appointment of monks to clerical ranks would leave the monastery’s hierarchy intact - or even reinforce it. In conclusion, it is argued that the problems provoked by monastic clergy were alleviated by the strict separation of monastic and ecclesiastical hierarchies, which is demonstrated particularly in the Benedict of Nursia’s Rule. This, in turn, contributed to the steady process of the clericalization of Western monasticism.

The Life of the Jura Fathers and the Monastic Clergy

This article challenges the belief – popular in modern scholarship – in the predominantly lay character of monastic communities before the 7th century. A closer look at the early 6th century Life of the Jura Fathers shows monasteries rich in monks who were at the same time presbyters and deacons. The paper investigates the reasons behind the clerical ordinations of monks and examines the various roles of presbyters and deacons in their monasteries. Finally, it considers the ways in which the ordained monks could have destabilized the community and the measures employed to counter their negative influence.

Displey of the protestant movement in periodical «eparchial journal» (1907-1914)

Periodicals significantly enrich the source base of the history of the Protestant movement in Ukraine. As part of the study periodicals of the parish and monastic clergy are analyzed by archdioceses, informative potential is characterized, the data on manifestations of Protestantism in the Ukrainian provinces are teased out including in Volynska, Katerynoslavska, Kyivska, Poltavska, Kharkavska, Khersonska. The chronological frameworks of the study are responsible for the events of the revolutionary wave of 1905-1907, which became a certain catalyst for social tension and changes in the religious outlook of Ukrainians and the outbreak of І World War. The weakening of social stability determined the Protestants to cohesion and strengthen of their ideological movement. The methodological foundation is based on the principle of historicism and objectivity. The method of source analysis, method of analysis and synthesis, in particular, thematic and structural types of content analysis are used in the research. The eparchial periodicals of the selected period are significant part of the source base of the study of religious life in the Ukrainian area, which illustrate the theoretical basis of the Protestant movement. The relevance of this study is due to: firstly, the need to cover the eparchial journal as a source of the history of the Protestant movement in Ukraine, since they contain important factual material; secondly, the disclosure of the informative potential of this journal will provide grounds for the creation of new research topics; and, thirdly, in the wake of a renewed scientific interest in religious issues in recent years, need to explore the attitude of Russian state authorities to Protestantism, policy on manifestations and the spread of the Protestant dogma. The sources, which were analyzed, give meaningful information about the Protestant centers in the Ukrainian territory, reflect the general opinion of governmental bodies, officials and clergy on the activities of the Protestants in the period 1907-1914, and analyze their participation in the process of changes of social and political life, which caused by the revolutionary events in the Russian Empire.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Holy Land

ABSTRACTThe Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church community has had a presence in the Holy Land for at least several hundred years. Throughout most of this period it was composed of a small ecclesiastical corps of monastic clergy who sought to protect the national church’s rights at various holy places in the region of Christianity’s birth. Only in the twentieth century, were these clergy joined by lay people. In this paper, I discuss the way the type of food served at church celebrations and the rhythm of fasts and feasts emphasize the shared national origins of the small diaspora. At the same time, where people sit when eating, and in what order they are served, expresses distinctions within the ranks of the clergy, between clergy and lay people, between men and women, and between Ethiopians and their former compatriots from Eritrea.

Wskazania dla duszpasterstwa Polaków poza granicami Polski

Wytyczne Konferencji Episkopatu Polski dotyczące Duszpasterstwa Emigracji Polskiej są dokumentem, zatwierdzony podczas 369 Zebrania Plenarnego Konferencji , które odbyło się w Warszawie w dniach 9-10.06. 2015 roku. Konieczność wypracowania Wytycznych była dostrzegana przez środowiska polskiej emigracji od dłuższego czasu. Duszpasterze bezpośrednio posługujący Polakom na obczyźnie, wspólnie z Polską Radą Duszpasterstwa w Europie Zachodniej pod kierownictwem Delegata Komisji Episkopatu Polski ds. Duszpasterstwa Emigracyjnego, podjęli starania o opracowanie ogólnych wskazań dotyczących duszpasterstwa polskojęzycznego. Inicjatorzy i pracujące komisje uznały, że dokument winien dotyczyć wszystkich środowisk polonijnych oraz ich duszpasterzy. Z założenia Wytyczne dokument są skierowany do księży, diecezjalnych i zakonnych, siostry i braci zakonnych, którzy służą dobru chuchowemu Polaków na obczyźnie oraz do tych, którzy włączają się w swoich środowiskach w troskę o dobro polskich emigrantów.

Crutched Friars and Croisiers: The Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross in England and France, by J. Michael Hayden

Crutched Friars and Croisiers: The Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross in England and France, by J. Michael Hayden. Rome, Crosier Generalate, 2013. 326 pp. $16.99 US (paper). The medieval western Church was a great corporate body, larger and more powerful than any European kingdom. The basic division of Church personnel was between the secular priests and the monastic clergy. In this wide-ranging book brimming with new research, Michael Hayden examines a little known group of monastic churchmen: the Crosiers. Hayden focuses on their northwest European heartlands of England and France, and on their medieval heyday, but he enlarges his story to include the origins of the Order, as well as the great changes that they experienced in the early modern and modern periods. He thus begins his story in the thirteenth century in the diocese of Liege (modern Belgium) and ends up in North America in 2010. Hayden's first task--not as simple as it might sound--is to define who the Crosiers were. In the twenty-first century Crosiers are canons, men living under the ecclesiastical rule of their Order, The Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross, with their headquarters in Rome (the Crosier Generalate, the publisher of Hayden's book). In the thirteenth century the definition was not so clear. Hayden therefore devotes the roughly fifty pages of chapter one to establishing the origins and early identity of the Order. The problem for historians is the lack of surviving documentary evidence for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a situation in part created by the fifteenth-century canons' attempts to reinvent the Order and its past. Hayden does a remarkable job of piecing together the evidence, beginning with a small and mixed religious community of canons, laymen, and laywomen in the early thirteenth century at Clairlieu in the diocese of Liege. This group lived a communal religious life offering hospitality, and the men would probably have preached and heard confession. As the group gradually solidified into a more formal (and male) religious order during the first half of the thirteenth century, they (like many other small religious orders) were not specifically identifiable as friars or canons. They broadly followed Dominican statutes but they did not adopt the strict mendicant ideal of poverty. When these preacher-canons started setting up new houses, they were given various labels. Arriving in England in the 1240s, they were considered friars. Their Latin names fratres sanete crucis (brethren of the Holy Cross) or fratres cruciferi (Crossed brethren) were presumably based on an image of the cross on their outer apron. This reviewer suggests that Englishmen, pronouncing the Latin cruciferi with a proper British accent (crutchy-furry), naturally called them the Crutched friars. Arriving in France at about the same time, the fratres became the Croizies or the Croisiers--the Crossed canons. …

Jerome and the Monastic Clergy: A Commentary on Letter 52 to Nepotian, with an Introduction, Text, and Translation. By ANDREW CAIN.

Jerome and the Monastic Clergy: A Commentary on Letter 52 to Nepotian, with an Introduction, Text, and Translation. By ANDREW CAIN.

A Royal Correspondence in the XVth and XVIth Centuries: the Documents of the Gospel of Däbrä Kärbe (Zana)

One of the numerous manuscripts seen by C. Conti Rossini and copied for him deals with the monastery of Däbrä Kärbe, a religious community of Tigre. Some documents included in the Gospel of Däbrä Kärbe preserved traces of a correspondence between this community and the ‘aqqabe sä‘at of Ḥayq. This correspondence is very interesting from a historical point of view. It is accepted that the community of Ḥayq headed the monastic clergy in Ethiopia approximately until the XVIth century. But, it was not known how the ‘aqqabe sä‘at exercised control and authority over the monasteries, and what was his area of competence. These documents of Däbrä Kärbe give us a first answer to these questions.

Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State, 1660-1990 (review)

Reviewed by: Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State, 1660-1990 David L. Wank (bio) Charles Brewer Jones . Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State, 1660-1990. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. xvii, 259 pp. Hardcover $46.00, ISBN 0-8248-2061-4. In the three decades since Holmes Welch wrote his pioneering studies of the formal organization and political history of Buddhism in China's Republican and Communist periods, few scholars have pursued this institutional focus.1 It was therefore with a sense of keen anticipation that I began reading Charles Jones' study of Buddhism in Taiwan, the subtitle of which had caught my eye. I was rewarded with a fascinating account of the evolution of Buddhism in Taiwan over the course of the Qing, Japanese colonial, and Nationalist regimes. The study's underlying premise is crystal clear: "Buddhism in Taiwan has a unique history derived from a unique set of historical and environmental circumstances" (p. xv). The introduction posits a lucid explanation for the dearth of scholarship on the uniqueness of Taiwan's Buddhism and, more generally, its culture and society. The Nationalist Party long discouraged "Taiwan only" scholarship as diluting its claim to govern all of China, while Western scholars avoided it for fear of being labeled Nationalist sympathizers. Also, the lack of relations between the United States and the People's Republic before 1979 led many scholars to go to Taiwan with the intention of gathering data for insights on a greater Chinese society and culture while ignoring Taiwan's specific situation. For example, although much of Welch's study of China's Buddhism was researched in Taiwan, "he never once interviewed a native Taiwanese cleric, nor did he address any issues peculiar to Buddhism in Taiwan, such as the lingering affects of the Japanese occupation, or the conflicts that ensued between native clergy and the very mainland monks upon whom he depended for his research" (p. xiv). Buddhism in Taiwan is a big step toward filling this void. Among the study's plethora of themes, the most persistent is the pronounced role of the laity in Taiwan's Buddhism that appears variously under different regimes. Chapter 1 describes the introduction of monastic and zhaijiao Buddhism to Taiwan by Fujian immigrants during the Ming-Qing period (1660-1895). Monastic Buddhism became less orthodox than elsewhere due the weakness of state and public institutions in the frontier society. The private construction of temples gave laity much influence in temple administration, the lack of public temples helped foster an ill-trained and only partly ordained clergy of caretakers and funeral specialists, and temples served such nonreligious functions as meeting and guild halls. Zhaijiao Buddhism, distinguished by its rejection of the monastic clergy's supervision of the laity and not looking to it for teaching or supporting it financially, also took root. It lacked formal organization and was characterized by [End Page 150] adherents' observance of the Five Lay Precepts and refraining from bad and antisocial behavior. The next two chapters examine how these two kinds of Buddhism moved closer together during the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). An organizational structure was imposed on zhaijiao Buddhism when the Japanese state incorporated it into the Sōtō sect of Japanese Buddhism. Also, the Japanese included both Buddhist clergy and laity in such new pan-island Buddhist associations as the South Seas Buddhist Association and the Patriotic Buddhist Association. This enhanced the familiarity and understanding between the laity and clergy while eroding the distinctiveness of zhaijiao from monastic Buddhism. Buddhism's evolution in Taiwan's post-retrocession politics is described in the next three chapters. After fleeing to Taiwan, the Nationalist state, eager to legitimize its claim to rule over all of China, encouraged mainland monks to assume leadership posts in such national associations as the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China in order to enable the fiction that these associations represented Buddhism all over China. Native Taiwanese clergy and laity were sidelined from these national associations and began to focus on local temples and activities more attuned to their needs. Movements emerged, headed by charismatic clergy, that emphasized social welfare and, with the gradual easing of martial...

Burnout and Depression Among Roman Catholic Secular, Religious, and Monastic Clergy

Burnout and depression among Roman Catholic secular, religious order, and monastic (Cistercian) priests was investigated using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CESD) scale. Additionally, a Self-Report-Inventory (SRI) was included requesting information on demographics as well as four categories of predictor variables (vocational satisfaction, social support, spiritual activities, and physical environment) associated with burnout and depression. All participants were randomly selected. The survey yielded a return rate of 90.67%. Secular clergy reported significantly greater emotional exhaustion than did monastic clergy. Secular priests also had significantly greater depression (72%), when compared to religious (40.8%) and monastic (39.5) clergy. Overall group comparisons revealed that secular clergy experienced the highest degree of burnout and depression, monastics the least, and religious priests falling in between. The lack of social support and sense of isolation, for secular clergy, were key elements associated with their experience of both burnout and depression.

Monastic Possession of Parish Churches in England in the Twelfth Century

The rapid increase in monastic acquisition of parish churches in the twelfth century reflected a number of trends, both temporal and spiritual, in the Christian society of western Europe. It was an expression of the laity's continuing devotion to the monastic ideal, now reinforced by the foundation and spread of new religious orders, and it was in part a consequence of the redefinition of relations between the laity and the clergy following in the wake of the Gregorian Reform. More than that, however, it raised within the Church questions as to the proper relationship between the monastic clergy and the pastoral and juridical structure of the Church. To understand the phenomenon, therefore, it is necessary to examine the motives of donors of parish churches and those of the religious who received them, to bear in mind the climate of respectable opinion (both lay and-ecclesiastical) which came increasingly to deny possession of parish churches to the laity and yet could countenance their passage into the hands of religious houses, and to consider the repercussions of widespread monastic acquisition of churches in the Church at large. This article is concerned in particular to re-examine the means by which monasteries obtained grants of churches, viewed against the background of the Church's assault on lay ownership of churches and tithes, and to reconsider the evolution of the vicarage system, as the ecclesiastical authorities strove to accommodate within the mission of the reformed Church monastic efforts to exploit the churches in their possession.