Carthusian

 

(kärthū'zhənz) , small order of monks of the Roman Catholic Church [Lat. abbr.,=O. Cart.]. It was established by St. Bruno at La Grande Chartreuse (see Chartreuse, Grande) in France in 1084. The Carthusians are peculiar among orders of Western monasticism in cultivating a nearly eremitical life: each monk lives by himself with cell and garden and, except for communal worship, scarcely meets the others. No order is more austere. The Carthusian enclosure is called charterhouse in English, and its architecture differs necessarily from that of the Benedictine abbey. The Charterhouse of London was famous, and the Certosa di Pavia, Italy, is an architectural monument. The Carthusians are devoted mainly to contemplation. In 1973 they numbered 440 members throughout the world, of whom there were 10 in the United States, living at the Charterhouse of Arlington, Vt. They are unchanging in their rule, their independence, and their original way of life. There are a very few Carthusian nuns following a similar rule. Chartreuse is the well-known liqueur manufactured by Carthusians in France.

The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own Rule, called the Statutes, rather than the Rule of St Benedict (as is often erroneously reported) and combines eremitical and cenobitic life.

The name Carthusian is derived from Chartreuse Mountains; Bruno built his first hermitage in the valley of these mountains in the French Alps. The word charterhouse, which is the English name for a Carthusian monastery, is derived from the same source. The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world is turning."

Carthusian character

A Carthusian monastery might best be described as a community of hermits, as paradoxical as that might seem. The monastery is headed by a prior (there are no Carthusian "abbeys"), and is populated by choir monks and laybrothers.

Each choir monk (that is, a monk who is or who will be a priest) has his own hermitage, usually consisting of a small dwelling (traditionally a one-room lower floor for storage of wood for a heating stove, and for a workshop as all monks engage in some manual labor; and a second floor consisting of a small entryway with a picture or statue dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus as a prayer spot, and a larger room with bed, table for eating meals, desk for study as all monks engage in study, and choir stall/seat and kneeler for prayer), set in a corner of a highly walled garden, wherein the monk may meditate and grow flowers or vegetables.

The individual hermitages are lined up so that the door into the garden of each may be reached by a corridor. Near the door is a turnstile, so that meals and other items may be passed in and out of the hermitage without the monk having to meet the bearer.

The monk lives most of his day here: he meditates, prays most of the hours of the Liturgy of the Hours on his own (yet still following the full ceremonial as if praying publicly), eats his meals, studies and/or writes (Carthusian monks have published scholarly and spiritual works), works in his garden, works at some manual trade, etc. He leaves the cell daily only for three prayer services in the monastery chapel (including the community and his own individual Mass), and occasionally for conferences with his superior. Additionally, once a week, the monks take a 4-hour walk together in the countryside during which they may speak (they go two by two, changing partners every half hour), and on Sundays and feastdays a community meal is taken silently. Twice a year there is a day-long community recreation, and he may receive an annual visit from immediate family.

They have no "active" ministry: they do no pastoral work, charitable work, or missionary work; they admit no retreatants (other than select persons who are contemplating actually entering the monastery as monks); they have no contact with the outside world. Their contribution is their life of prayer, which they undertake on behalf of the whole church and the whole world.

In addition to these choir monks there are lay brothers, monks under slightly different types of vows who spend less time in prayer and more time in manual labor and who live slightly more communal lives with one another. The laybrothers provide the material assistance to the choir monks: cooking the meals, undertaking physical repairs, providing the choir monks with books from the library, managing supplies and so on.

All of the monks live lives of silence: there is no "vow of silence," as is sometimes parodied, but as with many monastic groups, the monks cultivate a spirit of exterior silence (speaking only when truly necessary) to help achieve an interior serenity.

Carthusian nuns live similarly to the monks, but with some differences. Choir nuns tend to lead somewhat less eremitical (hermit-like) lives, while still maintaining a strong commitment to solitude and silence.

Today Carthusians live very much as they originally did, without any relaxing of their rule. Thus, there has been no "reform" movement as with other orders: there are no Carthusians "of the strict observance" or the like. Thus Pope Innocent XI coined the phrase Cartusia numquam reformata, quia numquam deformata. Literally this translates to "The charterhouse has never been reformed, for it has never been deformed".

Carthusians in England

The first Carthusian monastery or 'Charterhouse' in England was founded by Henry II in Witham Friary, Somerset as penance for the murder of St Thomas Becket. The best preserved remains of a medieval Charterhouse in the UK are at Mount Grace Priory near Osmotherley, North Yorkshire. One of the cells has been reconstructed to illustrate how different the lay-out is to monasteries of most other Christian orders, which are normally designed with communal living in mind. The Carthusian monk (or nun) lives a solitary life in a 'cell' (actually more like a small house), which typically consists of three small rooms on the ground floor - bedroom, study, and shrine - and a work area in the upstairs loft. Each cell has its own water supply and lavatory, and a tiny private garden planted with herbs and flowers. The garden would normally be cultivated by the monk as part of his daily duties.

The London Charterhouse gave its name to a square and several streets in the City of London, as well as to the Charterhouse public school (UK sense) which used part of its site before moving out to Surrey.

A few fragments remain of the Charterhouse in Coventry, mostly dating from the 15th century. This consists of a sandstone building that was probably the prior's house. The area, about a mile from the centre of the city, is a conservation area, but the buildings are in use as part of a local college. Inside the building is a medieval wall painting, alongside many carvings and wooden beams. Nearby is the river Sherbourne that runs underneath the centre of the city.

Modern Carthusians

The Carthusians suffered greatly during the Reformation (particularly in England) and during the French Revolution and after in France. A large number of their monasteries were closed during both periods.

Today, the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse is still the motherhouse of the order. There is a museum on the Carthusian order next to the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse; the monks of that monastery are also involved in the production of the Chartreuse liquor. Although visits are not possible within the Grande Chartreuse, the recent documentary Into Great Silence gave unprecedented views of life within the hermitage.

There are 24 Charterhouses around the world, five of which are for nuns; altogether, there are around 370 monks and 75 nuns. Most of these Charterhouses are in Europe - including one in Sussex, England - but there are also two in South America, one in the United States and one in South Korea.

The Charterhouse of the Transfiguration on Mount Equinox near Arlington, Vermont is the only Carthusian monastery in the U.S., and for a time was the only Carthusian monastery outside of Europe. Founded in the 1950s, the monastery remains active enough that it is attempting a daughter monastery in Brazil.

Liturgy

Before the Council of Trent in the 1500s, the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe had a wide variety of rituals for the celebration of Mass. Although the essentials were the same, there were variations in prayers and practices from region to region or among the various religious orders.

When Pope Pius V made the Roman Missal mandatory, in general, for all Catholics of the Latin Rite, it permitted the continuance of other forms of celebrating Mass that had an antiquity of at least two centuries. The rite used by the Carthusians was one of these and still continues in use in a version revised in 1981.^[1] Apart from the new elements in this revision, it is substantially the rite of Grenoble in the twelfth century, with some admixture from other sources.^[2] It is now the only extant rite of a religious order; but by virtue of the Ecclesia Dei indult (or "permitted exception") some individuals or small groups are authorized to use some other now defunct rites.

A feature unique to Carthusian liturgical practice is that whereby the bishop bestows on Carthusian nuns, in the ceremony of their profession, a stole and a maniple. This is interpreted as a relic of the former rite of ordination of deaconesses.^[3] The nun is also invested with a crown and a ring. The nun wears these ornaments again only on the day of her monastic jubilee, and after her death on her bier. At Matins, if no priest is present, a nun assumes the stole and reads the Gospel, and although the chanting of the Epistle was, in the time of the Tridentine Mass, reserved to an ordained subdeacon, a consecrated nun sang the Epistle at their conventual Mass, though without wearing the maniple. Even before the rite of the consecration of virgins was made more widely available as part of the liturgical reforms undertaken after the Second Vatican Council, Carthusian nuns retained this rite, administered by the diocesan bishop four years after the nun took her vows.^[4]

Stages of the Carthusian's Life

• Postulancy (3 to 12 months) the postulant lives the life of a monk but without having professed any kind of vows.
• Novitiate (2 years). The novice wears a black cloak over the white Carthusian habit.
• Simple Vows (3 years) becomes a junior professed monk and wears the full Carthusian habit.
• Renewal of simple vows (2 years)
• Solemn profession.

Locations of Monasteries

Today, there are up to 24 Charterhouses located around the Globe. They can be found in Spain, Portugal, France, USA, Switzerland, South Korea, and Great Britain. One of them was recently built in Argentina, the construction work having started in 1997^[5].

References

1. ^ The text of the Carthusian Missal and the Order's other liturgical books is available at Carthusian Monks and Carthusian nuns
2. ^ The Carthusian Order in Catholic Encyclopedia. The text of the former Ordo Missae of the Carthusian Missal is available at this site.
3. ^ Deaconesses in Catholic Encyclopedia; A Rose By Any Other Name. The Ordination of Women to the Diaconate by David L. Alexander
4. ^ The Carthusian Order in Catholic Encyclopedia
5. ^ To view images of the Monasteries visit http://www.chartreux.org/en/frame.html

Further reading

• Lockhart, Robin Bruce. Halfway to Heaven. London:Cistercian Publications, 1999 (Paperback,ISBN 0-87907-786-7)
• Kossmann, Benedict. Sounds of Silence. Authorhouse, 2005 (Paperback,ISBN 1-4208-7291-5)
• Klein Maguire, Nancy. "An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order". PublicAffairs, 2006 (Hardcover,ISBN 1-58648-327-2)

See also

• Order (religious)
• Hermit
• Desert Fathers
• Monasticism
• Monk
• Nun
• Community of Hermits of St. Bruno

External links

• Official website of the Carthusian order
• Prologue to the Statutes of the Carthusian Order
• Carthusian Order in the Old Catholic Encyclopedia
• St.Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster, England - The largest charterhouse in Europe
• Serra San Bruno Charterhouse in Calabria, Italy
• Analecta Cartusiana - Oldest continuing series published on the Carthusian Order, founded in 1970
• Website for Chartreuse Liqueur
• International Fellowship of St. Bruno
• The Charterhouse, A Garden Enclosed
• Carthusian Saints
• Polish site about Carthusian order
• Conservation Area in Coventry featuring remains of the city's Charterhouse.
• The Rosary Prayer and the Carthusians
• "Into Great Silence" Documentary Film
• "An Infinity of Little Hours" by Nancy Klein Maguire

Documentary Film

• "Into Great Silence", documentary film on the life in a carthusian monastery

• "Scala Dei, La Inspiración", documentary film with one interviews for the first time granted by a Carthusian Monk. In spanish. Armando Linares Teijeiro. -Aquarium Productions-

Donate to Wikimedia