Monastic Life in the Church
(Father Edmond Khashan O.L.M.)
Monastic Life in the Church
(Father Edmond Khashan O.L.M.)
Teaching for The Family of Saint Sharbel - 1/17/2003
Feast of Saint Anthony the Great (Father of Monks)
By Father Edmond Khashan O.L.M.
http://www.ayletmarcharbel.org/content/alhyat-alrhbanyt-fy-alknyst-alab-edmoun-khshan-rlm
Topic: Monastic Life in the Church
Glory be to God!
We, members of The Family of Saint Sharbel, have become monks in accordance with the words spoken to Raymond Nader by Saint Sharbel, the “Father of our Family”: “Be monks in the midst of the world.” This statement concerns all of us, members. Since today is the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great, and we are concerned with this feast as much as monks are, I wish to all of us a blessed feast through the intercession of Saint Anthony the Great.
In this cherished monastic atmosphere, our talk tonight will be about monastic life.
(Father Edmond Khashan O.L.M.)
Teaching for The Family of Saint Sharbel - 1/17/2003
Feast of Saint Anthony the Great (Father of Monks)
By Father Edmond Khashan O.L.M.
http://www.ayletmarcharbel.org/content/alhyat-alrhbanyt-fy-alknyst-alab-edmoun-khshan-rlm
Topic: Monastic Life in the Church
Glory be to God!
We, members of The Family of Saint Sharbel, have become monks in accordance with the words spoken to Raymond Nader by Saint Sharbel, the “Father of our Family”: “Be monks in the midst of the world.” This statement concerns all of us, members. Since today is the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great, and we are concerned with this feast as much as monks are, I wish to all of us a blessed feast through the intercession of Saint Anthony the Great.
In this cherished monastic atmosphere, our talk tonight will be about monastic life.
The meaning of the word Monk:
If we went back to the ancient languages spoken at the onset of monastic life, we find in Greek the word MONAXOS, which comes from MONO and means “one.” Similarly, in Syriac the word “YIHIDOYO” also means “solitary,” the one who lives alone. This linguistic inquiry reveals a paradox between the Holy Bible and the life of the monk. In the first pages of the Holy Bible we read: “Male and female He created them.” God has put an attraction between man and woman, and yet the monk lives alone. What is the reason behind this seeming paradox?
The monk is a man who sees a dimension beyond this life. He sees the next life with the eyes of faith and passionately anticipates eternity on this earth. “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage …there is no male or female…” This describes the next life, but the monk experiences it now. The word monk in Arabic is “Raheb,” which means “he who fears for his eternal life” and lives in the world but he is not of the world. By “world” we do not mean people or the other, but what Saint John referred to when he said: “Do not love the world or the things of the world...for all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life...” This biblical understanding of the “world” is what the monk fears: living according to the flesh and losing eternal life. That is why the monk withdraws himself from the world, its noise and all its demands, to live in solitude with the One, Jesus Christ, so to become more like Him, an anointed one who strives to save the world. Based on this definition of the word monk we can understand the meaning of Saint Sharbel’s words: “Be monks in the midst of the world.” He is saying: you who live in the midst of the world ought to fear sin and fear for your eternal life as a monk would. I would go even further and say even say that all Christians are monks, meaning that they are believers who fear for their eternity and who live with their eyes set on the next life.
Monastic Life in the Holy Bible:
There are no monks in the Holy Bible. No book in the Old or the New Testament even mentions the word monk or contains teaching about, or an allusion to, this way of life. Jesus Himself never even called people to monastic life. The closest hint we can find is the call addressed to the rich man who asked Jesus: “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answered him: “If you want to be perfect, go sell all your possessions, give it to the poor and come, follow me…” Jesus said to him: “Come, follow me,” and not “become a monk.” Following Jesus is to imitate Him and to walk in His footsteps. He is the “Way” who leads to eternal life. Furthermore, Jesus chose apostles from among His disciples to carry His message to the world. He chose them not in order to turn them into monks, but into apostles. However, if we project the current reality of monastic life back unto the Holy Bible, we see in Jesus’s above-mentioned words “grounds” for monastic life. We also find in some biblical figures models and examples of authentic monastic life: Elijah, John the Baptist and Jesus Himself all led a certain way of life that monks replicate in their lives still to this day.
How Monastic Life Began:
In the early church not all Christians lived in the same environment, because they were spread out among the pagans, but “they devoted themselves to prayer, the teaching of the apostles, the breaking of the bread…” They did not differ from others in appearance, color, or anything else except by their love for everyone and their unique way of life. And yet, some of them perished for their faith. They were bitterly persecuted because the Romans thought them to be an anti-governmental sect. The unrest did not cease until the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth centuries, more precisely starting in 313 A.D., when, in accordance with the Edict of Milan, the Roman Emperor, Constantine, declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire instead of paganism and allowed Christians to practice freely their faith. As a consequence of this new attitude toward Christianity, many pagans converted to Christianity, not out of conviction, but in order to adapt to this new, inevitable situation. This conversion was only external, and not internal. The majority of these new converts kept their pagan habits that prioritize the desires of the flesh. This situation bothered those who converted out of sincere conviction, and not because it confers upon them a certain social status. Some of these Christians “reacted,” so to speak, to this situation and desired to witness to Christ with their way of live instead of with bloody martyrdom. They had a burning nostalgia for the life of the first Christian communities. So, they left the world and inhabited the desert and the wilderness, striving for a radically authentic, evangelical life. They were certain that Christianity is an inner conviction that is reflected in, and defined by, a sincere rule of conduct. They became the monks and the hermits who filled the deserts, especially in Egypt. Chief among them was Saint Boula, the first hermit, who had close ties with Saint Anthony.
There were five patriarchal Churches in early Christianity: the Mother Church in Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, Rome and Alexandria. Saint Anthony the Great (251-356 A.D.) lived in the Church of Alexandria evangelized by Saint Mark, and under the influence of the school of Alexandria which used allegory in its biblical exegesis. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote Saint Anthony’s biography. To know more about Saint Anthony’s life, one must refer to the book of Saint Athanasius or to the Maronite Synaxarion which gives a summary of the life of Saint Anthony. He was born in Coma in Upper Egypt to a wealthy Christian family. His parents died when he was young, leaving him and his sister a huge inheritance. One day he went to church to participate in the Divine Liturgy, and heard the gospel passage about the “Rich Young Man.” He believed that the Lord Jesus is addressing these words to him. At the end of Liturgy Anthony left the church, went and sold his share of the inheritance and gave it to the poor, gave his sister her share and entrusted her to a Christian family, and left for the desert to seek the Only Essential Being, forging a path that no one before him had taken. This made him the founder of a school of spirituality. Saint Anthony’s way of life attracted many youths who followed him and became his disciples. He built for them hermitages and cells. The desert blossomed and produced a new spiritual garden in the vast pastures of the Church of God.
As I said above, the only available source on Saint Anthony’s biography is what Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote. This bishop who is adorned with knowledge, virtue and a burning zeal for evangelization, infused the biography of Saint Anthony with his own view and understanding of monastic life, and that is why we find in this biography a deep theological reflection. This is similar to what Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, did when he wrote the biography of our Father, the great Saint Maron, the patron saint of the Maronite Church. What happened in Egypt with Saint Anthony was as unique and distinctive as what happened to Saint Maron in Cyrrhus, Syria. Consequently, each of these bishops independently started to write proudly about the new and unique spiritual experience that was taking place in his Eparchy. Keep in mind that neither of the two great Saints Anthony and Maron wrote about his spiritual experience, but history preserved a few of their famous sayings that became a life program for the seekers of perfection.
Saint Anthony’s experience became a spiritual way of life that attracted many young men. He became for them an example to follow. He trained them in the way of perfection and in fighting and conquering Evil. His only counsel was a word he said before he passed on from this world: “prudence.” Like his Divine Master, he did not write down a single word. He lived and taught, and so became the founder of monasticism worldwide. He wrote the most beautiful pages of love on the hearts of believers.
The expansion of monasticism:
It is indubitable that Saint Anthony was the starting point of monastic life. This expansion of monasticism had two directions:
-The first: From to the outside world to Upper Egypt
-The second: From Upper Egypt to the outside world to
The first: From the outside world to Upper Egypt: What we mean by this is the movement toward the desert where Saint Anthony was. In fact, crowds of men who were seeking perfection – men who came from Egypt and other neighboring countries whom the reputation of Anthony’s holiness and the fragrance of his angelic hermitage reached - flocked to the desert seeking the Infinite One following in the footsteps of Saint Anthony. The presence of Dayr al-Suryan (the Syriac monastery) in the desert is perhaps the biggest proof of this fact. It is likely that some of these young men who came from Syriac-speaking areas and who did not speak Coptic gathered in one monastery and practiced their Syriac liturgical heritage under the wings of this new spirituality that originated in the desert of Egypt.
The second: From Upper Egypt to the world. What is meant by the “outside world” is the whole wide world, including the old world: Africa, Asia and Europe.
Africa: from the desert of Egypt, the disciples of Saint Anthony started to spread this new way of life to neighboring countries such as the Sudan and Ethiopia. These monastic schools stayed tightly connected to the desert of Egypt in terms of its program, liturgy, and way of life.
Asia:
Palestine: The founder of monastic life in Palestine is Saint Saba who transmitted to Palestine the Egyptian way of life, a life that prospered throughout the ages. Note that Saint John Damascene lived his monastic life in Saint Saba’s monastery in Palestine. Currently, monastic life in Palestine is in a state of “exchange:” the monks of Saint Saba are Greek, and those of Jerusalem are Franciscans and from other Western Orders.
Lebanon: According to the monastic tradition, the disciples of Saint Anthony came to Lebanon and founded the monastic life in the Kozhaya valley (Kozhaya means “the treasure of Life”). The proof to that is the presence of a hermitage known as the hermitage of Saint Bishoy, one of the Fathers of the desert, located at a short distance from the monastery of Saint Anthony the Great. This hermitage is older than the monastery itself. From there monastic life began and spread quickly in the Kozhaya valley, Kadisha valley or Kanoobine valley, and in the regions of Batroon and Alakoora.
Syria: The Pioneer of monastic life in Syria is the greatest among the saints, saint Maron - monk from Cyrrhus and father of the monastic Church (+410 A.D.). This hermit created a new style of monastic life, which consists of living in the open. Many adopted this style, and others, such as the Stylites, creatively devised new models of living (Saint Simeon the Stylite, for example). Because of the unity in language, belief and persecution and many other factors, there is continuity and complementarity between the school of Saint Maron in Syria and his monastery on the banks of the Assy river, on one hand, and the monks of Lebanon, on the other.
Turkey: To the glory of Turkey witness its ruins that extend to the northern part of Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Cappadocia. Add to that the reputation that its spiritual fathers garnered during devastating periods of its history. The credit for this goes to Saint Basil the Great who lived, taught, wrote, and laid the foundation for Christianity there. Currently, this school consists of remnants of a monastic life that is near extinction because of the constant persecution exercised by the previous Islamic Turkish government and the current secular government.
This abundance of monastic schools in Asia can be attributed to the administrative divisions conceived by the Roman government to better govern its colonies. Add to that the organization of the Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople.
Europe: Saint Benedict is the pioneer of monastic life in the West. It is said that Saint Anthony and Saint Benedict were acquaintances.
It is noteworthy that Saint Pachomius the Egyptian, who is Saint Anthony’s disciple, played a role in establishing what is known as cenobitic (communal) monasticism, which is still to this day practiced in Egypt and elsewhere. The types of monastic life in the East and the West have varied to accommodate the needs of the environment and the times. Like the monastery of Saint Pachomius in Egypt, the monastery of Saint Maron that was located on the banks of the Assy river housed, along with the surrounding hermitages, more than eight hundred monks. Similarly, the monastery of Our Lady of Kannoobin was the headquarters for all the monasteries and hermitages in the Kannoobin valley, not because it was a Patriarchal See, but because, as its name suggests, it was “the monastery of the coenobium (community).”
Monastic Life in Lebanon:
Researchers agree that the beginning of monastic life in Lebanon was in the monastery of Saint Anthony the Great in the Kozhaya valley and the monastery of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary in the Kannoobin Valley (Kadisha Valley). After that, Mount Lebanon knew many illustrious monasteries that tremendously influenced solitary life in Lebanon, such the monastery of Saint John Maron in Kfarhay, the monastery of Our Lady in Yanouh, the monastery of Our Lady of Lowayzi, the monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Rishmayya, and the monastery of Our Lady of Mashmooshy. Monasteries were not exclusively for men; there were also some prosperous monasteries for women in Mount Lebanon. There were also holy women hermits like Sarah from Hardeen who was mentioned in some Twelfth century manuscripts. Sarah’s hermitage still stands today next to the monastery of Saint Sergius, also known as known as the presidential monastery because the Maronite patriarch lived in it for a long time and the Abbot of this monastery had primacy over his brother Abbots in the other thirty monasteries in Hardin.
Here I will share a special heroic episode in which the heroines were the Maronite nuns who lived in a monastery near the presidential monastery in Hardeen: When the Mamelukes reached these inaccessible mountains, their soldiers attempted to violate the dignity and sanctity of the nuns by raping them. All thirteen nuns threw themselves over a high cliff of about 500 meters, choosing to kill the body rather than “killing both (body and soul) in the fire of Hell.”
Some of the monasteries in Lebanon knew communal life or mixed communities, which means that monks and nuns together shared in liturgical life and food. They lived in separate, but close quarters. The founders of organized monastic life in Lebanon disapproved of this lifestyle. Why?
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, four Maronite young men came from Aleppo to Lebanon seeking to live the monastic life. They were: Gabriel Hawwa, Germanous Farhat, Abdullah Karaali and Yousef Albeten. They met with the Patriarch at his residence (which is always a monastery) and informed him of their wish, which is to seek to live an organized Maronite monastic life. To help them achieve their goal, the Patriarch entrusted Saint Moura’s monastery in Ehden to them…And after spiritual discernment, they made their profession of vows on Nov 10, 1665. This event’s date became the memorial of the founding of organized monastic life in the Maronite Church. The dedication of the new monks and the support of the Patriarch led many independent monasteries to join them. This is why the new Order, known at the time as the Alepine Maronite Order (named after Aleppo, to the city of origin of the founders) had a spectacular launch. Nonetheless, the Order suffered a setback in 1770 which led to its division into two orders: The Lebanese Maronite Order and The Alepine Maronite Order (The Mariamite Maronite Order now.)
The Maronite Orders:
Given that we are short on time, I will share only some of the names of the current Maronite religious Orders:
The male religious orders:
-The Maronite Lebanese Order
-The Mariamite Maronite Order
-The Antonine Maronite Order
-The Congregation of the Maronite Lebanese Missionaries
The female religious orders:
-The Sisters of the Maronite Lebanese Order
-The Antonine Nuns
-The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Prairies - Dlabta Keserwen
-The Congregation of the Sisters of St John the Baptist - Hrash Keserwen
-The Maronite Congregation of the Sisters of St Therese of the Child Jesus - Klayaat Keserwen
-The Maronite Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family - Ibreen
-The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Eucharist - Beit Habbak
Conclusion:
In the desert there is no path or water, and nothing is constant. There is nothing but shifting sands blown around by dry, lethal, and hot desert winds. In the desert there are wild, ferocious animals…and yet, the desert had to be conquered. A careless wayfarer may dissipate or become prey to all the previously stated dangers. But if he fights and struggles, he is bound to reach the oasis where there is pasture, water and rest after the weariness. In short, he reaches life.
This was the experience which Saint Anthony the Great left for us as precious inheritance, not only for us monks who belong to him, to his school and his rule, but for all those who want to follow in the footsteps of Christ, especially in today’s world.
May the prayers of Saint Anthony be with us, protect us, and help us to witness to our faith in truth and charity for God’s glory and the salvation of our souls.
If we went back to the ancient languages spoken at the onset of monastic life, we find in Greek the word MONAXOS, which comes from MONO and means “one.” Similarly, in Syriac the word “YIHIDOYO” also means “solitary,” the one who lives alone. This linguistic inquiry reveals a paradox between the Holy Bible and the life of the monk. In the first pages of the Holy Bible we read: “Male and female He created them.” God has put an attraction between man and woman, and yet the monk lives alone. What is the reason behind this seeming paradox?
The monk is a man who sees a dimension beyond this life. He sees the next life with the eyes of faith and passionately anticipates eternity on this earth. “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage …there is no male or female…” This describes the next life, but the monk experiences it now. The word monk in Arabic is “Raheb,” which means “he who fears for his eternal life” and lives in the world but he is not of the world. By “world” we do not mean people or the other, but what Saint John referred to when he said: “Do not love the world or the things of the world...for all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life...” This biblical understanding of the “world” is what the monk fears: living according to the flesh and losing eternal life. That is why the monk withdraws himself from the world, its noise and all its demands, to live in solitude with the One, Jesus Christ, so to become more like Him, an anointed one who strives to save the world. Based on this definition of the word monk we can understand the meaning of Saint Sharbel’s words: “Be monks in the midst of the world.” He is saying: you who live in the midst of the world ought to fear sin and fear for your eternal life as a monk would. I would go even further and say even say that all Christians are monks, meaning that they are believers who fear for their eternity and who live with their eyes set on the next life.
Monastic Life in the Holy Bible:
There are no monks in the Holy Bible. No book in the Old or the New Testament even mentions the word monk or contains teaching about, or an allusion to, this way of life. Jesus Himself never even called people to monastic life. The closest hint we can find is the call addressed to the rich man who asked Jesus: “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answered him: “If you want to be perfect, go sell all your possessions, give it to the poor and come, follow me…” Jesus said to him: “Come, follow me,” and not “become a monk.” Following Jesus is to imitate Him and to walk in His footsteps. He is the “Way” who leads to eternal life. Furthermore, Jesus chose apostles from among His disciples to carry His message to the world. He chose them not in order to turn them into monks, but into apostles. However, if we project the current reality of monastic life back unto the Holy Bible, we see in Jesus’s above-mentioned words “grounds” for monastic life. We also find in some biblical figures models and examples of authentic monastic life: Elijah, John the Baptist and Jesus Himself all led a certain way of life that monks replicate in their lives still to this day.
How Monastic Life Began:
In the early church not all Christians lived in the same environment, because they were spread out among the pagans, but “they devoted themselves to prayer, the teaching of the apostles, the breaking of the bread…” They did not differ from others in appearance, color, or anything else except by their love for everyone and their unique way of life. And yet, some of them perished for their faith. They were bitterly persecuted because the Romans thought them to be an anti-governmental sect. The unrest did not cease until the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth centuries, more precisely starting in 313 A.D., when, in accordance with the Edict of Milan, the Roman Emperor, Constantine, declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire instead of paganism and allowed Christians to practice freely their faith. As a consequence of this new attitude toward Christianity, many pagans converted to Christianity, not out of conviction, but in order to adapt to this new, inevitable situation. This conversion was only external, and not internal. The majority of these new converts kept their pagan habits that prioritize the desires of the flesh. This situation bothered those who converted out of sincere conviction, and not because it confers upon them a certain social status. Some of these Christians “reacted,” so to speak, to this situation and desired to witness to Christ with their way of live instead of with bloody martyrdom. They had a burning nostalgia for the life of the first Christian communities. So, they left the world and inhabited the desert and the wilderness, striving for a radically authentic, evangelical life. They were certain that Christianity is an inner conviction that is reflected in, and defined by, a sincere rule of conduct. They became the monks and the hermits who filled the deserts, especially in Egypt. Chief among them was Saint Boula, the first hermit, who had close ties with Saint Anthony.
There were five patriarchal Churches in early Christianity: the Mother Church in Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, Rome and Alexandria. Saint Anthony the Great (251-356 A.D.) lived in the Church of Alexandria evangelized by Saint Mark, and under the influence of the school of Alexandria which used allegory in its biblical exegesis. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote Saint Anthony’s biography. To know more about Saint Anthony’s life, one must refer to the book of Saint Athanasius or to the Maronite Synaxarion which gives a summary of the life of Saint Anthony. He was born in Coma in Upper Egypt to a wealthy Christian family. His parents died when he was young, leaving him and his sister a huge inheritance. One day he went to church to participate in the Divine Liturgy, and heard the gospel passage about the “Rich Young Man.” He believed that the Lord Jesus is addressing these words to him. At the end of Liturgy Anthony left the church, went and sold his share of the inheritance and gave it to the poor, gave his sister her share and entrusted her to a Christian family, and left for the desert to seek the Only Essential Being, forging a path that no one before him had taken. This made him the founder of a school of spirituality. Saint Anthony’s way of life attracted many youths who followed him and became his disciples. He built for them hermitages and cells. The desert blossomed and produced a new spiritual garden in the vast pastures of the Church of God.
As I said above, the only available source on Saint Anthony’s biography is what Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote. This bishop who is adorned with knowledge, virtue and a burning zeal for evangelization, infused the biography of Saint Anthony with his own view and understanding of monastic life, and that is why we find in this biography a deep theological reflection. This is similar to what Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, did when he wrote the biography of our Father, the great Saint Maron, the patron saint of the Maronite Church. What happened in Egypt with Saint Anthony was as unique and distinctive as what happened to Saint Maron in Cyrrhus, Syria. Consequently, each of these bishops independently started to write proudly about the new and unique spiritual experience that was taking place in his Eparchy. Keep in mind that neither of the two great Saints Anthony and Maron wrote about his spiritual experience, but history preserved a few of their famous sayings that became a life program for the seekers of perfection.
Saint Anthony’s experience became a spiritual way of life that attracted many young men. He became for them an example to follow. He trained them in the way of perfection and in fighting and conquering Evil. His only counsel was a word he said before he passed on from this world: “prudence.” Like his Divine Master, he did not write down a single word. He lived and taught, and so became the founder of monasticism worldwide. He wrote the most beautiful pages of love on the hearts of believers.
The expansion of monasticism:
It is indubitable that Saint Anthony was the starting point of monastic life. This expansion of monasticism had two directions:
-The first: From to the outside world to Upper Egypt
-The second: From Upper Egypt to the outside world to
The first: From the outside world to Upper Egypt: What we mean by this is the movement toward the desert where Saint Anthony was. In fact, crowds of men who were seeking perfection – men who came from Egypt and other neighboring countries whom the reputation of Anthony’s holiness and the fragrance of his angelic hermitage reached - flocked to the desert seeking the Infinite One following in the footsteps of Saint Anthony. The presence of Dayr al-Suryan (the Syriac monastery) in the desert is perhaps the biggest proof of this fact. It is likely that some of these young men who came from Syriac-speaking areas and who did not speak Coptic gathered in one monastery and practiced their Syriac liturgical heritage under the wings of this new spirituality that originated in the desert of Egypt.
The second: From Upper Egypt to the world. What is meant by the “outside world” is the whole wide world, including the old world: Africa, Asia and Europe.
Africa: from the desert of Egypt, the disciples of Saint Anthony started to spread this new way of life to neighboring countries such as the Sudan and Ethiopia. These monastic schools stayed tightly connected to the desert of Egypt in terms of its program, liturgy, and way of life.
Asia:
Palestine: The founder of monastic life in Palestine is Saint Saba who transmitted to Palestine the Egyptian way of life, a life that prospered throughout the ages. Note that Saint John Damascene lived his monastic life in Saint Saba’s monastery in Palestine. Currently, monastic life in Palestine is in a state of “exchange:” the monks of Saint Saba are Greek, and those of Jerusalem are Franciscans and from other Western Orders.
Lebanon: According to the monastic tradition, the disciples of Saint Anthony came to Lebanon and founded the monastic life in the Kozhaya valley (Kozhaya means “the treasure of Life”). The proof to that is the presence of a hermitage known as the hermitage of Saint Bishoy, one of the Fathers of the desert, located at a short distance from the monastery of Saint Anthony the Great. This hermitage is older than the monastery itself. From there monastic life began and spread quickly in the Kozhaya valley, Kadisha valley or Kanoobine valley, and in the regions of Batroon and Alakoora.
Syria: The Pioneer of monastic life in Syria is the greatest among the saints, saint Maron - monk from Cyrrhus and father of the monastic Church (+410 A.D.). This hermit created a new style of monastic life, which consists of living in the open. Many adopted this style, and others, such as the Stylites, creatively devised new models of living (Saint Simeon the Stylite, for example). Because of the unity in language, belief and persecution and many other factors, there is continuity and complementarity between the school of Saint Maron in Syria and his monastery on the banks of the Assy river, on one hand, and the monks of Lebanon, on the other.
Turkey: To the glory of Turkey witness its ruins that extend to the northern part of Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Cappadocia. Add to that the reputation that its spiritual fathers garnered during devastating periods of its history. The credit for this goes to Saint Basil the Great who lived, taught, wrote, and laid the foundation for Christianity there. Currently, this school consists of remnants of a monastic life that is near extinction because of the constant persecution exercised by the previous Islamic Turkish government and the current secular government.
This abundance of monastic schools in Asia can be attributed to the administrative divisions conceived by the Roman government to better govern its colonies. Add to that the organization of the Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople.
Europe: Saint Benedict is the pioneer of monastic life in the West. It is said that Saint Anthony and Saint Benedict were acquaintances.
It is noteworthy that Saint Pachomius the Egyptian, who is Saint Anthony’s disciple, played a role in establishing what is known as cenobitic (communal) monasticism, which is still to this day practiced in Egypt and elsewhere. The types of monastic life in the East and the West have varied to accommodate the needs of the environment and the times. Like the monastery of Saint Pachomius in Egypt, the monastery of Saint Maron that was located on the banks of the Assy river housed, along with the surrounding hermitages, more than eight hundred monks. Similarly, the monastery of Our Lady of Kannoobin was the headquarters for all the monasteries and hermitages in the Kannoobin valley, not because it was a Patriarchal See, but because, as its name suggests, it was “the monastery of the coenobium (community).”
Monastic Life in Lebanon:
Researchers agree that the beginning of monastic life in Lebanon was in the monastery of Saint Anthony the Great in the Kozhaya valley and the monastery of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary in the Kannoobin Valley (Kadisha Valley). After that, Mount Lebanon knew many illustrious monasteries that tremendously influenced solitary life in Lebanon, such the monastery of Saint John Maron in Kfarhay, the monastery of Our Lady in Yanouh, the monastery of Our Lady of Lowayzi, the monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Rishmayya, and the monastery of Our Lady of Mashmooshy. Monasteries were not exclusively for men; there were also some prosperous monasteries for women in Mount Lebanon. There were also holy women hermits like Sarah from Hardeen who was mentioned in some Twelfth century manuscripts. Sarah’s hermitage still stands today next to the monastery of Saint Sergius, also known as known as the presidential monastery because the Maronite patriarch lived in it for a long time and the Abbot of this monastery had primacy over his brother Abbots in the other thirty monasteries in Hardin.
Here I will share a special heroic episode in which the heroines were the Maronite nuns who lived in a monastery near the presidential monastery in Hardeen: When the Mamelukes reached these inaccessible mountains, their soldiers attempted to violate the dignity and sanctity of the nuns by raping them. All thirteen nuns threw themselves over a high cliff of about 500 meters, choosing to kill the body rather than “killing both (body and soul) in the fire of Hell.”
Some of the monasteries in Lebanon knew communal life or mixed communities, which means that monks and nuns together shared in liturgical life and food. They lived in separate, but close quarters. The founders of organized monastic life in Lebanon disapproved of this lifestyle. Why?
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, four Maronite young men came from Aleppo to Lebanon seeking to live the monastic life. They were: Gabriel Hawwa, Germanous Farhat, Abdullah Karaali and Yousef Albeten. They met with the Patriarch at his residence (which is always a monastery) and informed him of their wish, which is to seek to live an organized Maronite monastic life. To help them achieve their goal, the Patriarch entrusted Saint Moura’s monastery in Ehden to them…And after spiritual discernment, they made their profession of vows on Nov 10, 1665. This event’s date became the memorial of the founding of organized monastic life in the Maronite Church. The dedication of the new monks and the support of the Patriarch led many independent monasteries to join them. This is why the new Order, known at the time as the Alepine Maronite Order (named after Aleppo, to the city of origin of the founders) had a spectacular launch. Nonetheless, the Order suffered a setback in 1770 which led to its division into two orders: The Lebanese Maronite Order and The Alepine Maronite Order (The Mariamite Maronite Order now.)
The Maronite Orders:
Given that we are short on time, I will share only some of the names of the current Maronite religious Orders:
The male religious orders:
-The Maronite Lebanese Order
-The Mariamite Maronite Order
-The Antonine Maronite Order
-The Congregation of the Maronite Lebanese Missionaries
The female religious orders:
-The Sisters of the Maronite Lebanese Order
-The Antonine Nuns
-The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Prairies - Dlabta Keserwen
-The Congregation of the Sisters of St John the Baptist - Hrash Keserwen
-The Maronite Congregation of the Sisters of St Therese of the Child Jesus - Klayaat Keserwen
-The Maronite Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family - Ibreen
-The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Eucharist - Beit Habbak
Conclusion:
In the desert there is no path or water, and nothing is constant. There is nothing but shifting sands blown around by dry, lethal, and hot desert winds. In the desert there are wild, ferocious animals…and yet, the desert had to be conquered. A careless wayfarer may dissipate or become prey to all the previously stated dangers. But if he fights and struggles, he is bound to reach the oasis where there is pasture, water and rest after the weariness. In short, he reaches life.
This was the experience which Saint Anthony the Great left for us as precious inheritance, not only for us monks who belong to him, to his school and his rule, but for all those who want to follow in the footsteps of Christ, especially in today’s world.
May the prayers of Saint Anthony be with us, protect us, and help us to witness to our faith in truth and charity for God’s glory and the salvation of our souls.
