Hermits and anchorites in the later church

Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 2.4

What you will learn

• Describe several later forms of the solitary life: stylites, enclosed anchorites, hermit orders and Athonite hermits.
• Explain how a medieval anchorite was connected to the church and the surrounding community.
• State how the Catholic Church today recognizes the hermit vocation.
• Draw out what these later examples teach about solitude combined with oversight.

The big idea

The solitary life did not end with the desert. In the centuries after Anthony, Christians found many forms of it: pillar saints in Syria, enclosed anchorites beside medieval parish churches, hermits living in small cells within Carthusian houses, Orthodox hermits on Mount Athos, and modern hermits living under a bishop’s direction. In nearly every case the solitary life was joined to some kind of oversight, worship and community. The later history confirms a pattern found in the desert: solitude has been most at home where it has been accountable.

Key terms

Stylite

A pillar saint, an ascetic who lived on top of a pillar. The word comes from the Greek word for pillar.

Anchoress, anchorite

A woman or man enclosed in a small cell, usually attached to a church, for a life of prayer. The enclosure was permanent and formal.

Skete

A small Orthodox monastic settlement where a few monks live under an elder, with some hermitage, some common prayer.

Hesychasm

From a Greek word for stillness. An Orthodox tradition of prayer, using the Jesus Prayer, that seeks inner quiet.

Charterhouse

A Carthusian monastery, in which each monk lives in his own small house and cell and gathers with the others for some services.

Diocesan hermit

In Catholic law, a hermit who has made public promises to a bishop and lives according to a plan of life approved by him.

Background

After the fourth century the solitary life took many shapes in different places. In the East it stayed close to its origins, with hermits living near monasteries and elders giving counsel to visitors. In the West, solitaries were increasingly drawn under church law and under bishops or abbots. In both regions, it remained a recognized but demanding calling.

This lesson surveys examples across more than a thousand years. The aim is not to praise any of them as models for copying, since some were extreme and some reflect their own times, but to see what they have in common. Pay attention to who gave permission, who gave counsel and how the solitary related to the surrounding community.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Symeon the Stylite and the extremes

Symeon the Stylite (about 390 to 459) lived in Syria and spent decades on top of a pillar, which was raised higher over time. Crowds came to see him, and bishops and emperors consulted him. His life shows both the reach of ascetic fame and its dangers. Some monastic leaders at the time questioned whether such displays were wise, and the fact that people came to watch complicates any idea of simple withdrawal.

Later stylites existed in the East for centuries. Most Christians, then and now, would see this practice as a remarkable example of dedication and not as a model for anyone to copy.

Step 2: The enclosed anchorite in the medieval West

In medieval England and elsewhere in Europe, an anchorite was enclosed by a bishop in a small set of rooms usually attached to a parish church. The rite of enclosure resembled a funeral service, signifying that the person was dead to the world. The cell had a window onto the church, so that the anchorite could follow the Mass, and a window to the outside through which food was passed and where visitors, often local townspeople, came for advice and prayer.

A guide for anchoresses called the Ancrene Wisse, written in English in the early thirteenth century for three sisters, gives practical advice on prayer, temptation, speech and daily routine. It warns against gossip and against pride in one’s own devotion. The anchorite was not hidden from the community. She served it through prayer and counsel and she depended on it for support.

Step 3: Julian of Norwich

The best-known English anchoress is Julian of Norwich (about 1342 to after 1416), who lived in a cell attached to the church of St Julian in Norwich. She wrote an account of a series of visions she received during an illness in 1373, usually called the Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest surviving book in English by a woman. Records show that people came to her for counsel, and one visitor, Margery Kempe, wrote about meeting her.

Julian’s book shows reflection and cautious language. She often stresses that her visions agree with the teaching of the church, and she treats them as something to be understood slowly. Her example shows that deep solitude and loyalty to the church were seen as belonging together.

Step 4: Hermit orders and Mount Athos

In the eleventh century, communities arose in the West that combined hermit life and common life. Romuald founded the hermits of Camaldoli around 1012, and Bruno of Cologne founded the Carthusians at La Grande Chartreuse in 1084. A Carthusian monk lives in a small house with a garden within the monastery walls, prays and works mostly alone, and comes together with others for some services and a weekly meal and walk.

In the Orthodox East, the monastic community of Mount Athos in Greece has for over a thousand years included large monasteries, sketes and individual hermits. Under the guidance of an elder, a hermit follows a prayer rule and may keep a form of stillness (hesychasm) using the Jesus Prayer. In Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Seraphim of Sarov (1754 to 1833) lived for years as a hermit, then received crowds of visitors as a spiritual guide. Again, solitude and counsel appear together.

Step 5: The hermit today

Catholic canon law (canon 603 of the 1983 Code) recognizes hermits who publicly profess the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience in the hands of a diocesan bishop, and who live under a plan of life that the bishop has approved and under his direction. Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, spent his last years in a hermitage on the grounds of his abbey while remaining in contact with his community. Charles de Foucauld (1858 to 1916) lived as a hermit in the Sahara among the people there.

Outside these formal structures, many modern Christians live solitary lives without any recognition. This course does not judge them, but it points out that the historic forms have mostly included a bishop, an abbot, an elder, or at least a living bond with a church.

1. What did the anchorite’s window to the church say about her relation to the community?
2. Who gave permission, and who gave counsel, in each of the examples in this lesson?
3. Would I welcome the kind of oversight these hermits accepted?
4. What can I learn from a way of life I would never choose myself?
5. Which of these solitaries served other people most clearly, and how?
6. What does it say about solitude that so many hermits were sought out as advisers?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic tradition honors hermits and has a legal place for them. The Church holds that the eremitical life is a form of consecrated life, practiced under a bishop’s oversight and in communion with the church.

Orthodox

Orthodox tradition has always included hermits, particularly on Athos, and values the elder as a guide. Orthodox writers stress that no one should undertake hermit life on his own authority, and that prayer is grounded in the church’s worship and sacraments.

Protestant

Most Protestant churches did not continue the monastic life after the sixteenth century, and Reformers criticized enclosure and vows. Some Protestants today find the anchorite tradition inspiring for its prayer, and some Anglican and Lutheran groups have revived forms of it.

Scholarly

Historians have used the lives of anchorites and anchoresses to study medieval religion, women’s lives and the relations between ordinary people and spiritual figures. Much of what is known comes from rules and church records, which describe norms more than daily practice.

Why it matters

Later history makes the pattern of the first lessons easier to see. Time after time, solitude has been honored when it was joined to oversight, worship and service, and distrusted when it was cut loose. A reader today may draw different conclusions about how closely their own solitude should resemble these forms, but should know what the long tradition has found.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Which of these forms of solitude attracts you most, and which unsettles you? Why?
2. What do you make of the fact that hermits were so often sought out as counselors?
3. In your own situation, who could play the role of bishop, abbot or elder?
4. Is there a modern equivalent of the anchorite’s window to the church?

Independent assignment

Compare two solitaries

Choose two of the figures or groups in this lesson. In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words comparing them. For each, say where they lived, who oversaw them, how they met other people and what they gave to others. Finish by saying what you could responsibly take from them for your own life, and what you could not.

Further study

• Timothy (Kallistos) Ware, The Orthodox Church Look for the pages on monasticism and the Jesus Prayer.
• Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Read the sections on medieval monasticism and on the Eastern church.
• Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Compare the early sayings with the later examples in this lesson.
• Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 volumes) A scholarly survey, useful for background on medieval spirituality.
• Mark 6:31 Come apart and rest awhile.
• Luke 5:16 Jesus withdraws to pray.