Orthodox monasticism

I live in Africa, the continent where Christian monasticism started, yet today Orthodox monasticism in Africa is conspicuous by its absence. There are monks here and there, but no monasteries.

There are bishops, of course, who are supposed to be celibate, but they do not live in monasteries. Some priests in parishes are celibate, and some are even archimandrites, but they do not live in monasteries.

Some monasteries in other countries have sent monks to work in Africa. Sisters from the Monastery of St John the Forerunner at Kareas, near Athens, have worked in Kenya, and monks from the Holy Mountain have worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo, once known as Zaire, but in neither place is there a monastery.

There are also people from Africa who have been called to the monastic life. At the Kareas monastery there are some Kenyan sisters, and some South Africans have entered monasteries in Greece and elsewhere. But in most parts of Africa one cannot see a monastery.

This is an anomaly. In the past, most Orthodox mission, and the growth of Orthodoxy, was linked to monasticism. It was monks who spread the Christian faith. But during the 50 years from 1920 to 1970, when Africa was the only place where Orthodoxy was growing, monasticism seemed to be in decline. Orthodoxy in Africa grew largely without monks.

Some Orthodox Christians are fortunate in living near one or more monasteries, and being able to visit them. But others, like most in Africa, live far from monasteries and are able to visit them rarely, if at all. One of the top five web sites listed here at Suite 101 is one on Orthodox monasticism. It is a poor substitute for visiting a monastery oneself, but it does give something of the flavour and purpose of monasticism.

For Western Christians, it can also be an introduction, for though Orthodox and Western monasticism have the same source, they have diverged somewhat over the years. Western monasticism has broadened into "the religious life", life under a rule, and there are many different communities with different rules, which are set up for different purposes. There are religious orders, which have a distinctive rule, and sometimes, though less often nowadays, a distinctive dress.

Orthodox monasticism, however, has no "orders". Each monastery is more or less independent of all others, though occasionally a large monastery may have smaller dependencies. Male and female monks wear the same basic form of dress, with small local or regional variations. They all live in monasteries (there is no distinctive term like "convents" for female monasteries). All follow the same four stages of the monastic life - novice, rassaphore, little schema and great schema.

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