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Chapter 9
Many people wanted to live a life of faith more fully. In about the year 300, Anthony of Egypt brought together this group of solitary hermits to live in a community supporting each other in leading holy lives. This was the beginning of monastic life.
Basil the Great, a monk, was a great theologian whose writings helped to defeat the Arians at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Basil developed a “great rule of life” under which the monks vowed to practice poverty, chastity, and obedience. These are called evangelical counsels.
Benedict of Nursia, founded a monastery at Monte Cassino, in Italy. His sister was St. Scholastica who founded a monastery for nuns. He wrote a rule for the monks and nuns, naming 7 specific times each day for community prayer. Benedict lived by the motto “Ora et labora, which means “pray or work.”
In the tenth century a movement to reorganize, or reform, monastic life began at the French monastery of Cluny. Here, the monks were directed to a life of prayer centered on Benedict’s original rule.
As the Roman Empire began to weaken, tribes from outside the empire began to invade the Roman territory. These tribes were called barbarians. They brought with them the practice of paganism, worshipping false gods. Pope Gregory the Great reached out to these pagan tribes and began the work of their conversion. He made treaties with their leaders and sent Christian monasteries to their homelands.
Pope Gregory also helped to reform the Church. Some of his contributions include: contributing to canon law, laws that would provide for good order in ecclesial, or Church, governance; He was involved in the development of the Gregorian Sacramentary, a book that would guide the celebration of the Mass and other sacraments. He is associated with the beginnings of Church music.
The “barbarians” became interested in the Christian faith. One of their leaders, Clovis, King of the Franks, converted to Christianity and laid the foundation for a new Christian empire in the western part of the world.
Two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, brought the good news of Jesus Christ to the area where many of the invading tribes had come, and most of the area had become Christian.Charlemagne became a major figure in the history of the church. In Rome, on Christmas Day, 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, the leader of the Franks, as Holy Roman Emperor.
He launched a program of reform that included the defense of Christian doctrine, a reorganization of the Church’s hierarchy, or governing body, and the strict observance of the Church’s rules and practices. Charlemagne’s most lasting contribution was to education. He said that all monasteries should open schools to everyone, not just to those studying to become monks or nuns.During the seventh and eighth centuries, armies of Muslims conquered much of the Middle East, including the holy sites in Jerusalem.
There was a deepening division in the Church in the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire. Although the Christian followers shared the same creed, canon of Scripture, the same respect for teaching, same moral code, and were united under the same pope, the growing cultural and political differences between the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire clouded this unity in faith.
Thus, a division, or schism, took place in Catholicism, separating the church in the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire.
The church in the western part of the empire grew into what we know today as the Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of the Pope.
The eastern churches that chose to remain in union with the Roman Catholic pope and bishops would be called the Eastern Catholic Churches.Today, the Catholic Church consists of twenty-three churches: The Latin Church and twenty-two Eastern Catholic Churches.
The Church in the eastern part of the empire, choosing not to accept the Pope’s leadership grew into the Eastern Orthodox Church.