At times some of the
monks living together in the same community dwelt in solitude, while others
lived in small groups of two or three, alternating periods of solitude with
periods of communal life (liturgical prayer, meals, and spiritual instruction)
under the spiritual guidance of the monastery’s elder. Others lived in
succession within the different forms of monastic life, moving from coenobitism
to eremitc life and back. Such were St. Elias the Younger, St. Vitalius of
Castronovo, and St. Nilus the Younger. There were generally no fixed rules
governing the details of daily life. The community was centered around their
elder, who often lived apart.
While during the
ninth century the level of education among the monastics was not high, this
gradually changed in the tenth century. Monks then began to study and copy
various manuscripts, among which were liturgical and scriptural texts, Greek
patristic works (such as those of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, and
St. Theodore the Studite), and the Lives of various saints of the East. Few of
their written commentaries were local in origin; most were the works of the
Holy Fathers. However, by the end of the tenth century an abundance of
hagiographical material, as well as hymnography, began to appear.
The Italo-Greek
monastics played an important part in both the civil and ecclesiastical life of
that era. They had a great rapport with the local people, who would come to
them for prayers, blessings, counsel, and other kinds of help. This in turn
gave them great freedom in dealing with both civil and Church authorities, who
as a result interfered little with the life of the monasteries. Rather, bishops
and civil leaders often came to the monastics for spiritual guidance. The monks
also exercised a prophetic role in dealing with secular authorities,
admonishing them for wrongs committed and defending those wrongfully accused or
excessively punished by them.
Finally, the
coenobitic monks greatly affected their immediate environment by their
assistance in the formation of rural settlements and communities. This occurred
when monastic communities began to clear the land around their monasteries to
make it arable. By cultivating the land they not only provided their own
sustenance but attracted the local peasants, who helped them in their work and
eventually settled nearby. The land became more productive and drew other local
people, and so previously uninhabited areas became settled. A movement of this
type was repeated in Northern Russia from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries.
--Saint Herman Calendar 2007: Saints
of Southern Italy, Platina, Cal., http://orthochristian.com/7354.html
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema
to the Union!
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