A Visual Approach to the Study of Religious Orders

Zooming in on Monasteries

Marcin Jewdokimow, Thomas Quartier, OSB, OSB Quartier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429626814
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

A Visual Approach to the Study of Religious Orders applies visual methods to the exploration of various facets of religious life, such as everyday lived experience, contemporary monastic identity or monastic architecture. Presenting a series of visual essays, it treats images not as simple illustrations but as an autonomous form of expression, capable of unveiling vital and developmental layers of experience, while inviting readers to examine and interpret the data themselves. The first book of its kind, it brings together case studies from various locations across Europe to demonstrate what the use of visual methodologies can contribute to social scientific research on religious orders. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, religious studies and theology and anyone with interests in religious orders.

1 Introduction

Linking monasteries and religious orders with the visual

Marcin Jewdokimow and Thomas Quartier, OSB

This volume seeks to visually approach Christian monasteries and religious orders, mostly one of its types – monastic orders, whose distinctive features are: collective living of monks or nuns, ascetic and contemplative practices, and distance from the world (for instance, Benedictines or Cistercians). Monasticism contrasts with ‘active’ types of religious orders which seek to reach their religious goals by living in the world, for instance, by managing or working in the charitable sector, health care or educational organisations (for instance, Dominicans, Franciscans or Jesuits). Max Weber and Michel Foucault see in monasticism roots of modernity, and even though it is still heuristically relevant for analysing aspects of both contemporary societies and Christian religions (Jonveaux, Pace and Palmisano 2014; Hervieu-Léger 2014), sociologists seldom focus on it. Referring mostly to monasticism – but we shall extend this conclusion also for other types of Christian religious orders – Isabelle Jonveaux, Enzo Pace and Stefania Palmisano stress that sociology of religion ‘hardly ever mentions monasticism’ (2014: XIII), which is in contrast to such disciplines as history or theology, which vividly explore this topic. According to these scholars, contemporary scarce sociological literature on consecrated life – which is the broadest term encompassing different forms of consecration to God both collectively (such as being a member of a religious order, a monk or a nun) or individually (such as being a consecrated virgin) – focus mostly on its ‘active’ forms (Ebaugh 1977, 1993; Wittberg 1994, 1996a, 1996b) and omit contemplative ones.

Looking back on the history of sociological studies on consecrated life, the main figure to be highlighted is Max Weber (1927, 1930, 1947, 1948). Weber – just like Michel Foucault (1975) – saw in the rationalising tendency of Christian monasticism an important source of modernity, and in the life of modern man and woman – unconscious for him/her – the instrumented features of monastic life. He linked monastic asceticism with rationality, and hence the development of capitalism:

The ascetic monk has fled from the world by denying himself individual property; his existence has rested entirely upon his own work; and, above all, his needs have been correspondingly restricted to what was absolutely indispensable. The paradox of all rational asceticism, which in an identical manner has made all ages stumble, is that rational asceticism itself has created the very wealth it rejected. Temples and monasteries have everywhere become the very loci of rational economies.

(Weber 1948: 334)

Declared withdrawal from the world, fuga mundi, is both a paradoxical and socially vital mechanism. According to Max Weber,

[i]t was the same fate which again and again befell the predecessor of the worldly asceticism, the monastic asceticism of the Middle Ages. In the latter case, when rational economic activity had worked out its full effects by strict regulation of conduct and limitation of consumption, the wealth accumulated either succumbed directly to the nobility, as in the time before Reformation, or monastic discipline threatened to break down, and one of the numerous reformations became necessary. In fact, the whole history of monasticism is in a certain sense, the history of a continual struggle with the problem of the secularizing influence of wealth.

(Weber 2005: 118)

However, fuga mundi may be understood as an act of a protest towards the contemporary constitution of a society (Séguy 1999, 2014). As Jonveaux, Pace and Palimisano (2014: XIV) stress, it ‘does not mean that monks or nuns no longer belong to society, but rather that they have redefined their ways of connecting with it. Commercial, pastoral and even, in the Middle Ages, diplomatic activities of monks prove it’ (ibid.).

From a theological perspective, being consecrated to God – being the ­religious – means ‘separation from the world’ (Can. 607 §3) which takes place in different institutionalised and historically developed forms such as – as it is used in ‘Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae’: (1) religious institutes composed of orders (divided into: canons regular, monks, mendicant orders and clerks regular), clerical religious congregations, lay religious congregations and (2) societies of apostolic life. Another key characteristic of being religious is the public profession of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, which are confirmed by vows. The very separation from the world, fuga mundi, is a complicated concept:

Religious life, as a consecration of the whole person, manifests in the Church the marvellous marriage established by God as a sign of the world to come. Religious thus consummate a full gift of themselves as a sacrifice offered to God, so that their whole existence becomes a continuous worship of God in charity.

(Can. 607 §1)

The history of monasticism, and broadly speaking of consecrated life, is a continuous transformation of its forms. Early Christian anchorites developed from living alone to collective cohousing in monasteries. Seeking to reform monastic orders differentiated (for instance, Cistercians reform was a reaction against enrichment of Benedictine monasteries) and had developed in the thirteenth century into new forms such as mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans). In sixteenth century organisationally new forms emerged – Jesuits, etc. In the late 1960s (in the twentieth century), the Second Vatican Council announced the newest reforms aimed at the initiation of the process of ‘modernisation’ of religious life, which multi-dimensionally influenced its subsequent shifts (Melville 2012, Evans 2016).

During the last decades, monastic life had a significant influence on theological reflection and ecclesial renewal. First, we can point to great German theologians like Johann Baptist Metz, who referred to the significance of religious orders for future churches (Metz 2014), and the so-called Liturgical Movement, starting in France, Belgium and the Netherlands at the beginning of the twentieth century, occurred in abbeys and cloisters where liturgical renewal was already practised long before the Second Vatican Council. This was a strong impulse that also reached the United States and other parts of the world (Oury and Guéranger 2001, Pecklers 1998). This led to new attention for Liturgical Theology, based on Monastic Life that belongs to the innovating streams of ecclesial theological reflection today (Fagerberg, 2013). Finally, new religious groups re-invented the charisma of monastic life. New movements in the Catholic Church and the so-called ‘New Monasticism’ in protestant churches are vibrant examples (for example, McEntee and Bucko 2015). Theologically, all these impulses make it plausible that monastic spirituality is an important source and arena for theology (locus theologicus), that is at the same time often neglected in academic reflection of recent years. The theological challenge we want to take in this book is to bring theological insights into the interdisciplinary dialogue, like it is, for example, perfectly possible with regard to monastic liturgical life and contemporary worship (Quartier 2017).

Coming back to the state of arts of sociological literature on religious life, currently, sociological research on this topic focuses on its various aspects: historical development (Zdaniewicz 1961; Silber 1995, 2001), concepts (Cyman 1987; Ebaugh 1993; Francis 1950, Goffman 1961; Hill 1971; Séguy 1984; Troeltsch 1923; Turcotte 2001; Zdaniewicz 1974, 2009), economics (Séguy 1992; Jonveaux 2011, 2013, 2014) or organisation (Ebaugh 1977, 1993, 1991). They take the form of monographic studies (Talin 1997; Weigert 1971), quantitative analyses (Stoop 1971) and qualitative analyses (Weigert 1971). Various theories are used to analyse this phenomenon, among which the organisational approach (Ebaugh 1991) deserves special attention (it has been developed since the 1950s mainly by American scholars). Among the researchers of this phenomenon there are both monks and nuns (for instance Sister Wittberg) as well as secular people (for instance, Stark and Finke). An important platform bringing together researchers of religious orders is the journal Social Compass, whose two thematic numbers (1971 and 2001) were devoted to this phenomenon. Quantitatively, however, these studies are scarce; they remain in the margins of sociology of religion.

Limited sociological studies frequently seek to assess the condition of a religious order which results from the general statistical drop of number of religious priests, religious brothers and religious sisters. Between 1974 and 2015, there was a general drop in the number of nuns by 32 per cent, from over 980,000 to 670,000, religious brothers by 23 per cent, from 70,500 to 54,000 and religious priests by 9 per cent, from almost 147,000 to over 134,000. However, in Africa, Asia and South America (in the latter it applies to nuns and brothers, because the number of religious priests in this period has decreased), we observe the development of Catholic monasticism. Thus, the fall concerns selected regions: Europe, North America and Oceania (Jewdokimow 2018).

No wonder then that scholars from Europe and North America (most of the scholars of consecrated life are from these continents) understand the drop as a crisis and seek to find its causes. In sociological terms, the reasons for the ‘crisis’ in Europe and North America (Oceania is usually omitted in available analyses) are usually explained by pointing to: (1) discrepancies between the form of religious life and the changing attitudes and needs of young Catholics (Greeley 1972); (2) social changes, which – leading to the secularisation of societies – reduce the attractiveness of religious life and at the same time create many new life opportunities, including professional ones, especially in economically developed countries and especially for women (Ebaugh 1977, 1993; Ebaugh, Lorence and Chafetz 1996; Finke and Stark 2000) and (3) reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council (Dilanni 1993; Finke 1997; Wittberg 1994). The significance of the Council is interpreted in sociological texts above all in the context of reducing the unique value of religious life in the eyes of both secular and religious people. The basis for this claim is derived from three post-conciliar documents: Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes and Perfectae Caritatis. For example, Finke and Stark (2000) indicate tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• 1 Introduction: Linking monasteries and religious orders with the visual
• 2 Photographing friars: Visualising the history of changing Dutch Augustinian identities
• 3 Nun with a camera: An insider’s view (the case of a Russian Orthodox monastery)
• 4 One year in a Dominican convent in Sudetenland: Religious community in a post-atheistic and post-secular situation
• 5 Shooting monastic identity: Reflections on photography and spiritual transformation
• 6 Monastic architecture as a bridge between ecology and spirituality: A case study of a Benedictine monastery in Clerlande, Belgium
• 7 The lived spirituality of Czech monasteries through architectural materiality
• 8 Outside, inside - monasteries and monasticism in the local environment: Religion, social memory and economy
• 9 Photo-elicitation: Visual methods and monasteries. A few preliminary considerations and some results
• Index