Do the Benedictines Have the Great Schema?

[Gregory_I]

I THought I heard that the Benedictines, or at least the Aothonite ones, offered the great Schema.

Do the contemporary benedictines do so?

 

[Alexander_Roman]

I THought I heard that the Benedictines, or at least the Aothonite ones, offered the great Schema.

Do the contemporary benedictines do so?

Dear Gregory,

Having no idea myself, I consulted a Benedictine Abbot who is very familiar with both Eastern and Western Church monastic traditions.

He said that the Great Schema was never used in the Benedictine Order and would be, in his view, problematic from the point of view of the Rule of St Benedict itself.

St Benedict wasn’t comfortable with eremitical life although he did acknowledge it as being perfectly valid for spiritually experienced souls.

The one unknown that remains is the question about what Eastern Catholic Benedictines do in this regard. For example, there is a Ukrainian Catholic Benedictine monastery in the Chicago area (they make jams and marmalades with baked goods to support themselves). From what I understand, they are entirely Eastern and it would be interesting to know whether they would offer the Great Schema.

There is no reason why Benedictines of the Eastern Church could not offer the Great Schema in the Byzantine tradition. Eastern monastics follow the same traditions and differ only in terms of which holy Father’s Rules of life they follow (Pachomian, Basilian etc.). The great teacher of the Jesus Prayer, St Paissy Velichkovsky, also influenced existing monastic Rules with his short Rule based on Hesychasm.

Cheers,

Alex

 

[Vince1022]

I THought I heard that the Benedictines, or at least the Aothonite ones, offered the great Schema.

Do the contemporary benedictines do so?

What is the great Schema?

 

[Gregory_I]

THe highest degree of MOnastic TOnsure, usually given to those who go off to practice some degree of an hernit’s life.

THey’re the monks with the Big Scapulars with the designs of the crucifixion and the instruments of our Lord’s Passion on them. See Some Schema Nun’s here, THe men dress exactly the same: ad-orientem.blogspot.com/2010/08/schema-nuns.html

 

[Aramis]

The schema monks have attained a certain, deep, lifelong commitment to a particular subset of byzantine praxis. The monasteries offering the great schema do so only to long-serving brothers or nuns, and it’s based upon spiritual and monastic life.

Per Orthodox Wiki, the 4 levels of Eastern Monastic:

Novice
Rassaphore
Stavrophore (aka Lesser Schema)
Schema Monk

Each involves more asceticism, more duties, and stricter adherence to the monastic life, than the previous.

 

[Mojo674]

That is an insane amount of Great Schema nuns, I’ve never seen so many in one picture before. Normally you will see a Greek or Slavic Great Schema monk every so often in the monastery photos, but never that Many!

 

[ciero]

The schema monks have attained a certain, deep, lifelong commitment to a particular subset of byzantine praxis. The monasteries offering the great schema do so only to long-serving brothers or nuns, and it’s based upon spiritual and monastic life.

Per Orthodox Wiki, the 4 levels of Eastern Monastic:

Novice
Rassaphore
Stavrophore (aka Lesser Schema)
Schema Monk

Each involves more asceticism, more duties, and stricter adherence to the monastic life, than the previous.

This is only the case among Russian monastics…on Mt. Athos and among Greek monastics almost All monks are tonsured into the Great Schema right after Rassophore…skipping the stage of Stavrophore altogether. This is from the idea that there is only ONE monastic order.