History of Religious Orders?

[mrS4ntA]

Can anyone here enlighten me as to how the first religious order came to be?

 

[Emmaus]

mrS4ntA:

Can anyone here enlighten me as to how the first religious order came to be?

The articles at the links below should be very helpful in answering your question.

newadvent.org/cathen/10459a.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/10467a.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/10472a.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/10464a.htm

 

[JimG]

The first? I’m not sure. St. Benedict was born in the year 480 and was the founder of the Benedictine order. But if you Google the history of monasticism, I’m sure you will get a lot of hits. Monasticism became a refuge and a fallback position for civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire.

JimG

 

[flick427]

I haven’t checked my history completly but:

I am told that as far as Catholic orders go, that the Carmelites are the oldest. They we not organized at the time, but they trace their roots back to Elijah the prophet. The spirituality started with him when he was on Mt. Carmel and was handed down that way, but I don’t know when they actually started offically calling themselves Carmelites.

 

[ATexasCatholic]

flick427:

I haven’t checked my history completly but:

I am told that as far as Catholic orders go, that the Carmelites are the oldest. They we not organized at the time, but they trace their roots back to Elijah the prophet. The spirituality started with him when he was on Mt. Carmel and was handed down that way, but I don’t know when they actually started offically calling themselves Carmelites.

The Carmelites consider Elijah their spiritual founder not their actual founder.

The charism of the Carmelite Order is God’s gift given originally to those nameless hermits who gathered together on Mount Carmel, beside the well of Elijah, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries. The Carmelite Order has no known founder but sprang from the desire of those first hermits to follow Christ together with a pure heart and a good conscience. They asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Albert, to write for them a rule of life (c.1206-1214) which laid down certain guidelines based on the previous way of life of the hermits.

 

[Ryan_Vincent]

I checked through one of my old college history textbooks and the first major order that seems to come into being are the Benedictines. St Benedict is called the father of western monasticism so it seems to reason that the Benedictines could be the earlist religous order to form. However, it is a secular history book so it doesn’t go into deep detail on the subject so its possible that there were other orders that simply didn’t have as much influence as the Benedictines did.

One other thing I noted, St. Anthony is often called the founder of eastern monasticism. From what I gather eastern monasticism (at least during this time) was more focused on asceticism and generally didn’t involve people living together in orders.

 

[Mike_C]

the Benedictines technically aren’t a religious order. They were organized only 100 years ago. Each abbey is idependent.

Actually, until a couple of years ago, the Carmelites considered Elias the prophet their founder. They were permitted to place his name in the Confiteor of their Mass. The statue of Elias is in St. Peter’s in Rome with the other founders.