Carthusian Order

Background

In the eleventh century, several movements arose in the Western Church seeking to renew monastic life. The Carthusian Order emerged from this current, and the Cistercian Order was founded in the same period. The founder, Bruno, was born around 1030 into a noble family in Cologne. He studied and taught at the cathedral school of Reims in France. Around 1082 he left Reims with several companions to become a hermit, that is, a monastic who withdraws from the world to live and pray in solitude. Scholars generally hold that Bruno did not originally intend to found a new order; rather, he was seeking a place where he could pray in solitude.

History

• 1084: Guided by Bishop Hugh of Grenoble, Bruno and six companions established a hermitage in the Chartreuse Mountains of the French Alps. The order's name derives from Cartusia, the Latin form of this place name. The Grande Chartreuse, the monastery founded there, remains the motherhouse of all Carthusian monasteries.
• 1090: Pope Urban II, a former student of Bruno's, summoned him to Rome. The community then went through a period of crisis. Bruno founded a new hermitage in Calabria in southern Italy, where he died in 1101.
• c. 1127: At Hugh's request, Guigo, the fifth prior (served 1109–1136), compiled the order's customs into the Consuetudines (Customs). Instead of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which most Western monasteries followed, the Carthusians observe this rule of their own. In 1132 an avalanche destroyed the first hermitage, killing seven monks, and Guigo rebuilt it.
• 1258–1581: The rule was recompiled several times to incorporate decisions of the General Chapter. The first printed edition appeared in Basel, Switzerland, in 1510.
• 1535–1537: King Henry VIII of England demanded recognition as Supreme Head of the Church of England. John Houghton, prior of the London Charterhouse, refused and was executed on May 4, 1535. Several more monks were subsequently executed, and in the course of the English Reformation the monasteries of England were dissolved. The buildings of the London Charterhouse became an almshouse for the elderly. Of the executed monks, fifteen were beatified by Leo XIII in 1886, and three were canonized by Paul VI in 1970.

Legacy and Influence

The monks spend most of their time alone in their cells, gathering in the church only at appointed times for communal worship. The order has both male and female branches. The Grande Chartreuse does not receive outside visitors and, since the early eighteenth century, has supported itself through the sale of Chartreuse, an herbal liqueur. In 2005 Philip Gröning's documentary Into Great Silence brought the monastery's way of life to wide public attention for the first time.

According to Korean press reports from 2006, the Carthusians came to Korea in 1999 and consecrated a monastery in Modong-myeon, Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province, in January 2005. It is reported to be the only Carthusian monastery in Asia. According to the same reports, the monks there abstain from meat and eat only bread and water on Fridays. In 2019 KBS aired a three-part documentary about the monastery, The House at the End of the World, and in 2020 a film re-edited from it, Cartusio: The Enclosed Monastery, was released. At that time eleven monks from several countries were living in the monastery.

Assessment

Within the Catholic Church, the Carthusian Order is regarded as a leading example of a strict contemplative order that combines solitary eremitic life with community life. A contemplative order is one whose life centers on silent prayer and meditation. Protestantism has no such system of religious orders. During the English Reformation, Carthusian monks were executed and their monasteries dissolved. Nevertheless, in 2005 Anglican and Catholic clergy together attended a commemoration of the 470th anniversary of John Houghton's martyrdom, held on the site of the former London Charterhouse. In recent years some Protestants have also shown interest in spiritual traditions that emphasize silence and meditation, though assessments of this trend differ among denominations and theologians (see contemplative prayer).