What are the ecclesiological challenges and opportunities raised by technology? How have developments related to the COVID-19 global health crisis impacted churches, forcing a swift move to mediated and online worship? And how will this change the shape churches of theological and programmatic choices for years to come? Drawing together a diverse group of theologians and media scholars, this volume considers the key theological question churches and religious leaders need to engage with as they look towards long term strategies involving church life and technology.

This is the first book-length study of children in one of the birthplaces of early Christian monasticism, Egypt. Although comprised of men and women who had renounced sex and family, the monasteries of late antiquity raised children, educated them, and expected them to carry on their monastic lineage and legacies into the future. Children within monasteries existed in a liminal space, simultaneously vulnerable to the whims and abuses of adults and also cherished as potential future monastic prodigies. Caroline T. Schroeder examines diverse sources - letters, rules, saints' lives, art, and documentary evidence - to probe these paradoxes. In doing so, she demonstrates how early Egyptian monasteries provided an intergenerational continuity of social, cultural, and economic capital while also contesting the traditional family's claims to these forms of social continuity.

John-Francis Friendship spent twenty-five years as an Anglican Franciscan friar. Drawing on the whole breadth of monastic history and experience, he looks at core aspects of monastic and religious life and applies its practical wisdom for living well in today's world. Chapters include: * Knowing your heart's desire and pursuing it; * Counter-cultural living - the spirit of poverty, chastity and obedience; * Clothing yourself in Christ - getting into holy habits; * Living in community - how to get along together; * God in all things - seeing the whole world as divine; * For the sake of the kingdom - serving those in need; * Living with thanksgiving - shaping the eucharistic life. What Do You Seek? draws on spiritual wisdom accumulated over the centuries to offer inspiration and courage for living with integrity and hope today.

Since the apostolic age, Christian churches have seen a constant dialectic between inspiration and institution: how the ungoverned spontaneity of Spirit-led religion negotiates its way through laws, structures and communities. If institutional frameworks are absent or insufficient, new, creative and dynamic expressions of Christianity can disappear or collapse into disorder almost as quickly as they have flared up. If those frameworks are excessively rigid or punitive, they can often quench the spirit of any new movements. This volume explores the interplay between inspirational movements and institutional structures throughout Christianity's history, examining how the paradox of inspiration and institution has been negotiated from the ancient world to the modern era, tracing how different Christian movements have striven to hold these two vital aspects of their faith together, often finding creative or unexpected ways to institutionalize inspiration or to breathe new life into their institutions.

The practice of continuous prayer has been known in the Christian church as early as the second century AD, well before the beginning of Christian monasticism. One of the ways early Christians practiced continuous prayer was through the repetition of short bible verses throughout the day. While this mode of prayer did not have any specific name until the twentieth century, its practice has always been characterized by the imagery of warfare and, more specifically, the use of arrows. It was probably this that gave rise to its name, the Arrow Prayer, on account of its brevity and its use to attack evil thoughts. However, most research on continuous prayer only focuses on the Jesus Prayer, and presumes that the Arrow Prayer and other prayer practices are extensions of it. In this book, Fr Anthony St Shenouda scrutinizes this conclusion by examining the sources that attest to any practice of continuous prayer, and the cultural backdrop that gave rise to these practices. Ultimately, he argues that the tradition of the Arrow Prayer is much older than the Jesus Prayer, and that it is the parent tradition out of which the Jesus Prayer arose.

In Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity, Paul C. Dilley explores the personal practices and group rituals through which the thoughts of monastic disciples were monitored and trained to purify the mind and help them achieve salvation. Dilley draws widely on the interdisciplinary field of cognitive studies, especially anthropology, in his analysis of key monastic 'cognitive disciplines', such as meditation on scripture, the fear of God, and prayer. In addition, various rituals distinctive to communal monasticism, including entrance procedures, the commemoration of founders, and collective repentance, are given their first extended analysis. Participants engaged in 'heart-work' on their thoughts and emotions, which were understood to reflect the community's spiritual state. This book will be of interest to scholars of early Christianity and the ancient world more generally for its detailed description of communal monastic culture and its innovative methodology.

Monasticism was the dominant form of religious life both in the medieval West and in the Byzantine world. Latin and Greek Monasticism in the Crusader States explores the parallel histories of monasticism in western and Byzantine traditions in the Near East in the period c.1050-1300. Bernard Hamilton and Andrew Jotischky follow the parallel histories of new Latin foundations alongside the survival and revival of Greek Orthodox monastic life under Crusader rule. Examining the involvement of monasteries in the newly founded Crusader States, the institutional organization of monasteries, the role of monastic life in shaping expressions of piety, and the literary and cultural products of monasteries, this meticulously researched survey will facilitate a new understanding of indigenous religious institutions and culture in the Crusader states.

The Handbook takes as its subject the complex phenomenon of Christian monasticism. It addresses, for the first time in one volume, the multiple strands of Christian monastic practice. Forty-four essays consider historical and thematic aspects of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, as well as contemporary 'new monasticism'. The essays in the book span a period of nearly two thousand years-from late ancient times, through the medieval and early modern eras, on to the present day. Taken together, they offer, not a narrative survey, but rather a map of the vast terrain. The intention of the Handbook is to provide a balance of some essential historical coverage with a representative sample of current thinking on monasticism. It presents the work of both academic and monastic authors, and the essays are best understood as a series of loosely-linked episodes, forming a long chain of enquiry, and allowing for various points of view. The authors are a diverse and international group, who bring a wide range of critical perspectives to bear on pertinent themes and issues. They indicate developing trends in their areas of specialisation. The individual contributions, and the volume as a whole, set out an agenda for the future direction of monastic studies. In today's world, where there is increasing interest in all world monasticisms, where scholars are adopting more capacious, global approaches to their investigations, and where monks and nuns are casting a fresh eye on their ancient traditions, this publication is especially timely.

The roots of monasticism may go back as far as 1700 BCE, to ascetic practices in ancient India. Since that time, the monastic world has naturally developed its own extensive and distinct vocabulary. Countless volumes have been written on monasticism yet many do not clearly define obscure or vernacular terms. Some terms may be found in standard dictionaries but without in-depth explanations. This first comprehensive dictionary--not a proselytizing work but a reference with historical and biographical focus--fills the gap, with a worldwide scope covering not only Christianity, but all faiths that have monastic traditions, including but not limited to Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism.

Widely regarded as a premier journal dedicated to the study of Syriac, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies was established in 1998 as a venue devoted exclusively to the discipline. An organ of Beth Mardutho, the Syriac Institute, the journal appears semi-annually and will be printed in annual editions. A peer-reviewed journal, Hugoye is a respected academic source for up-to-date information about the state of Syriac studies and for discovering what is going on in the field. Contributors include some of the most respected names in the world of Syriac today.

Seeking insight from the real-life development of the earliest expressions of emerging church from their birth, through times of adolescent angst and into the reality of adulthood, this book offers a unique insight into the long-term sustainability of fresh expressions. Presenting the lived practice of the church in mission through a longitudinal lens, and eschewing the rose-tinted approach, it considers the reality of emerging churches - their birth and death, their creativity and conflict, their dreams and despair. A picture of a church that is neither gathered and parish nor independent and networked emerges as the biographies of mission are brought into dialogue with a very ancient expression of mission, the birth of Philippians as a first expression of church in Europe..

This book tells the story of Hild, the abbess of a highly successful double monastery at Whitby in Northumbria, where she was responsible for the education of five future bishops. Here she exercised an authority which in subsequent centuries would be reserved exclusively for men. At thirteen Hild was baptized by Paulinus, who had come to Britain to join Augustine's mission. Augustine had been sent by Pope Gregory to convert Britain, which had largely lapsed into paganism after the fall of the Roman Empire. Augustine in fact had little success in converting the Britons beyond Kent, and even in Kent Christianity had already been partially re-established by Queen Bertha, who had brought her Catholic Chaplain with her from Gaul upon her marriage to King Ethelbert. There were many powerful women, like Bertha, who had been at the forefront of keeping the faith alive in the "Dark Ages," but whose agency has been written out of history or down-played in favour of the actions of famous men. Hild's story is brought back to life alongside Mary, who founded a desert community at Tabenisi; Macrina, the teacher (didaskalos) of Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea; Ita, confessor to Brendan; the formidable Aelffled, who succeeded Hild at Whitby, a co-worker and confidante of Cuthbert. As the Catholic Church struggles under the weight of centuries-old misogyny, it is surprising to see how, in the early medieval period, abbesses had shared governance with bishops. As it struggles with a shortage of male priests to celebrate the sacraments, it is instructive to see how many sacramental ministries were once exercised by female monastics. Confession, for example, was once practiced in the same way whether the confessor was a man or, as in Hild's case, a woman. The span of Hild's life covers the period before and after the establishment of clericalism, the unbridgeable gap between the higher plane of the male priesthood and the lower plane of religious women. Bede's telling of Hild's life was already downplaying her authority as a powerful leader in the Anglo-Saxon church. It is time for that to be remedied.

The Society of St John the Evangelist, otherwise known as the Cowley Fathers, was the first men's religious order to be founded in the Church of England since the Reformation, as a result of the spread and influence of the Oxford Movement and its Anglo-Catholic spirituality in the 19th century. Established in Oxford in 1866, its charismatic founder, Richard Meux Benson worked closely with American priests and just four years later a congregation was founded in Massachusetts that flourishes to this day. The charism of the order embraced high regard of theology with practical service, fostered by an emphasis on prayer and personal holiness. Cowley, a poor and rapidly expanding village on the outskirts of Oxford, provided ample opportunity for service. At its height, the English congregation had houses in Oxford (now St Stephen's House) and Westminster where figures such as C S Lewis sought spiritual direction. Now no longer operating as a community in Britain, this definitive and comprehensive history records its significant contribution to Anglicanism then and now.

The study is the first monograph devoted to the musical culture of a female order in Poland. It is a result of in-depth research into musical, narrative, economic, and prosopographic sources surviving in libraries and archives. Focused on the musical practice of nuns, the book also points to the context of spirituality, morality, and culture of the post-Trident era. The author indicates the transformation of the musical activity of the nuns during the 17th and 18th century and discusses its various kinds: plainsong, Latin and Polish polyphonic song, polichoral, keyboard, vocal-instrumental and chamber music. She reflects on the role of music in liturgy and monastic events and in everyday life of cloistered women, describes the recruitment of musically gifted candidates, and the scriptorial activity of nuns.

What is genuine church growth? Is it, at heart, the numerical growth of regular congregations or are there other dimensions and, if so, what are they? How can we learn from other contexts in order to properly inform our understanding of what we mean by church growth? Mara is one of the most marginalised regions in Tanzania, which in turn is a country in the most marginalised continent on the planet, and yet, Spencer argues, the church in the region has exhibited remarkable growth. Looking beyond the usual dimensions of church growth discourse, Stephen Spencer weaves in his own experience in Tanzania, finding in that wholly different context an approach to church growth which might entirely change the discourse in the global north.

Born in the dark days of the great crusades, the warrior monks of the Knights Templar vowed to defend pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Yet strangely, there are few historical records of the Templars ever fulfilling this task. Instead, their history is one of bloodshed and conquest, wealth and power, dark secrets and conspiracies. Today, the story of the Knights Templar is intimately linked with the story of the Holy Grail. But what exactly is this ancient artifact, and how has it been used to manipulate history for the last one thousand years? This book, based on the notes of the recently deceased historian, Dr. Emile Fouchet, attempts to unlock the secrets of the Knights Templar. It begins with an examination of their historical origins, their growth in the early middle-ages, and their supposed destruction under the charges of heresy. From there, it uses the clues left by the Templars themselves to reconstruct their secret journeys as they moved the Holy Grail from Europe to the New World and back. It also charts the secret, three-way war that is still being fought between the Templars, the Freemasons, and the Catholic Church. Finally, the book reveals the greatest of all Templar conspiracies, the attempt to found a new world order under the auspices of the European Union.

In re-examining the Christianization of the Roman Empire and subsequent transformation of Graeco-Roman classical culture, this volume challenges conventional ways of understanding both the history of Christian monasticism and the history of education. The chapters interrogate assumptions that have framed monastic practice as pedagogically unprecedented, with few obvious precursors and/or parallels. A number explore how both teaching and practice merge classical pedagogical structures with Christian sources and traditions. Others re-situate monasticism within a longer trajectory of educational and institutional frameworks, elucidating models that remain central to the preservation of both Greek and Latin literary culture, and the skills of reading and writing. Through re-examination of archaeological evidence and critical re-reading of signature monastic texts, each documents the degree to which monastic structures emerged in close alignment with urban, literate society, and retain established affinity with classical rhetorical and philosophical school traditions.

At the age of nineteen, Catherine Spalding (1793--1858) ventured into what would become a lifetime of leadership with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN) -- one of the most significant American religious communities for women. As a cofounder and first superior of the order, she dedicated her life to developing and improving health care, services for orphans, and education on the early frontier. Her contributions had a lasting impact on Catholicism, the state of Kentucky, and the many people whose lives she touched. Mary Ellen Doyle supplements her definitive biography of the influential educator and humanitarian, Pioneer Spirit, with this meticulously edited and annotated volume. The collected correspondence illustrates Spalding's exemplary character and the scope of her day-to-day life as an administrator. Together, the letters reveal a new picture of Spalding's personality and drive, her insights, her trials, and her world as mother superior. The collection also gives readers a valuable glimpse of antebellum life in Kentucky and the wider south. Doyle presents the correspondence chronologically, following Spalding through key stages in her career from the founding of the SCN to her final years, as she turned to quieter cares. She provides essential historical context and information about Spalding's various correspondents, and she also analyzes the significance of letters missing from the collection. Catherine Spalding, SCN brings the SCN founder's words to a broader audience and offers readers new perspectives on both the world in which she lived and frontier faith.

Oneness considers the role monastic life plays within the life of the contemporary church. Using a focus on the life, practice and history of the Shepherds Law community as a starting point, the book broadens the discussion to consider how such communities negotiate the boundary between the solitary life and life within their community. With a foreword from Justin Welby and an afterword from Rowan Williams. Table of Contents: Foreword by Archbishop Justin Welby Prologue by Diarmaid MacCulloch Part 1: Setting the Scene Introduction - Stephen Platten 1. Religious Communities and Their Citizenship - George Guiver 2. Northumbria's Long Tradition - Sarah Foot 3. Father William's Baton - Peta Dunstan 4. Shepherds Law: The Story so Far - Stephen Platten Part 2: Unfolding the Mystery 5. The Skete - Andrew Louth 6. Francis of Assisi: A Hermit and His Hermitages - Brother Nicholas Alan Worssam SSF 7. The Monastic Sacrament in Life, Liturgy, Saints and Buildings - George Guiver 8. Gregorian Chant and Monastic Life - Dom Xavier Perrin OSB 9. Monastic Architecture and the Building of Shepherds Law: Monastic Life and Architecture - Christopher Irvine and Ralph Pattison 10. Waiting While Running - George Guiver Afterword by Rowan Williams

The Tales and Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum) are a key source of evidence for the practice and theory respectively of eremitic monasticism, a significant phenomenon within the early history of Christianity. The publication of this book finally ensures the availability of all three major collections which constitute the work, edited and translated into English. Richer in Tales than the 'Alphabetic' collection to which this is an appendix (both to be dated c.AD 500), the 'Anonymous' collection presented in this volume furnishes almost as much material for the study of the late antique world from which the monk sought to escape as it does for the monastic endeavour itself. More material continued to be added well into the seventh century, and so the spread and gradual evolution of monasticism are illustrated here over a period of about two and a half centuries.

In Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity, Paul C. Dilley explores the personal practices and group rituals through which the thoughts of monastic disciples were monitored and trained to purify the mind and help them achieve salvation. Dilley draws widely on the interdisciplinary field of cognitive studies, especially anthropology, in his analysis of key monastic 'cognitive disciplines', such as meditation on scripture, the fear of God, and prayer. In addition, various rituals distinctive to communal monasticism, including entrance procedures, the commemoration of founders, and collective repentance, are given their first extended analysis. Participants engaged in 'heart-work' on their thoughts and emotions, which were understood to reflect the community's spiritual state. This book will be of interest to scholars of early Christianity and the ancient world more generally for its detailed description of communal monastic culture and its innovative methodology.

Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community draws on the spiritual practices of Northern Ireland's longest established peace and reconciliation organisation. For over fifty years, it has been bringing fractured communities together and resourcing others in the work of healing conflict. At the heart of its life is a simple pattern of daily worship. This prayer book captures the essence of the Corrymeela prayer experience to help you incorporate its spirituality into your practice of prayer. Structured over 31 days, it offers a daily Bible reading with accompanying prayer by Padraig O Tuama. as well as an introduction to the spirituality that sustains Corrymeela's remarkable work.

This book combines a rich description of the (Lutheran) Formula of Concord (1577) with experiences in today's Lutheran parishes to demonstrate how confessional texts may still come to life in modern Christian congregations. Timothy Wengert takes the Formula of Concord, traditionally used as ammunition in doctrinal disagreements, back to its historical home, the local congregation, giving pastors, students, and theologians a glimpse into the original debates over each article. The most up-to-date English commentary on the Formula of Concord, A Formula for Parish Practice provides helpful, concise descriptions of key theological debates and a unique weaving of historical and textual commentary with modern Lutheran experience. Covering the entire Formula of Concord the book includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter.

The first of four books on excavations in the Whitefriars area of Canterbury, this report describes the development of the Augustinian friary from c 1325 to its demise following the Dissolution. Combining stratigraphic analysis with documentary sources, environmental and artefact assemblages, the book seeks to illustrate the history of the friary and its immediate environs and gain an undertanding of the people who lived and worked there.