An Eastern Father in the Western Church'—St Romuald of Hesychasm in the West

Joseph H.J. Leach
University of Melbourne

Introduction

“You would think he was trying to turn the whole world into a hermitage and to involve the entire Church in his project of monastic reform.”[1]

St. Romuald was a hermit and monastic reformer[2] of the tenth and eleventh centuries who rejected both the slackness of monastic life common at the time and also the rigidity of the Cluniac reforms. He is a figure of the undivided Church although he lived in the later stages of that era when the two churches, East and West, had already started to drift apart. He is thus an interesting bridge figure. Even though he taught within the Western Church and his tradition is carried on within that Church, the way of life and style of prayer that he promoted owes more to the traditions of the East. In fact, he seems to have incorporated an eastern style of monasticism into the Western Church.

He first became a monk at the monastery of St. Apollinaris in Classe in Ravenna but left, or was ejected, because the other monks resented his diligence. He became disillusioned with the standard of monastic life as it was practiced and sought a more ascetic way of life. He became first a hermit, under the tutelage of the rather eccentric elder hermit Marinus. Like many hermits of the time, Marinus may well have been an untrained follower of the harsh, Irish Rule of St. Columba. Others soon gathered around Romuald, attracted to his teaching and way of life, and he became the leader of a small community of hermits near the monastery of Cruxa in Spain. This community included not only a former Doge of Venice but also his former master, Marinus. Later he returned to Italy and became a wandering wisdom figure, establishing and reforming small eremitic communities throughout Italy. He saw himself as simply establishing small, eremitical communities based on the Rule of St. Benedict (a task which he referred to as the saving of souls) and had no intention of establishing a separate order. It was his followers, particularly St. Peter Damian, who established a formal basis for his reform movement. The distinctive charism of this reform led to the development of several separate orders, each based on a hermitage that St. Romuald had founded. The Romualdian communities had a number of distinctive characteristics. They were communities of hermits who only came together for liturgy, they were small in an era which saw the growth of very large monasteries and they were centred on a life of private prayer and meditation. Each of these features is a gift from the Eastern Desert which St. Romuald was presenting to the West.

[ed. note:  It must be clarified that upon St Romuald's first monastic reform in circa 1012 there were those who would begin to be devoted to him by living in his hermitages or by following him as disciples.  These became known as Romualdians which remains the nomenclature in Holy Orthodoxy.  While at the end of the reign of Pope Alexander (1072)  --in Post Great Schism Catholic Church-- these hermitical followers became an approved Order and given the nomenclature Camaldolese.]

The last hermitage that he founded was at Camaldoli in 1024. While many of the other establishments founded by Romuald have either withered or been violently suppressed, this Hermitage, and the associated monastery, has prospered and it is now the motherhouse of the Camaldolese Benedictine Congregation. One other notable Romualdian hermitage has survived. That is Fonte Avellana, the home of St. Peter Damian, whose own order has now merged with that of Camaldoli, so that Fonte Avellana now forms the second ancient centre of the Camaldolese Benedictine Congregation. However, at one time there were no less than five separate orders all claiming a Romualdian foundation and spirituality. Even today, two of the three extent eremitical orders in the Western Church: the Camaldolese Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict and the Camaldolese Hermits of Monte Corona[3], are the products of this reform.

The Brief Rule of St. Romuald

Romualdian spirituality was based on a study of the writings of the Desert Fathers and of John Cassian. St. Romuald sought to promote a return to the spirit of the desert tradition within western monasticism. The distinctive charism of his work was the promotion of the eremitical life - but under a superior and following the Rule of St. Benedict. This was to safeguard against the idiosyncratic eccentricity for which hermits had previously been renowned and may well have been inspired by his experience as a novice of Marinus. In this concern for proper eremitical behaviour he has much in common with St. Basil. Through his measured teaching and care for order, St. Romuald came to be known as “the father of sensible hermits.”[4] In doing this, he was re-establishing in the West a form of monastic life which was already well established in the Eastern Church – that of the Laura.

The living tradition of Romualdian spirituality comes to us primarily through the hermitage of Camaldoli, in Tuscany, and its daughter houses. We have no direct record of writings by St. Romuald and much of his teaching seems to have been verbal and is known to us only through the stories of his life. We do, however, have a second hand account of his teaching that was recorded shortly after his death[5] by one of his closest students and friends. Known as “The Brief Rule of St. Romuald”. It has been a guide to contemplative prayer for over a thousand years, although it is perhaps not as well known as it deserves to be outside of Camaldolese circles. It is a short and brilliant spiritual gem which is well worth quoting in full:

Sit in your cell as in paradise.

Put the whole world behind you and forget it.

Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish,

The path you must follow is in the Psalms — never leave it.

If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up;

hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God's presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God,

Like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.[6]

This is the foundation document of Romualdian/Camaldolese spirituality and is used as a guide to spiritual formation by Camaldolese monks to this day. It is not a practical rule on how a coenobitic monastery should be run. St Romuald already had the Rule of St. Benedict for this and it is important to note that all the Romualdian communities remained Benedictine. Romuald’s emphasis is on prayer and his advice is addressed to an individual hermit. In Latin it is precisely one hundred words long and seems to follow the late Roman literary form known as a century[7]. It is dense in meaning but I would like to consider four themes which form the spiritual core of the work and which closely link this work to the tradition of the desert fathers. These are: prayer, simplicity, the use of the psalms and attitude before God.

Prayer

The first command in the Brief Rule is to sit. This immediately tells us that the rule is primarily concerned with a life of prayer. To sit is not to be active. To sit is to be quiet, to be still. To sit in your cell is to be without supports or distractions, to be empty before God. This recalls the words of the psalm “Be still and know that I am God.[8]” It is significant that the command to sit is repeated in the last sentence. There the monk is to sit waiting for what God gives. This attitude of sitting empty of worldly supports and waiting for God is the underpinning of Camaldolese spirituality. The command to sit, which begins and ends the Brief Rule, comes directly from the desert tradition where the monks were also told to sit in their cell and seek their salvation there.

There is no mention here of the apostolic work or works of charity that were to characterise later orders nor of the communal order that characterised the earlier Cluniac reforms. The emphasis here is on the life of prayer which is seen to have priority over all else. This emphasis on prayer and contemplation has remained the central feature of Camaldolese life. So much so that in 1782 the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Joseph II secularised all of the Camaldolese Monasteries within his realm since he felt that they didn’t perform any useful function.

The view that there is a progression in the life of prayer is imbedded in the rule but it is implicit rather than explicit. The Brief Rule starts off by discussing the physical environment of a monk’s prayer and progresses, through attitude of mind and perseverance in the psalms, until the monk reaches the final state of openness and emptiness, knowing themselves to be in the presence of God. There is no time scale given for this progression but the implication of the line “If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want… do not give up,” is that this is likely to take a long time. Indeed, it would seem that this is now the monk’s life’s work and the work of a lifetime.

Simplicity

The emphasis on the cell in the opening phrase also places this school of spirituality firmly in the tradition of the desert fathers, where sitting in his cell would teach a monk everything he needed to know[9] and gain him freedom[10]. It also connects with a broader western eremitical tradition, itself based on the traditions of the desert, which is now very largely lost to us but is evident in such documents as The Rule of St. Columba[11] which begins, “Be alone in a separate place…Let a fast place with one door enclose thee”. St. Romuald could have been familiar with this tradition through the teachings of Marinus.

In the desert tradition the cell was considered a foretaste of paradise because it was the place where the monk would encounter God[12]. It was in your cell that you would struggle with temptation and be purified of the corruption of the world[13]. To sit in your cell was to turn away from worldly ambitions and seek God. This is advice to a hermit. There is no sense here of community being the school of God’s service nor of choir and communal prayer as there is in the Rule of St. Benedict[14]. These things are not denied and in the Camaldolese tradition solitude is always held in tension with community. However, communal life and prayer are seen primarily as a training ground for solitude of the cell. Sitting in your cell leads to solitary contemplation - a gift of the desert.

The cell is a place where there are no worldly supports or distractions. The mind has nothing to occupy it except the search for God and the struggle of purification. The poverty of the cell leads to a death of the false self built up of the expectations and achievements in the world. This is a similar dynamic to that ascribed to the recitation of the mantra by John Main[15]. This emphasis on simplicity is a hallmark of the apophatic tradition. As if to reinforce the apophatic nature of this prayer, the next phrase tells the monk to put the world behind him and forget it. This is similar to the advice given in The Cloud of Unknowing (itself an offshoot of the teachings of the Syrian monk Dionysius) to place the world under a cloud of forgetting[16]. It is given further emphasis in the last sentence where the monk is told to empty himself and wait for what God may choose to give him, recalling the kenosis of Christ[17] which William Johnston notes as an important meeting point between Christian and Buddhist thought[18].

Taken together, this advice represents a radical renunciation not just of the world, but of memory and even of thought and concept. The false self must be rejected, must die, in order for the true self to awake. The monk will experience his cell as paradise when the true self is awake and knows itself to be sitting in the presence of God. Note, however, that there is no hint here of the “dark night of the soul”, the existential angst of the great Carmelite mystics. It is not, perhaps, that Romuald is unaware of this type of experience but rather that he was more concerned with what a monk should do rather than with what a monk might feel. The emphasis is on patient endurance – an emphasis which comes straight from the desert tradition.

Psalms

The path to this apophatic prayer, however, is to be the strongly kataphatic psalter. This is, of course, in accord with consistent Christian and earlier Jewish practice[19]. It is also the cornerstone of the teachings of the desert fathers. Note that this is private recitation being referred to here, not communal prayer. This private meditation on the psalms, while closely aligned with the practice of the desert tradition, is a distinct departure from the formal, communal approach of the Cluniac reform which then dominated western monasticism. Apart from constancy, Romuald makes two points about the use of the Psalms in prayer. The monk is to sing them in his heart and understand them with his mind.

What is meant by singing the psalms in the heart is most probably to follow the advice of Cassian[20]. This involved the constant repetition of a short phrase from the psalms such as "O God come to my aid. O Lord make haste to help me.”[21] This practice comes directly from the desert tradition and is the source of the tradition of Christian apophatic, or imageless, prayer. In the Eastern Church it developed into the hesychasm of the Jesus Prayer[22]. In the west it became the single word of the Cloud of Unknowing[23] and, later, the mantra of John Main[24]. Here it is given in its most ancient form where contemplation is tied to liturgical practice by the common use of the psalms.

Romuald also tells the monk to understand the psalms with his mind. This may seem to contradict the apophatic nature of Camadolese prayer. However, this represents rather a balance. Romuald was the father of "sensible hermits" and the dangers of quietism and belief in private revelation are here countered by proper scriptural understanding. For Romuald, imageless, apophatic prayer must be grounded in scripture. This balance is further expressed in Camaldolese tradition in the combination of monastery and hermitage, where community and solitude are held in a constant creative tension, and the ideal of the triplex bonum (the triple good) of community, solitude and service[25]. It comes from an understanding, that the Word of God speaks to the whole person, to the mind as well as to the heart.

Attitude before God

In the attitude that a monk should have when he comes before God we have a further indication of the balance of apophatic and kataphatic elements. The monk is told to watch his thoughts like an angler. The image is of a quiet gaze onto a still pond and is reminiscent of Zen poetry[26]. It is notable that Romuald doesn't tell the monk to do anything with the thoughts once he is aware of them. He isn't told to suppress them. He isn't told to keep the good ones and get rid of the bad ones. He is simply to be aware of them - to watch them. This attentive watching is closer to the Buddhist concept "mindfulness" than to the traditional Benedictine custodia cordis - the custody of the heart, although it really must derive from that tradition. Indeed, in some respects it turns that tradition on its head since a fish is a good thing for a fisherman and he is looking for the good ones he can keep rather than watching for bad ones to avoid. The prayer attitude, however, is one of attentively and calmly sitting and watching with a quiet mind. It is perhaps the Brief Rule's strongest apophatic statement and it is typical of the balance that characterises the Camaldolese tradition that the strongest apophatic element in the rule is contained in the rule’s most striking imagery. It also reinforces an approach to prayer of humble, patient endurance which is very much a part of the spirit of the desert.

The closing of the Brief Rule, however, indicates that this calm watching is not to be emotionless. The monk is to place himself before God as if before an emperor - a statement which might be compared to Merton's being aware of the presence of God in his heart[27]. He is to depend on God like a chick waiting for its mother. These images of God are not abstract or distant. They are human, personal and even feminine. They indicate to the monk the emotional content proper to his prayer - an attitude of humility, of awe and reverence (cf. the "fear of God" of the Psalms[28]) and of total dependence and trust. This attitude before God preserves the desire for God which underpins all prayer. The humble awe of Romuald is perhaps just a different way of expressing the "dart of love" from The Cloud of Unknowing[29]. Romualdian prayer is apophatic but it is not empty quietism. It takes place within the context of the Rule of St. Benedict but it is grounded in the traditions and experience of the Egyptian desert.

Conclusion

In Romualdian prayer the monk sits alone, stripped of the supports of the world, empty of the delusions of the false self. With the Word being spoken to him through the psalms, he waits, alert and humble, with an attitude of reverent awe, trust and total dependence on God. It is imageless prayer built on the imagery of the psalms. In this the Brief Rule occupies and interesting place in the spirituality of the western church. As was said before, there is not the extreme apophatic emptiness of the “dark night of the soul” of the Carmelite tradition nor is there any hint of the active use of the imagination that forms the basis of Ignation prayer. St. Romuald was trying to encapsulate the wisdom of the desert tradition and to bring it to life in the western church. The Brief Rule shows that he did this in a pure form, without embellishment or accretion. As a consequence, the style of prayer and the mode of life described here seems to be more closely related to the traditions of the Eastern Church than to those of the West and it is perhaps not unreasonable to describe St Romuald as an Eastern Father in the Western Church. This was, perhaps, recognised by Dante who linked Romuald together with St. Macarius, one of the Desert Fathers, in his Divine Comedy.

Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,

Here are my brothers who kept steadfast hearts

And planted their feet within the cloister walls.

[Paradiso 22, 49]

Through St Romuald and the Camaldolese, the experience of the Desert Fathers is part of the living tradition not only of the Eastern Church but also of Western Church and a powerful common tradition it is. It is no surprise then, that the Camaldolese have been actively involved in the ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Indeed, as a tradition established in the undivided church, the Camaldolese have never accepted that they have, in fact, been split from their brother monks in the Eastern Churches. There is a broader message here, however. If it is from within our shared heritage that the Christian Churches can speak to each other, then the living tradition of the Camaldolese illustrates how extensive is the space within which we can conduct this conversation.

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Notes:

[1] The Life of the Five Brothers by Bruno of Querfurt and The Life of Blessed Romuald by Peter Damian, translated with commentary by Thomas Matus, in The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers: Stories from the Benedictines and Camaldolese, by Thomas Matus. Trabuco Canyon, CA: Source Books and Hermitage Books, 1994.

[2] Peter-Damian Belisle O.S.B. Cam (Ed.), 2002, The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota.

[3] The third order being the Carthusians founded by St Bruno.

[4] Peter-Damian Belisle O.S.B. Cam (Ed.), 2002, The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota.

[5] See: The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers Big Sur: Hermitage Books, 1994

[6] In: The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers Big Sur: Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 158

[7] Fr. John Powell O.S.B. Cam, The Brief Rule of St. Romuald A retreat given at New Camaldoli Hermitage, Big Sur, California in 1998. Tapes available from the hermitage.

[8] Psalm 46

[9] See The Desert Fathers, Tr by Helen Waddell, Random House, New York, 1998.

[10] See The Desert Fathers, Tr by Helen Waddell, Random House, New York, 1998.

[11] A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland II, i (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1873), pp. 119-121.

[12] See the story of Abbe Arsenius in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Book ii. In The Desert Fathers, Tr by Helen Waddell, Page 69, Random House, New York, 1998.

[13] See the story of Abbe Arsenius in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Book ii. In The Desert Fathers, Tr by Helen Waddell, Page 69, Random House, New York, 1998.

[14] See the Prologue, Meisal  A. and M.L. del Mastro (Trans.) The Rule of St. Benedict, Image Books, New York, 1975.

[15] John Main O.S.B. 1980 Word into Silence, Darton, Longman and Todd, London, P14.

[16] Wolten, C, (trans.), The Cloud of Unknowing (Anon), Clifton Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1961, 144pp.

[17] Phillipians 2:7

[18] Johnston, W.  Arise my love…mysticism for a new era. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 2000, 241pp.

[19] Lohfink, N. 1993, The Psalter and Christian Meditation, Theology Digest 40:2

[20] Cassian, J. Conferences 10:10

[21] The opening phrase of Psalm 70 and also contained in Psalm 40.

[22] See the Russian spiritual classic The Way of the Pilgrim

[23] Wolten, C, (trans.), The Cloud of Unknowing (Anon), Clifton Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1961, 144pp.

[24] John Main O.S.B. 1980, Word into Silence, Ch 3 The Power of the Mantra, Darton, Longman and Todd, London.

[25] Peter-Damian Belisle O.S.B. Cam (Ed.), 2002, The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota.

[26] See the poem by Chao-pien as quoted in Merton, T. 1983, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation, P7, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Vol. 18. See also excerpt from the Gita Bk. Vi, translation of Sir Edward Arnold, as quoted in Merton, T. 1983, The Inner Experience: Society and the Inner Self (II), P132.

[27] Merton, T. 1966, in a letter to Abdul Aziz. Published in Bochen C.M. (Ed.) Thomas Merton, Essential Writings, P81, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2000.

[28] See inter alia Psalm 110 To fear the Lord is the first stage of wisdom.

[29] Wolten, C, (trans.), The Cloud of Unknowing (Anon), Clifton Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1961, 144pp.

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