[[Dear Sister,
how big a break with the traditional form of hermit life is canon 603 hermit life? Is the focus on law and rules a distortion of the simplicity of the hermit life as found throughout the history of the church until the last century? Why would the church move in this direction? One lay hermit says that the Church had canons on eremitical life in the 1917 Code of Canon Law and that the addition of c 603 in the 1983 Code was designed to curb abuses.]]
Thanks for your questions. I am not sure what you mean by "the traditional form" of hermit life unless you are referring to the most original (Christian) forms established and typified by the Desert Fathers and Mothers (they had more than one). Throughout the history of the church there have been a variety of forms of eremitical life: solitary, laura-based, religious or communal (sometimes called semi-eremitic), anchoritic, urban, reclusive, and so forth. Appropriately, all of them see themselves as carrying on the tradition and spirituality of the Desert -- the spirituality of John the Baptist, Jesus (especially in the desert), and the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Today we recognize three main forms of, or avenues for living, the hermit life: 1) religious or semi-eremitical hermit life which does NOT use Canon 603 as the basis of their public profession (Carthusians, Camaldolese, etc), 2) solitary consecrated or diocesan (canon 603) life, and 3) lay (dedicated or non-canonical) eremitical life. While the desert Fathers and Mothers are the original instance of Christian eremitical life, they lived both solitary and laura-based lives as well as reclusion. So, there has always been significant diversity within several major forms, not just one or (in light of canon 603) two forms or avenues.
I think your question about canon 603 as a break with tradition though, is a question about canonical standing or the place of law in all of this, no? Your next sentence focuses on law and rules and I read it as an elaboration of this first question. Some people do assert that law in any form is not consonant with the eremitical vocation, but these generally mistake license for genuine freedom and forget that freedom is exercised in spite of or at least in relation to life's constraints. They also exaggerate the desert Fathers' and Mothers' freedom from custom, precedents, and the like and minimize the degree of communal responsibility every hermit had. Moreover, they seem to treat post-desert Father/Mother hermit life as entirely independent of the supervision of the Church and her hierarchy, laws, and customs. While there were always folks doing the equivalent of whatever they wanted and calling themselves hermits, and while there have also been true hermits who had no formalized relationship to the institutional church, the general truth is that authentic hermits have often lived in a formal, legalized relationship with the Church and even sometimes with the secular society. This has been true for the majority of the church's history. In any case then, the answer is no, canon 603 eremitical life is not a significant departure from, much less a break with, what has existed for at least the last 14-15 centuries in the Church.
The Customs of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
It is true that the desert Fathers and Mothers were part of a movement to protest the Church's linkage with the State, and substitute in some way for the loss of red martyrdom as well --- the loss of which made living one's faith a less risky or demanding business. These two changes, while certainly desirable, also made living merely as a nominal Christian very much easier. Additionally it is certainly true that the desert Fathers' and Mothers' move away from "the institutional" church led them into an area of recognizably greater freedom and individuality, but not to one of individualism or complete freedom from constraints of any kind. They were prophetic in this move, but they would have ceased to be prophetic had they not also been related to the Church and her Gospel at the same time.
As noted, there were, for instance, customs that these original hermits observed in learning their vocation; novices lived with an elder who mentored them and taught them what they needed to know. Such elders also served to help discern the genuineness of the novice's call to the desert. They taught the Scriptures, assisted the novices to learn to pray assiduously, to fight demons, to fast, to live the evangelical counsels, etc. Additionally among these thousands of hermits there were customs regarding the giving or taking away of the habit (they could not be donned on one's own authority and would be taken away if the person lived the life badly), the way one lived in one's cell, the ways one exercised hospitality, requirements for work, manual labor, time out of cell, etc. but beyond the desert Fathers and Mothers and their customs, eremitical life has always been supervised (often by Bishops) and subject to forms of legislation (established Rules, monastic constitutions, decretals, diocesan ordine, etc).
A Summary of the Relationship between Solitary Hermits and the Hierarchy in the post-desert Fathers Church
Thomas McMahon, O Carm, writes a brief general summary of some of this history and notes; [[While the early lay hermit movement [speaking of non-religious, non-ordained hermits] was very charismatic, the hierarchical Church demanded some measure of accountability. Lay hermits enjoyed certain canonical rights and protections both in ecclesiastical and civil law. Consequently one was not free to simply go off on one’s own and become a hermit. Because they often did some spontaneous preaching and often depended on the alms of the faithful for support, the bishops claimed some rights over them. While anyone was free to live a life of retirement and prayer, a man needed to seek the blessing of the local prelate before he could assume the habit of a hermit. Hermits, like canonical pilgrims, wore a tunic that fell somewhat below the knees but was not as long as a clerical gown. They belted this with a leather belt, and wore a short hooded cape. Pilgrims, in addition to this basic habit, added a purse slung from their belts in which to keep food or alms given them for their journey, and they also wore the badge of their pilgrimage such as a scallop shell for those going to the shrine of Saint James at Compostella or a palm for those going to Jerusalem. The pilgrim, like the hermit, had a right to appeal for alms.]] Emphasis added.
In a work including more detailed inventories of the legal rights and obligations of hermits (anchorites) in various countries @ 1000 AD (one essay deals with hermits @ 400 AD onwards), Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe has several essays by various authors, two of which especially make it clear that anchorites during this period were generally scrutinized by and lived eremitical (anchoritic) life under the supervision of their Bishops. While the Bishop's primary (and lengthiest) duty was to see to the spiritual well-being and maturation of the anchoress, there were established rites of enclosure, sometimes with a Mass, sometimes not, requirements regarding financial well-being, suitability of the anchorhold, etc. Some dioceses had detailed lists of statutes ("ordine") applying to anchorites and extending certain benefits to those who were their benefactors. Civil laws also were promulgated which protected the anchorites. Their lives and presence were highly valued so these statutes or ordines established formal relationships between anchorite and the society at large which protected all involved and are reminiscent of the way canon 603 functions today. (cf, McEvoy, Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe.)
Canon 603 as Break with Tradition: A Serious Misconstrual of Eremitical History
All of these things and more point to the fact that it would be a serious misconstrual of the history of eremitical life to suggest there was one form in the main which existed until canon 603, and which was free of canonical or civil legal constraints and permissions. While there have always been those who went off to live lives of prayer (or those who went off to do their own thing!), those who were recognized as hermits or anchorites and wished to minister in the church through or in light of their solitude have generally been licensed (yes, actually licensed!) or "approved" by their Bishops and thus bound by a variety statutes or lists of statues and canons established diocese by diocese. Canon 603 is unique because for the first time ever it provides for hermits to assume standing in universal law and for that reason, and to some extent, it cuts through all of the varying diocesan regulations which governed this life through the centuries.
By its establishment Canon 603 continues and renews a tradition of dialogue between church and hermits where the church accommodates the authentic call to solitude in various ways while the hermit herself accepts the relationships and commitments established in law to assist her in this. Hermits have always been dependent in some way on those around them, whether it is their town, their community, their parish, diocese, or the church at large. Even the largest numbers of the desert Fathers and Mothers lived on the edge of the desert rather than alone in the deep desert and were accessible to those in the nearby towns and villages. In later centuries it was expected that some situation like this would exist for the mutual benefit of all concerned; total solitude was not only impossible, but undesirable. (cf Mari Hughes-Edwards, "Anchoritism: The English Tradition", p146, op cit.)
Reasons Canon 603 was Promulgated (yet again!)
As for the reason canon 603 was established then, it is much more positive than an attempt to deal with abuses. I have told this story at least twice before so please do check labels on the history of canon 603 (cf canon 603 --- history) for a more complete account. As you can see from the terribly abbreviated snapshot of historical conditions above, while law did prevent abuses its more important raison d'etre was the protection and nurturing of a very unusual or uncommon, fragile, and significant vocation. Candidates needed to be checked out (not everyone can live this life!), they had to be provided for, whether by their town, by other benefactors, or --- when these failed --- by the anchorite's own Bishop. Without the protection of law the existence of hermits becomes a very iffy thing, which means that without the protection and requirements of law and the relationships legal standing helps establish and regulate, a Divine vocation can be lost.
Canon 603 serves to replace, or at least subordinate to universal law, any diocesan schema used to legislate hermits from diocese to diocese. It calls all dioceses and all Bishops to reflect on the essential nature and value of the eremitical life and be sure that candidates for this life live these central elements with fidelity and even prophetic power. It allows for collaboration and learning from one another regarding successful and unsuccessful examples of this vocation in our own day and age and helps the entire Western Church to be on the same page in approaching such vocations. At the same time it does not level out or destroy legitimate individuality. It allows for and, in fact, requires the hermit's own Rule or Plan of Life which she writes herself and which reflects her own individual lived expression of the essential elements of canon 603 in dialogue with both the eremitical tradition more generally and the contemporary world. If a country has 100 diocesan hermits, it also has 100 individual expressions of this life. At the same time all of these hermits are publicly covenanted (vowed) to live the same essential elements. This is the pattern of all authentic eremitical life --- a pattern of individual creativity and faithfulness to the central elements and values of a given tradition in conjunction with the hermit's own world, and in response to the Holy Spirit. Canon 603 helps ensure this authentic pattern.
Finally, though I have said this in this article and many times in this blog over the past several years, let me reiterate: Canon 603 is absolutely new in universal law. There has never been such a canon affecting the universal Church before in the Western Church. The 1917 Code had nothing in it addressing eremitical life. (As I understand it, a 1911 draft version of such a canon did not ultimately find its way into the 1917 Code.) This was left up to the proper law of religious congregations --- that is, to the constitutions of religious congregations (many of which had no provision for such a call to solitude!). Neither was c 603 developed primarily because of abuses. This had been necessary in the past when hermits were numerous, but in the modern era Religious hermits were governed by proper law and solitary lay hermits (of which there were few beyond the middle ages and almost none in the contemporary period) lived privately committed lives and most people did not know of their existence.
Neither did canon 603 come to be because hermits wanted some kind of social privilege or status. It came to be because religious who discovered a call to solitude late in their vowed lives were often required to leave their communities and vows and become secularized to try and live out such a call. (Again, often the congregation's proper law had no provision for hermit life and there was none in universal law -- i.e., the 1917 Code of Canon Law.) Meanwhile eremitical life --- at least as an institution --- was called upon to exercise a place in a more public dialogue with and prophetic or countercultural witness to the contemporary world --- even if the individual lives of hermits were essentially hidden. Bishops recognized the gap in law here based on the significant pastoral inadequacies of the situation, and pressed for the Church to recognize the eremitical life as a state of perfection. In any case, "canonical status" does not refer to this kind of status (that of social privilege) but to standing in law as well as to initiation into what the church refers to as a (stable) status or "state of life." After all, as I have also noted before, one does not correct a badly lived lay eremitical life by granting the hermit admission to public vows and canonical standing. While such standing emphatically does not mean the canonical hermit has a higher vocation nor necessarily is a better hermit than her lay counterparts, it does mean she accepts public responsibility for the eremitical vocation generally and her own call specifically. It makes little sense to extend such responsibilities or the rights that go with them to one who has shown they live the life badly, especially when their existence is hardly known.
Summary: Canon 603 a Continuation and Renewal of Tradition
The bottom line in all of this is that canon 603 is entirely consistent with the history of the way eremitical life has been lived in the Western Church throughout the centuries. It is not a break with that tradition despite the fact that it is also new in some significant ways. Instead it recovers something that was lost in the Western Church, especially after the Middle Ages --- namely, solitary eremitical life lived in dialogue with the Church especially in the person of the diocesan Bishop. In response to the needs of the church and world, it also makes of diocesan eremitical life a "state of perfection" and allows for public vows (or other publicly embraced sacred bonds). This means that the "religious state" is no longer only associated with public vows made within the context of a religious community. (Cf, Holland, Sharon, IHM, Handbook of Canons 573-746 especially p 55, O'Hara, Ellen, CSJ, Norms Common to all Institutes of Consecrated Life,), but again, these new elements are lived out by virtue of the traditional dialogue/relationship between individual hermit and the local Bishop common throughout the history of the life.
I hope this helps.
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