EWTN Monastic Series. A Benedictine oblate blog

St. Anthony

Thanks to a friend’s reminder, I wanted to make sure you know about the “Major Religious Orders of Men” a new EWTN series by Father Charles Connor.

The first episode was on the history of early Eastern Monasticism, it aired this week.

The next times for the show on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) are:

US Eastern Time on EWTN:

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009 at 4:00 am
Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009 at 4:00 am

For anyone who saw the first episode, did you like it?

The second episode will be a continuation of the history of monasticism in the East and its effect on the development of monasticism in the West.

I liked the first episode. The show gave a fine introduction to the history of monasticism. The show’s content was similar to the material in RB 1980 on the history of monasticism in the East, which helped confirm my appreciation for the RB 1980 book as a first reference book (see previous blog) for Benedictine oblates. Father Charles Connor is a historian and the first episode contained several interesting insights.

I liked Father Connor’s statements about the ascetic and consecrated life being a part of the Church from the first century. Connor said that what was new at the beginning of the fourth century was not the monastic life, but the adaptation of the monastic life to the world in which the Christians were then living when the persecutions ended (from about 305 to 313 AD). The monks and hermits were trying to preserve intact the ideal of the Christian life as it had been lived from the very beginning.

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References:

EWTN
home page.

St. Anthony the Great -- "Founder" of Eastern monasticism