Benedictine Byzantium?

I have two great spiritual loves that, on the surface, may not seem compatible: Byzantine liturgy and Benedictine monasticism. When you look deeply, however, surprising connections emerge between them. Here are some major ones.

St. Benedict is revered as a saint by the Orthodox who celebrate his feast on March 14 and read his Rule. Here is the Kontakion for his feast: “O sun that shinest with the Mystic Dayspring’s radiance, who didst enlighten the monastics of the western lands, thou art worthily the namesake of benediction; do thou purge us of the filth of passions thoroughly by the sweat of thine illustrious accomplishments, for we cry to thee: Rejoice, O thrice-blessed Benedict.”

One of the great early Benedictines, St. Gregory the Great, who wrote Benedict’s biography, served for six years as the papal representation in Constantinople, known as the apocrisiarius. His name has also became attached to the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts used by the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics during Lent.

Other Benedictines have traveled East, including to Mount Athos, with a Benediction foundation there, known as the Amalfinon Monastery (due to its connections to Almafi, Italy), founded between 985-90. It followed the Rule of St. Benedict and prayed in Latin, and lasted until the end of the 13th century. It could be seen as an example of continued relations between East and West after the symbolic date of rupture, 1054. Its main tower survives today. Benedictines have visited Athos through the years, including two French ones in the early twentieth century, and a Trappist abbot more recently, M. Basil Pennington. Benedictines did retain a presence in Constantinople to today at the monastery and church of St. Benedict (Benoit), founded in 1427.

There have also been attempts by Catholics of the Eastern Churches to establish Benedictine monasteries that celebrate the Divine Liturgy. One, now defunct, example can be seen in the Byzantine Rite (Ruthenian) Benedictine Sisters at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Warren, Ohio. Another community, Holy Trinity Monastery, in Butler, PA disassociated in 2006 from the Benedictine American-Cassinese Congregation to affiliate with the Ruthenian Eparchy of Pittsburg.

Benedictine monastic communities have also arisen within the various attempts at creating a Western Rite Orthodox community, following modified Western liturgical uses in the Orthodox Church, One example is The Benedictine Fellowship of St. Laurence within the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America. The Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia has accepted a few communities under its jurisdiction, including oblates at Saint Benedict Russian Orthodox Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. These attempts all hearken back to a disaffected French Catholic priest, Julian Joseph Overbeck who approached the Patriarch of Constantinople, Joachim III, in 1879 to approve his draft of a Western rite liturgy and a Benedictine office. Later, within the context of the Orthodox Church of France, which, for a time, united with the Russian Orthodox Church, an Orthodox Benedictine monastery arose in Paris under Lucien Chambault.

Finally, the most important and promising connection, in my opinion, is Chevetogne Abbey in Belgium, a Benedictine monastery that follows both the Benedictine and Byzantine monastic offices. The monastery was founded in 1925 by Dom Lambert Beauduin (1873–1960) in response to Pope Pius XI’s call for Benedictines to work for unity with the Orthodox. It constructed an Eastern-style church in 1957 and accepts monks who focus on the Eastern liturgy within one community under a single abbot.

Maybe my joint love for the Benedictines and Byzantium isn’t so crazy after all.