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Asceticism and Monasticism
Timeline:
270: St Anthony renounces world, later becoming the 'father of monasticism', reposing in 356. Scetis and The Cells rise at a similar time.
303: Conversion of St Constantine, Edict of Milan, toleration of Christianity in Roman Empire. The lack of martyrdoms is arguably a factor in the rise of monasticism.
327: St Pachomius, having lived the ascetic life, receives a vision telling him to found a coenobitic monastery. Reposes in 348.
358: St Basil establishes communal monastery. He is credited with writing the Longer Rules and the Shorter Rules which have been a model for other monastic Rules.
371: St Martin of Tours brings anchorite monasticism to the West.
403: St John Cassian leaves Constantinople. He would go on to found a coenobiotic monastery in Marseilles, writing the Institutes and the Conferences, reposing in 435.
400s: St Simeon renounces the world and lives on a pillar, giving him the style 'the Stylite' (i.e. the pillar-dweller), reposing in 459.
529: St Benedict of Nursia founds monastery of Monte Cassino, writing a rule for his monastery, later reposing in 543.
590: St Columbanus, an Irish monk and missionary, founds monastery in France. He would later repose in Italy in 615. His rule would achieve widespread recognition in the West, ceasing with the imposition of the Benedictine rule on all monasteries in the West in the Ninth Century.
600: Ladder of Divine Ascent written by St John Climacus
685: First monastics come to Mt Athos
963: Establishment of first major monastery on Mt Athos
1052: Monastery of the Kiev Caves established
1336: Meteora established as a centre of monasticism
1340s: Hesychasm, defended by St Gregory Palamas, confirmed and upheld.
1782: First publication of the Philokalia
1956: Establishment of first Orthodox women's monastery in Australia (in Kentlyn, N.S.W.)
1974: Establishment of first Orthodox men's monastery in Australia (now in Mangrove Mountain, N.S.W.)
1995: Establishment of first Antiochian Orthodox monastery in Australia (in Preston, Vic.)
Christian asceticism began as Christians renounced worldly attachments, inspired by the Hellenic ideal of the philosophical life. Monasticism derived from this, and was undertaken largely by lower-class Syrians who withdrew from the world into the Syrian hinterlands with solitude. Initially this was seen as a possible threat to the Church, due to it being a parallel organisation, but it was accepted and eventually assimilated into the life of the Church by having monastic Church leaders. To this day, Orthodox bishops are celibate.
There were a number of different varieties and proponents. The most famous, and the one considered the founder of monasticism, was St Anthony the Great. His life, written by St Athanasius of Alexandria, was a great inspiration for the anchorite life (where a monk lived basically alone) in the Egyptian desert, and he had some influence on the acceptance of the term 'homoousios'. Later, St Martin of Tours would take anchoritism to Tours in the West.
St Pachomius was the abbot of a cenobitic monastery (where the brothers lived together) and produced the first known Rule. St Simeon the Elder, influenced by the Syrian practise of extreme self-denial, led an anchorite life on a pillar (and, for this reason, called a Stylite). St Basil the Great introduced a more active form of monasticism, drawing more on the Hellenistic philosophical life, wiht a monastery based on the outskirts of a city and with the ability to help people.
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