Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

Vow expresses a promise to be made on behalf of an entity that he cares about to strengthen a person’s determination in relation to a behavior that will or will not be done in the future. In the monastic literature, it defines vow as a promise given to God in the most basic sense. In a moral sense, fulfillment of a promise affects the relationship of the person who made the promise with his social environment, while the vow increases the possibility of realizing the promise to be fulfilled and the responsibility on the person when religious meaning is taken. For this reason, a monk who will live a monastic life takes monastic vows with certain consequences when abandoned, in order to protect himself from certain human weaknesses in the face of the difficulties in monastic life. Although the vows vary according to different religious sects, it reduced the essence of all of them to renunciation. This renunciation can be listed as renunciation of sensual pleasures, sexual pleasures, and egocentrism. Thus, it has been observed that monks, who have been trying to lead an ascetic life since the early periods of Christianity, try to make this life more livable by imposing certain responsibilities on themselves within the framework of unwritten rules. As a matter of fact, it is known that every person has certain needs such as acquiring property and innate sexuality in order to continue his life to a certain extent. At this point, it is thought that a person can dull or at least suppress some of his natural needs under the command of a certain authority. When viewed in Christianity, monasteries have always been the right place for this purpose. Because the goal of monastic life is the cleansing of the soul from passions and the soul from dangerous desires. When this purification is embodied, the primary goal of the monk is to lead a life within the framework of the concepts of poverty, celibacy, obedience and stability. Thus, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, it is seen that certain principles that should be followed by religious people who want to be perfect have turned into monastic vows.
From the early stages of Christianity, the ascetics who have adopted a reclusive life have adopted the “Benedictine Vows” of “obedience, stability and conversatio morum”, which bind them to religious life and each have clear legal consequences when violated, and since the 13th century, they have pledged to fulfill the “Evangelical Counsels” comprising vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Christian monasteries, which assumed a systematic and institutional identity with Saint Benedict in the 6th century, cannot be mentioned about the monastic vows that were systematically applied until this period. For this reason, it is possible to say that the monastic vows entered the monastic literature with the Benedictine Rule. The monastic vows adopted by Benedict had a significant effect on the institutionalization of monasteries and their survival for centuries. It is seen that these institutions have a solid infrastructure with the vow of unconditional obedience taken in order not to interrupt the work and operation of the monastery, the vow of stability that promises to stay in the monastery until death, and the conversatio morum that expresses fidelity to the monastery life. Although it is known that the social, political and cultural developments of the period were among the reasons that led Saint Benedict to formalize these vows, it is also seen that these vows served under the purpose of “reaching the spiritual goal” of a monk devoted to the monastery.
It is known that the Benedictine Rule, which was the most widely used monastic rule in Europe from the 6th to the 13th centuries, lost its effectiveness with the emergence of mendicant orders such as the Franciscan and Dominican orders. Apparently reformed according to the conditions of the period and called “Evangelical Counsels”, these new monastic vows were recognized not only by the monasteries but also by the Church. It is required to give up money and material properties, which are an important obstacle in front of focusing on God with the vow of poverty. It is expected that the vow of celibacy / chastity, which requires the practice of self-control and sacrifice, and sexuality and desire to be a parent, are presented to God as a gift. With the vow of obedience, it is required to surrender to the will of God. Today, the Catholic Church officially recognizes these three vows as the defining element of “consecrated life”.