And in the Scottish Episcopal Church too…

The Church must focus on prayer, sacraments, and sharing the Good News rather than the constant pressure to change our doctrine in order to constantly satisfy the secular fads of the world… (Br Bernard+ OC)

For a number of years, we have been, and still are, of the opinion that the unique Cistercian charism and the contemplative life has so much to offer the Church of England and, therefore, we have founded a new religious Order to effectively attempt to fill that gap in the Church of England.

Our Episcopal Visitor is the Rt Revd Tony Robinson, Bishop for the Areas of Wakefield and Huddersfield (Diocese of West Yorkshire & The Dales – incorporating the former Diocese of Wakefield, and the Pontefract Episcopal Area).

On the 8th September 2011, on the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary, three of our number made their simple vows and were clothed in the Cistercian habit before Abbot Stuart Burns OSB, in the presence of our previous Bishop Visitor, Bishop Mark Sowerby (Bishop of Horsham), who also presided at the Profession Eucharist. Our preacher was the Chairman of the Archbishop’s Advisory Council, Bishop David Walker (Bishop of Manchester).

At their council meeting on Wednesday 6th November 2013, the day after our patronal feast day of Our Lady of Hailes, the Advisory Council on the Relations of Bishops and Religious Communities [AC] granted our Community ‘Acknowledgement’ as an religious Order, with no abstentions or votes against! Thus we have now formally and officially taken our place amongst the religious orders and communities of the world-wide Anglican Communion. Our Order’s details are published in the Anglican Religious Life Yearbook. This publication is now ‘online’ only. See the link of that name on this website.

The first three of our Brothers made their solemn life-vows at Lambeth Palace in the presence of the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby and our Episcopal Visitor, the Right Reverend the Bishop of Wakefield, Tony Robinson on Friday 26th May 2017 (the Feast of St Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury and the Commemoration of John Calvin, Reformer).

Our Community currently consists of four solemnly life-professed Brothers, three temporary-professed brothers, four novices, and one postulant, as well as a number of enquirers (i.e., potential postulants awaiting to be interviewed by our Deans’ Council). We are very pleased to announce that, as from July 2017, our Order of Cistercians are now also present in Wales and since 2021 in the Scottish Episcopal Church too.

Our Opus Dei From ancient times, the Church has celebrated each day the liturgy of the hours. In this way, the Church fulfils the Lord’s precept to pray without ceasing, at once offering its praise to God the Father and interceding for the salvation of the world. Our Community is committed to praying at least five Offices a day, beginning with Vigils at dawn, Lauds, Tierce, None, or Sext (any of these three Little Offices or all of them), Vespers and Compline. Our Community uses the Benedictine Daily Prayer Breviary, 2nd Edition (see below).

In 2015, we fostered a link with the former Anglican Cistercian Monastery at Ewell (1966-2004). When the Ewell community began in 1966 it was clear that modern Anglican Cistercian life would need to be seen as Anglican rather than a copy of a Roman Catholic model. What counts for everything is the real call to live the life of a Cistercian in the Anglican Church. 

Our Identity
We are an Anglican religious Community of lay and ordained brothers and we consider ourselves part of the larger Cistercian family which traces its origin to 1098. As Cistercians we follow the Rule of Saint Benedict and thus we are part of the Benedictine family as well. Our lives are dedicated to seeking union with God, through Jesus Christ whilst living a dispersed and uncloistered form of monasticism.

All Cistercian monasteries are dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God-Incarnate. The foundation day of the Cistercian Abbey of Hailes in Gloucestershire (5 November) is the patronal feast of our Order, and our patroness is Our Lady of Hailes.

Our Spirituality
The Order is wholly ordered to contemplation and we derive our manner of living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our spirituality from the following six sources:

1. The Rule of Saint Benedict
Our way of life is in substantial conformity with that mapped out in the Rule of Saint Benedict. The brothers celebrate each day the Liturgy of the Hours. The day is balanced between work, reading and study.

2. The Founders of the Cistercian Order
Saints Robert, Alberic and Stephen founded the reformed monastery of Cîteaux (France) in 1098. Their aim was to refresh the institutional forms of monastic life and to bring them into closer conformity both with the Rule of Saint Benedict and with the aspirations of the age. In particular this involved an emphasis on simplicity even in the liturgy and manual work.. The prime documents of this period are the Exordium Parvum, describing the origins of the reform, and the Charter of Charity, giving its constitutional basis.

3. Saint Bernard and his Contemporaries
The Cistercian charism evolved greatly during the second and third generations, mainly as influenced by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (+ 1153). In this period there was particular interest in the interior or experiential quality of monastic life, and there was a new emphasis on the importance of both fraternal communion and contemplation.

4. The Reforms of Abbot de Rancé
In the seventeenth century when various factors had caused decline and division in the Cistercian Order, the Abbot of La Trappe, Armand-Jean de Rancé initiated a strong reform movement, supported by his extensive writings and inspired by ancient monastic tradition. His principal emphasis was to insist on the austerity of Cistercian life and its contemplative character.

5. The Post-Reformation Revival of Religious Life in the Church of England
Christian communities are not new; from its earliest days the Church has had at its heart groups who have chosen to make a common life of work, prayer and study. Dissolved by Thomas Cromwell, under King Henry VIII, they were born again in the Church of England in the nineteenth century focussing themselves on concerns such as health-care and education for the needy, or mission work at home and abroad, alongside their regular work of prayer.

The revival of the religious orders within the Church of England was a revival of the pre-Reformation system. One of the tangible results of the Oxford Movement is the revival of religious orders in the Anglican Communion. As long ago as 1839 E.B. Pusey wrote to J Keble that he and J.H. Newman had independently been led to recognise the desirability of some Sisters of Charity in the Anglican Church, and on Trinity Sunday, 1841 he received the vows of Marian Rebecca Hughes who in 1844 became the first Superior of the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at Oxford.

It was not until 1907 that, with the foundation of the first enclosed community, the Sisters of the Love of God, at Fairacres, Oxford, the contemplative life was revived. In the previous year, however, the Sisters of the Community of the Holy Comforter, founded at Edmonton, London in 1891, decided to give up active work and adopt the Rule of St. Benedict. After ten years at Baltonsborough, Somerset, they moved to Malling Abbey, Kent. Communities for men developed more slowly. The first religious order for men was the Society of St. John the Evangelist, founded in 1865 at Cowley by R.M. Benson. The Community of the Resurrection, founded in 1892 by C. Gore has, since 1898, been established at Mirfield. The Society of the Sacred Mission, founded by H.H. Kelly in 1893 was at Kelham from 1903 to 1974; it is now based at Willen Priory, near Milton Keynes. It should be noted that one of the chief works of these two orders has been the training of ordinands.

The Benedictine life for men was first revived by Joseph Leycester Lyne, Father Ignatius, in 1869. The oldest surviving community, now at Salisbury, (from 1926 to 1987 at Nashdom; from 1987-2010 at Elmore near Newbury), sprang from the Benedictine community at Caldey. The period immediately after the First World War saw the establishment of an Anglican Franciscan Order. In 1938 R.C.S. Gofton-Salmond retired to a woodland property near Crawley, Sussex, where the Community of the Servants of the Will of God now follow a contemplative vocation of a semi-eremitical type. Walter Walsh, in his Secret History of the Oxford Movement, makes much of the influence of the religious orders of the Oxford Movement, particularly the Society of St. John the Evangelist, and suggests they played a significant part in the development of the Oxford Movement within the Church of England.

The Church of England recognises the importance of religious communities in the Church and values their life and witness, and has passed a new Canon (DA.1. Of Religious Communities ) in July 2019 to reflect this. Visit: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/legal-services/canons-church-england/section-DA

The emergence of religious communities in the mid-Victorian period took the Church of England bishops somewhat by surprise. Within the next fifty years, the number of both religious and religious communities increased not only in Great Britain, but in other parts of the Anglican Communion. From South Africa to North America, the Indian sub-continent to the Pacific, matters concerning the religious life began to be raised for Episcopal judgement. From the communities’ point of view, their growth and increasing contribution to the Church’s ministry and witness, entitled them to some formal recognition from the Episcopal authorities.

The Advisory Council on the Relations of Bishops and Religious Communities was set up in 1935 to express the Church’s care for the religious life by providing a means of Episcopal oversight appropriate to the particular circumstances of the Church of England.

Now, in the 21st Century, there are numerous communities across the worldwide Anglican Communion; their spiritual roots may be catholic, Celtic, charismatic, or be elsewhere. In addition, so-called ‘fresh expressions’ of religious community life are constantly being explored and new groups are formed even as some older ones complete their tasks.

6. The Rule of the Anglican Order of Cistercians

We endeavour to witness to our Redeemer’s love with quietness, silence, patience, humility, charity, courage, and prayers; and commit ourselves to a form of monasticism “outside the cloister” and live under the three vows of Stability, Conversion of Character, and Obedience. See the chapters ‘Our Rule’ and ‘About our Vows’ amongst these pages.

The Authorised Prayer Books used by our Community

Our Community uses the Benedictine Daily Prayer – A Short Breviary (the Second Edition) See our special page (with guidelines how to use our Breviary): ‘Our Breviary & Opus Dei’

In addition, when travelling, or away from home, the Deans’ Council furthermore allows the use of an online version of Common Worship Offices https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-daily-prayer or the Offices in the BCP https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer or the RC Divine Office on mobile telephone and/or tablet via https://universalis.com/n-ebooks.htm

Most of us augment the Office of Vigils with spiritual readings such as found in Celebrating the Seasons and Celebrating the Saints (both compiled by +Robert Atwell – Canterbury Press). Amazon also publish Kindle versions of these two books. Other anthologies (such as A Word in Season, 8 volumes – Augustinian Press) can also be used, as indeed can others.

The Book of Common Prayer (1662 & 1928) as well as Common Worship Daily Prayer remain the Church of England’s main official Prayer Books (and their equivalent Services and Prayers in the Church in Wales and the Scottish Episcopal Church) and we sometimes pray from these, especially when praying with others at our local parish churches or in cathedrals.

[Revised 11 June 2020)]