Acoemetae
ACOEMETAE
Or ACOMETI, an order of monks at Constantinople in the fifth century, whom the writers of that and the following ages called Watchers, because they performed divine service day and night without intermission. They divided themselves into three classes, who alternately succeeded one another, so that they kept up a perpetual course of worship. This practice the founded upon that passage, “pray without ceasing, ” 1Th 5:17.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Acoemetae
(Greek akoimetai, from privative a and koiman, to rest).
Sometimes, an appellation common to all Eastern ascetics known by the rigour of their vigils; but usually, the name of a special order of Greek or Basilian monks devoting themselves to prayer and praise without intermission, day and night. That order was founded, about the year 400, by a certain Alexander, a man of noble birth, who fled from the court of Byzantium to the desert, both from love of solitude and fear of episcopal honours. When he returned to Constantinople, there to establish the laus perennis, he brought with him the experience of a first foundation on the Euphrates and three hundred monks. The enterprise, however, proved difficult, owing to the hostility of Patriarch Nestorius and Emperor Theodosius. Driven from the monastery of St. Mennas which he had reared in the city, and thrown with his monks on the hospitality of St. Hypathius, Abbot of Rufiniana, he finally succeeded in building at the mouth of the Black Sea the monastery of Gomon, where he died, about 440. His successor, Abbot John, founded on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus, opposite Sostenium or Istenia, the Irenaion, always referred to in ancient documents as the “great monastery” or motherhouse of the Acoemetae. Under the third abbot, St. Marcellus, when the hostility of Patriarch and Emperor had somewhat subsided, Studius, a former Consul, founded in the city the famous “Studium” which later, chiefly under Abbot Theodore (759-826), became a centre of learning as well as piety, and brought to a culmination the glory of the order. On the other hand, the very glamour of the new “Studites” gradually cast into the shade the old Acoemetae. The feature that distinguished the Acoemetae from the other Basilian monks was the uninterrupted service of God. Their monasteries, which numbered hundreds of inmates and sometimes went into the thousand, were distributed in national groups, Latins, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians; and each group into as many choirs as the membership permitted and the service required: With them the divine office was the literal carrying out of Psalm cxviii, 164: “Seven times a day have I given praise to Thee,” consisting as it did of seven hours: orthrinon, trite, ekte, enate, lychnikon, prothypnion, mesonyktion, which through St. Benedict of Nursia passed into the Western Church under the equivalent names of prime, tierce, sext, none, vespers, compline, matins (nocturns) and lauds. The influence of the Acoemetae on Christian life was considerable. The splendour of their religious services largely contributed to shape the liturgy. Their idea of the laus perennis and similar institutions, passed into the Western Church with St. Maurice of Agaune and St. Denys. Our modern perpetual adoration is a remnant of it. Even before the time of the Studites, the copying of manuscripts was in honour among the Acoemetae, and the library of the “Great Monastery,” consulted even by the Roman Pontiffs, is the first mentioned by the historians of Byzantium. The Acoemetae took a prominent part — and always in the sense of orthodoxy — in the Christological discussions raised by Nestorius and Eutyches, and later, in the controversies of the Icons. They proved strong supporters of the Apostolic See in the schism of Acacius, as did the Studites in that of Photius. The only flaw which marred the purity of their doctrine and their loyalty to Rome, occurred in the sixth century, when, the better to combat the Eutychian tendencies of the Scythian monks, they themselves fell into the Nestorian error and had to be excommunicated by Pope John II. But it was the error of a few (quibusdam paucis monachis, says a contemporary document), and it could not seriously detract from the praise given their order by the Roman Synod of 484: “Thanks to your true piety towards God, to your zeal ever on the watch, and to a special gift of the Holy Ghost, you discern the just from the impious, the faithful from the miscreants, the Catholics from the heretics.”
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HELYOT, Histoire des ordres monastiques (Paris, 1714); HEIMBUCHER, Orden u. Kongregationen (Paderborn, 1896); MARIN, Les moines de Constantinople De Studio, Coenobio Constantinopolitano (Paris, 1897); GARDNER, Theodore of Studium (London, 1905).
J.F. SOLLIER
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Acoemetae
(, watchers), an order of monks instituted at the beginning of the fifth century by Alexander, a Syrian monk (Burger, De Acoemetis, Schneeberg, 1686). They were divided into three classes, who performed divine service in rotation, and so continued, night and day, without intermission. They were condemned by a synod held at Rome in 534 for maintaining that Mary was not the mother of God. Helyot, Ordres Relig. 1, 4 sq.
Acoemetae
(, sleepless), a name given to certain monks who, divided into three classes, sang the Holy Office in turns, so that it continued day and night without intermission. The order was probably founded by an officer of the imperial household at Constantinople, named Alexander (q.v.) about the middle of the 15th century. The first monastery which he established was on the borders of the Eupthrates, after which he returned to Constantinople, and founded one on the Dardenelles, where he died, about A.D. 430 (or 450). After his departure from the monastery on the Euphrates, the Acoemetae had for their abbot John, who was succeeded by Marcellus. Among the distinguished persons who supported the order was Studius (q.v.), a Roman nobleman, who built a monastery for their use at Constantinople. This was called, after him, Studium, and the monks of it Studitce. There was another monastery, founded by St. Dius, which also became theirs.
Their “hegumei” (or president), Cyril, made complaints at Rome against Acacius (q.v.) which resulted in his excommunication. Meanwhile Peter the Fuller, who had been expelled from their order, had become schismatic patriarch of Antioch, and made common cause with their opponents. In the following century they became entangled in the Nestorian heresy, and the emperor Justinian caused them to be condemned at Constantinople. In 534, in a synod held in Rome, pope John II excommunicated them for denying the proposition Unus e Trinitate passus est carne, and maintaining that the Virgin was not the Mother of God. This monastic institution soon passed into the West, was established in the Abbey of St. Maurice of Agasine, in Valais, by Sigismund of Burgundy, and was confirmed by a council, A.D. 523. It was also established in the monasteries of St. Martin at Tours, Luxeuil, St. Riguier, and others. The perpetual service of the Accemetam was called by the Latins Laus perennis. See Evagrius, 3, 18, 21; Moreri, Hist. des Odres Monast. (preface, p. 238); Bingham, Christ. Anti. bk. 7 ch. 2, 10.