Vita apostolica

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The Vita apostolica (Latin for "apostolic life") is a Christian ideal of life that is based on the example of the apostles . The most important features of the Vita Apostolica include a life of poverty and the preaching of the gospel . In the course of church history, individual people, communities or movements have repeatedly invoked this ideal and tried to implement it in their way of life.

Biblical basics

As a biblical basis of the so-called true mission command in Mk 6.8 to 11  EU , Mt 10.5-15  EU and Luke 9.1-6  EU . The apostles should set out without a store and bag, without money, without a second shirt, only with sandals on their feet; they should not stay longer in any house or city.

Church history

In the church reforms of the 11th century , the ideal of poverty was clearly expressed. For example, various reformers among the bishops and popes demanded that canons should live "in a canonical manner without personal property according to the rules of the holy [fathers]". This approach met the reform efforts of the lay movements . Patarenes , Waldensians and Cathars demanded a life of poverty from the clergy and for themselves the right to preach the gospel as traveling preachers.

In the end, both approaches were unsuccessful. The clergy's resistance to the reforms, which were mainly carried out by Gregory VII , was too strong to have any resounding success.

The Vita apostolica was accepted by the church as long as it was practiced in the usual forms of monastic life. In the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, however, many people were of the opinion that this ideal could also be lived within the world. With this attitude, they often encountered fierce opposition from the local clergy. The religious lay movements failed primarily because of the ban on lay preaching. If they did not return to the ecclesiastically permitted way of life for lay people , they were often pushed into heresy . The history of the Franciscan order shows that the ideal of the Vita Apostolica was anything but clear. Soon after the founder's death, there was a heated argument about how the religious ideal should be lived. In the poverty struggle , the order was divided into the conventuals (representatives of the moderate trend) and the spiritual (representatives of the radical trend).

The men of the mendicant orders ( Franciscans , Dominicans , Carmelites and Augustinian hermits ) aligned their way of life to a connection between the ideal of the Vita apostolica and the evangelical council of poverty . Later in the history of the order came the congregations , the Society of Apostolic Life and the secular institutes .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uta-Renate Blumenthal: Gregory VII Pope between Canossa and church reform. 2001, p. 106 ff.
  2. ^ F. Donald Logan: History of the Church in the Middle Ages , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, p. 217 f
  3. ↑ Theological Real Encyclopedia . Volume 26: Paris - Poland. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1996, ISBN 3-11-015155-3 , p. 281.