§ 215. The Origin and Purpose of Church Brotherhoods

Under the name of brotherhood (ἀδελφότης) is understood every association of the faithful with pious purposes, for the good of the Church and of society. The origin of brotherhoods goes back to the earliest times of the Church, and they are connected with the agapes (ἀγάπαι, love-feasts of brotherly fellowship) of the first age of Christianity, at which—even if organized brotherhoods in today’s sense did not yet exist—the joint action of many in one direction, for the sake of helping with common needs, nevertheless already stood out.

The first kind of brotherhood we find in the Church of Alexandria, in the community of the parabalani (παραβολάνοι), who cared for Christian sick people.[1] In the 4th century mention is made of the brotherhood of the ascetēria (ἀσκητήριον), who cared for the Christian burial of the dead. The Emperor Constantine assigned a considerable subsidy to this brotherhood from the state treasury; this subsidy the Emperor Anastasius raised to 70 pounds of gold annually, and the Emperor Justinian confirmed this by a special Novel.[2] In the course of time similar brotherhoods developed and multiplied, and were of great use to the hierarchy in accomplishing the task of the Church, especially when the Church’s external circumstances were unfavorable. History records various brotherhoods that helped the Church in various good works—brotherhoods for receiving strangers, in houses specially built for that purpose (ξενοδοχεῖα); for the nursing and upbringing of abandoned children (ὀρφανοτροφεῖα); for the nursing of the sick (νοσοκομεῖα); for the maintenance of the poor (πτωχοδοχεῖα); for the maintenance of poor old people (γεροντοκομεῖα); for the reception and nursing of foundlings (βρεφοτροφεῖα); for missionary work among unbelievers; and, on occasion, for the defense of the Orthodox faith against the attacks of the heterodox. This last occurred every time some danger threatened the Orthodox faith, and the hierarchy itself was not in a position to withstand these attacks.[3]

Church brotherhoods differ from the monastic community in this: 1) that among the members of a brotherhood there is no monastic, communal (cenobitic), living together; 2) that on entering a brotherhood the members in question take none of those vows that are necessary on entering monasticism; 3) that every member is always free to leave the brotherhood, nor is he bound by any legal condition when he enters it; and 4) that no coercive means may be employed against a member to make him fulfill the community’s duties—though, of course, the community’s administration is entitled, according to the community’s rules, to exclude the member in question from the brotherhood.