Augustinians live by a rule written around 400 that prized sharing over poverty
Augustine of Hippo drew up a short rule for his community in North Africa around the year 400. Sixteen centuries later, canons, friars and nuns still live by it, balancing study with affection for one another, and in Vienna an Augustinian church stages Mozart and Schubert masses every week.
Augustine wrote his Rule sometime between 397 and 403 for a monastic community he founded at Hippo, in what is now Algeria, inspired by the early Christians in Acts who held everything in common. Notably, he treated sharing rather than poverty itself as the virtue. The rule was eclipsed in the early Middle Ages by that of St Benedict, but cathedral clergy kept living by it, and it returned in the eleventh century as a basis for reforming monasteries and chapters.
Two main families grew from it. The older are the Canons Regular, priests living a semi-monastic common life while serving nearby parishes, a form that predates the friars; the Lateran Synod of 1059 set the path, and groups such as the Canons of St Victor in Paris and the Norbertines adopted the rule. The friars came later, part of the 13th-century mendicant movement that brought monastic ideals into towns to serve people directly. Their largest order, the Order of Saint Augustine, was founded in 1244 as the Hermits of Saint Augustine, and in England its members were called the Austin Friars.
Augustinian friars profess chastity, poverty and obedience and pray the Liturgy of the Hours, but unlike traditional monks they take no vow of stability, moving between friaries every few years. Historically the order was exempt from bishops' authority and answered directly to the Pope, a status now described as pontifical right. The wider family includes contemplative nuns, lay fraternities, affiliated institutes such as the Sisters of St Rita, and even some Anglican communities of nuns founded in the 19th century.
The order's character, its charism, pairs the pursuit of truth through learning with love among members, a mix that fuelled both scholarship and missionary work. Music matters as well: Augustine taught that whoever sings prays twice, and besides the Vienna church the boys' choir at Sankt Florian in Austria carries on the tradition.
Source: Augustinians
