History
The practice of perpetual prayer was inaugurated by the archimandrite Alexander (died about 430), the founder of the monastic Acoemetae or "vigil-keepers".
Laus perennis was imported to Western Europe at St. Maurice's Abbey in Agaunum, where it was carried on, day and night, by several choirs, or turmae, who succeeded each other in the recitation of the divine office, so that prayer went on without cessation. Called the Akoimetoi ("Sleepless Ones"), these monks prayed "a monastic round of twenty-four offices to fill every hour." The inauguration of laus perennis at Agaunum circa 515 was the occasion of a solemn ceremony, and of a sermon by St. Avitus which survives. The "custom of Agaunum", as it came to be called, spread over Gaul, to Lyons, Châlons, the Abbey of Saint Denis, to Luxeuil, Saint-Germain at Paris, Saint Medard at Soissons, to Saint-Riquier, and was taken up by the monks of Remiremont Abbey and Laon Abbey, though the Abbey of Agaunum had ceased to practice it from the beginning of the ninth century.
Read more about this topic: 24-7 Prayer Movement
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)