Augustinian Canons - Canons Regular

Canons Regular

The Canons Regular of Saint Augustine (C.R.S.A. or Can.Reg.), also referred to as Augustinian Canons or Austin Canons ('Austin' being a corruption of 'Augustinian'), is one of the oldest Latin Rite Orders. The canons live together in community and take the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience; though this is a later development, the first communities of Canons took vows of common property and stability. Some congregations of Canons Regular have retained the vow of stability, e.g. the members of the Austrian Congregation of Canons Regular take a vow of stability for the house which they join. Famous Canons Regular include the only English Pope Adrian IV, mystic Thomas à Kempis and Christian humanist Desiderius Erasmus.

According to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life of the Holy See, "Canons Regular, who combine the clerical office and state with the observance of community religious life and the evangelical counsels, have their origin in the communities of clergy which lived with their bishop. It was Saint Augustine who, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries, gave this form of religious life its most characteristic features.

Historically, the French canons had St. Victor's Abbey, Paris, pre-cursor to the University of Paris, and the pre-Reformation English canons were the custodians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The characteristic habit of canons regular is the rochet, a sign of the clerical basis of their life. With regard to the other parts of their attire, as a general rule, they wear the white habit and black cloak, although some communities have added a scapular and others have taken to wearing the black cassock of the secular clergy. Most wear the rochet as part of their daily dress, though sometimes reduced to a narrow linen band (sarozium) hanging from the shoulders in front and behind - as it is currently worn in some houses in Austria, e.g. Klosterneuburg Monastery.

In 1959, four congregations of Canons Regular came together to form a confederated Order, which with time has grown to the extent that there are currently nine congregations. These Congregations of the confederation elect an Abbot primate, the current Abbot Primate being the Rt Rev. Bernhard H. Backovsky, Abbot of Klosterneuburg Monastery, and Abbot General of the Austrian Congregation of Canons Regular. The Order has houses in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, England, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Peru, Spain, Taiwan, Switzerland, the United States and Uruguay.

The Austrian Congregation of Canons Regular, based in the monasteries of Herzogenburg Priory, Klosterneuburg Priory, Neustift Priory, Reichersberg Priory, St. Florian's Priory and Vorau Priory, look after over 100 parishes in Austria.

The Congregatio Canonicorum Sancti Augustini is a new Protestant religious community of Canons founded in 2008 at the ecumenical Priory of St. Wigbert in Werningshausen near Erfurt in Germany.