Carmelite

Carmelite, Roman Catholic order comprising congregations of priests, religious sisters and brothers, and laypeople who live according to the order’s charism of prayer, community, and service to others. The Carmelites are one of the four great mendicant orders—those orders whose corporate as well as personal poverty made it necessary for them to beg for alms—of the Roman Catholic Church, dating to the Middle Ages.

The origin of the order can be traced to Mount Carmel in northwestern Israel, where a number of devout men, apparently former pilgrims and Crusaders, established themselves near the traditional fountain of Elijah about 1155. Their rule was written between 1206 and 1214 by St. Albert, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and approved in 1226 by Pope Honorius III. The monks hoped to continue on Mount Carmel the way of life of the prophet Elijah, whom early Christian writers depicted as the founder of monasticism.

The early Carmelites were hermits: they lived in separate cells or huts and observed vows of silence, seclusion, abstinence, and austerity. Soon, however, the losses of the crusading armies in Palestine made Mount Carmel unsafe for the Western hermits, and about 1240 they set out for Cyprus, Sicily, France, and England. The first general chapter (legislative meeting) of the Carmelites was held in England in 1247 under St. Simon Stock, and the order was adapted to the conditions of the Western lands to which it had been transplanted: the order transformed itself from one of hermits into one of mendicant friars. In this form the Carmelites established themselves throughout western Europe, becoming popular as an order closely analogous to the Dominicans and Franciscans. The first institution of Carmelite nuns was founded in 1452.

Of all the movements in the Carmelite order, by far the most important and far-reaching in its results was the reform initiated by St. Teresa of Ávila. After nearly 30 years in a Carmelite convent, she founded in 1562 a small convent in Ávila, Spain, wherein a stricter way of life was to be observed. Teresa’s order became the order of Discalced Carmelites (O.D.C.). In spite of opposition and difficulties of many kinds, St. Teresa succeeded in establishing not only convents but also, with the cooperation of Juan de Yepes (later St. John of the Cross), a number of friaries that followed this stricter observance. The aim of the reform was to restore and emphasize the austerity and contemplative character of primitive Carmelite life. Because Reformed Carmelites wore sandals in place of shoes and stockings, they came to be called the Discalced, or barefooted, Carmelites, to distinguish them from the older branch of the order. In 1580 the reformed monasteries were made a separate province under the prior general of the order, and in 1593 this province became by papal act an independent order.

Both orders suffered severely from the French Revolution and from suppression by both Napoleon and the liberal governments of the 19th century, but they have since been restored in most countries of western Europe and in the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. In 2024 Pope Francis canonized 16 Discalced Carmelite nuns and sisters who had been executed in Paris in 1794 during the Reign of Terror.

The original order (Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel; White Friars; O.Carm.) is engaged primarily in preaching and teaching. The Discalced Carmelite Fathers (Order of Discalced Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel; O.C.D.) is active in parishes and in foreign missions, having become primarily a pastoral and devotional order. Both branches have been important promoters of Marian devotion. In recent times, numerous congregations of Third Order Carmelites have been formed, offering laypeople the opportunity to devote themselves to teaching, care of the sick, and other charitable works according to the Carmelite charism.