Word: monke
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...celibate, Mass-celebrating monk styling himself a Lutheran? The Great Reformer of Wittenberg, who by word and deed rejected celibacy, the Mass and monasticism, would have flown into one of his typical Teutonic tizzies. Neither Catholic fish nor Protestant fowl, "Father" Kreinheder represents a syncretistic mishmash equally offensive to both. One wonders if he has a mezuzah on the doorpost of his monastery just to be sure all bases are covered...
...Augustine's House, near Oxford, Mich., is marked by observance of the traditional hours of the divine office. It is a life much like that of any Benedictine priest in the Roman Catholic Church-but Father Kreinheder is not a Catholic. He is the first and only Lutheran monk in U.S. history...
...Monastery. "I found what I had been looking for," he recalls, "a place where a Lutheran could become a monk." After briefly testing his vocation at Taizé, Kreinheder gave up his job as a merchandise manager for Detroit's J. L. Hudson department store to study in Sweden for the ministry, and after his ordination in 1956 decided to try organizing a Taizé-style community...
...Kreinheder has been more hermit than monk, since the three companions who helped him found his Congregation of the Servants of Christ soon gave up. His major support comes from the 300 Lutherans who belong to his Fellowship of St. Augustine, occasionally visit the monastery to make retreats and join him in prayer. Kreinheder has no pastorate, supports himself by raising sheep, gets advice and a helping hand in the fields from the sympathetic Catholic monks of nearby St. Benedict of Montefano Monastery...
Luther himself was not opposed to monasteries, Kreinheder argues, and church tradition clearly authorizes marriage and celibacy as valid Christian vocations. Today, however, the Lutheran called to celibacy "has the choice of living his life out in solitude and loneliness as a bachelor, or becoming a Catholic or Anglican monk." Kreinheder blames "my own inexperience and my own inadequacy" for St. Augustine's slow start. "I don't say that I'm the perfect man to start this, but who else? Someone has to begin," he argues...