Older Than Monasticism

The order of virgins is among the oldest recognised states of life in the Western church, and it is older than organised monasticism. Christian writers of the early centuries describe women living consecrated to God within their own households and cities, recognised by their communities, before there were monasteries for them to enter. The liturgical consecration of such women by a bishop is attested in the early Roman rites.

What happened afterwards is the reason the state is unfamiliar today. As monastic life developed and then dominated, the consecration was absorbed into it: the rite survived, but as something conferred on nuns within monasteries rather than on women living in the world. For centuries that was effectively its only setting, and the older form disappeared from view.

It was restored as a distinct state in 1970, when a revised rite made the consecration available again to women living in the world under their own bishop. The 1983 Code of Canon Law lists the order among the recognised forms of consecrated life, and the number of women in it has grown steadily since the restoration. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church sets out the early history and the interruption; the canon itself defines the present arrangement.