ANOTHER GREAT BENEDICTINE

One of my favorite Benedictines is not well known in this country and if Father E and I had our way we would make his letters at the top of the list for those seeking a deeper spiritual life.

DOM JOHN CHAPMAN, O.S.B. was born in 1865 the son of an Anglican canon of Ely Cathedral. Baptized with the name of Henry Chapman, he was educated privately and at Christ Church, Oxford where he received a first class degree in Classical Greats. He stayed for a subsequent year at Oxford reading theology, in which he took a third. It was an important year for him, however, because in this time he decided to take Orders in the Church of England.

Having trained at Cuddesdon, near Oxford, he was ordained deacon in the Anglican Church in 1889, and began his curacy at the parish of St Pancras, London. He found himself increasingly troubled during this time about the position of the Church of England, however, and eventually left the parish for good soon after Trinity Sunday.

In December 1890 Chapman was conditionally baptized in the Catholic Church at the Brompton Oratory.In April 1891 he entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Manresa House, Roehampton, but after eight months had determined that his vocation was not to the Society of Jesus.

 He subsequently entered the Benedictine Maredsous Abbey in Belgium, when he was given the religious name of John. He professed simple vows on 25 March 1893, and made his solemn vows on Whitsuntide 1895.

After his priestly ordination in 1895, he went to Erdington Abbey, near Birmingham, where he stayed until 1912, serving the community as novice master and later as prior, but also frequently visiting the library of St Mary's College in nearby Oscott.

 Having spent nine months at Maredsous, in February 1913, Dom Chapman was made temporary superior of the Caldey island community (now based at Prinknash Abbey), when it was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1913-14.

 On the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918), Dom Chapman first became a Professor of Theology at Downside Abbey, joining the many monks who had fled Maredsous to England.

In early 1915, when these monks moved to Ireland, he became army chaplain  to the British forces. After initial training, his brigade arrived in France in July 1915. He lived in the trenches in autumn 1915, until a persistent knee injury led to him being sent to hospital in November.  After leaving the hospital, he first was stationed at Boyton Camp, Wiltshire, for several months, and then returned to France. 

At the end of 1917, he was transferred to Switzerland, where multilingual chaplains were need for the POW camps. He remained here until the Armistice. (For myself, having gone back to school after 15 years in the enclosure, I can imagine how difficult this transfer from monastic life to life outside, especially in time of war, was for Dom John.) 

 In 1919  Dom Chapman transferred his monastic stability to Downside Abbey. He spent most of 1919-22 in Rome, though, working on a Commission on the revision of the Vulgate. He returned to Downside in 1922, where in 1929 the community elected him Abbot. As 4th Abbot of Downside, during his short term of four years, cut short by his death on 7 November 1933, he carried on the work of Abbots Cuthbert Butler and Leander Ramsay. He completed the transformation of Downside into a modern abbey in the mainstream of the Benedictine tradition and in 1933 became the founder of Worth Priory, since 1957 Worth Abbey, when he bought the property, then called Paddockhurst, from Viscount Cowdray.

Dom John Chapman was thought  many to be the greatest patristics scholar of his time. Reputedly he had read all 378 volumes of Migne. However, he not only read both Greek and Latin with the greatest facility, but also read and wrote French, Italian and German with similar ease. Many of his contributions to biblical scholarship and patristics have proved of lasting value, especially his work on St Cyprian, St John the Presbyter (of Papias), and on the priority of the Gospel according to Matthew that, so Chapman argued in support of the early Church tradition, was the first Gospel account to have been written.

In his day Dom Chapman was a much sought-after spiritual director and authority on prayer, the spiritual life and mystical theology. His writings remain of perennial value, especially his Spiritual Letters.  He was noted to be brilliant and volatile in manner, but serene in religious observance.  An oft quoted advice of his was: "Pray as you can, not as you cannot!".

According to his contemporaries, Chapman had a brilliant mind and was a fascinating conversationalist. He was also a talented pianist and a Christian humanist in the finest tradition

Photos of Abbeys:

Left: Maredsous

Right: Downside.