Hermits testify after the lonely death of Mark: “A hermit is something completely different from a loner” (Antwerp)

The neighbors had not seen Markus for months, but in all that time no one in the area raised the alarm. Markus used to be a world traveler and a bon vivant. He was interested in spirituality, but had become more and more closed off after the death of his parents and the move to Antwerp. He no longer opened the door for anyone or answered phones. He slipped into seclusion.

READ ALSO. He was a bon vivant and world traveler, but Markus still died in extreme isolation in his apartment

That is certainly not a definition of hermitage, respond the real hermits we contact. That is not self-evident. For example, you cannot contact Greet Heyman (49), now Sister Elisabeth, from the Vault of Moria on Sassenhout in Vorselaar. Eleven years ago, she took her solemn vows for eremitic life in the hands of Bishop Johan Bonny in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. The sister had been living in seclusion for years in a house on the domain of the Brothers of Charity in Vorselaar. She tended a small herd of dairy sheep and supported herself by selling homemade candles, among other things.

READ ALSO. After Markus V. was found only a year after his death: how dangerous is loneliness? “Social contact is as important as oxygen”

Sister Elisabeth was active on Twitter until last year, now X. Her email address and telephone number have now been disconnected. The candle shop is closed. The shutters of her hermitage at Sassenhout are closed and the garden is completely covered with black cloth. The bell next to the door has been removed, even sliding a note under the door is impossible. “The sister has a mailbox against the street,” say the educators of the Brothers of Charity facilities on the domain. “We hardly ever see her anymore, we don’t know what’s going on.”

The mailbox against the street is overflowing, and there is no response to our note. Just when people who knew her from the past begin to worry, the diocese of Antwerp reports that she was recently present in several Holy Week celebrations.

Through the trees

Most hermits are still in contact with the outside world. But there are not many of them. As far as we know, there is no longer a hermit within the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels. The diocese of Bruges still has one hermit: Christiane De Wit, originally from Boom, who lives in Jabbeke. Brother Guerric Aerden from Hove, formerly a monk in the Trappist Abbey in Westmalle, has been living as a hermit in the south of France for 4.5 years.

Their testimonies are reminiscent of the experiences of Dieter Coppens and Lynn Van Royen in the VRT 1 program Through the trees. The famous guests are sequestered in a place in the forest for three days and three nights. Usually they don’t like to leave. They get closer to themselves and everything around them in a relatively short time.

Brother Guerric Aerden (69) studied philosophy and theology. As a young man he joined the Premonstratensians in Averbode, but sought even more detachment. After a stay with the Trappists of Zundert, he left for the Trappist Abbey in Westmalle, where he was ordained as a priest.

“After more than forty years of living as a monk in community, I asked my abbot to allow me to undertake a hermit experiment. I was allowed that. I have been a hermit for 4.5 years now, first in the Drôme, then in the Creuse, in France.” Brother Guerric would like to provide some explanation. “But I fear that the real content of hermitage will not be conveyed sufficiently and incorrectly. Then it quickly becomes a caricature that makes people smile: another socially maladjusted eccentric. I fit in for that.”

So we’ll let him explain it in his own words, whichever is best. In Through the trees the participants are accompanied by a nameless cat for three days, and you can see that everyone appreciates that presence. Brother Guerric lives with his Drenthe partridge dog Nivard, a tomcat named Tybert and some chickens.

“A fundamental distinction must be made between a loner and a hermit monk. The former is also popularly called ‘hermit’, but he is not a monk and is not part of a monastic tradition.”

“The first Christian monks in the third century were all hermits, also called hermits or anchorites. They were anything but loners! Evagrius of Pontus said of these men in the 4th century: ‘separated from all, connected to all’. They sought out the desert, ‘eremus’ in Latin, hence the name eremites. The word monk also comes from ‘monos’, which means alone. Communities of monks emerged in a second phase, albeit quite quickly. But there too the monks live ‘alone with the One’: that is the purpose of their lives.”

To be a true hermit, according to Brother Guerric, you must live a very connected life. “With God, with yourself, with nature around you, the fly on your windowsill, the ant on your dining table, and with all people. Otherwise you alienate yourself. Then you become an isolated individual, a loner, as there are unfortunately many today – even among young people.”

“Paradoxically, as a hermit you have more contact with the population than when you live within an abbey. If I don’t buy food at the market, I have no food. I have to pay my rent myself, have my car checked, go to the doctor or pharmacist if necessary. As a priest, I celebrate Mass every day in the chapel of my hermitage. This Eucharist is attended on Sunday by an average of ten people, sometimes more, sometimes less. I don’t publicize it, but people come naturally, through word of mouth. So I also have contact with the outside world through them.”

Brother Guerric does not have a radio or TV, but he does have a laptop and smartphone. “I am connected to the internet. So I can easily follow current events, although I am sober about it. A hermit is more vertically connected than horizontally. Yet I pray every day for the great needs of the Church and the world, for very specific people who are sick or in trouble.”

“Paradoxically, as a hermit you have more contact with the population than when you live within an abbey. If I don’t buy food at the market, I have no food. I have to pay my rent myself, have my car checked, go to the doctor or pharmacist”

Guerric Aerden

Hermit

“Saint Bernard called the hermits ‘the stomach of the Church’, in which everything is digested in silence,” says Brother Guerric. “Hermits are like trees that stay in place and purify the air. They’re standing there. They are vulnerable. But they are indispensable for a healthy society. Sometimes you have to go up the mountain to better understand the situation in the valley.”

No two are the same

In Jabbeke, 79-year-old Christiane De Wit also lives as a professed hermit. “What a sad story about that deceased man,” she responds. “Yet it is true that no one can judge whether someone is a hermit. There are no two alike. Total isolation can still imply a great connection with the world and world events. But this requires faith in the power and meaning of prayer.”

Christiane grew up in Boom. She went through two periods of monastic life and two periods of hermit life, the second of which still continues. At the time, she took her hermit’s vow before Monsignor Paul Van Den Berghe in Antwerp. “After having ‘sheltered’ in a few other places, I then lived in a log cabin on the grounds of the Franciscan missionary sisters of Gooreind. It was very austere there, for example there was no running water. That’s where the desire arose for me to switch to a life in recluse.”

“The greatest trial of the hermit life is being confronted with its apparent meaninglessness. That can happen out of nowhere, as if a void falls over you.”

Christiane De Wit

Hermit

“Recluse life was common in the Middle Ages, when hermits lived in a small hut attached to a church. They never got out of there. But those who live as recluse cannot do so alone. This requires a context: people who bring what she needs to her. I even went to Israel with a small group, but I didn’t find a place there.”

Social calling

She has now lived alone in a house in Jabbeke in the polder for 23 years. “Every now and then I meet people, but for the most part I live according to a fixed schedule of prayer and work. The greatest trial of the hermit life is being confronted with its apparent meaninglessness. That can happen out of nowhere, as if a void falls over you.”

It seems contradictory, but for Christiane, being a hermit is a social vocation. “You don’t do it for yourself; it is a life of prayer in service to God and the world. I feel connected to that world. People sometimes ask: how can you withdraw when there is so much need? But if you believe in the power of prayer, you will understand the meaning of the hermit’s existence.”

Markus lived in the mansion in Antwerp where the Hare Krishna movement used to be. “We don’t know him,” says monk Manu from Radhadesh in Durbuy. “Being a hermit does not really fit within our spiritual life. We encourage everyone to grow as a group, spiritually, emotionally and mentally. Let us pray that Mark’s soul is in a better place now.”

‘Through the trees’, Monday at 8.45 pm on VRT 1, with Stef Bos as guest