The motives alone were suspect. Henry viii never did this before he couldn’t get his divorce. These places were a loss to the societies they served - they raised food, taught in schools and took care of the sick.
The monasteries were the whole "social security system" for those poor who had no family to care for them in sickness or old age. Once the monasteries were closed, people began to notice homeless beggars on the streets, and the parish system suddenly was responsible for them. . . . the law of unintended consequences placed a greater financial burden on "everyone".
I did a little searching on Google and it appears that there's something like twenty-five working monasteries today. A few of those have existed for a very long time but some of them are later after the dissolution and are filled by monks returning to abandon or otherwise used monasteries.😊
I don't think it was completely necessary for the Protestant revolution to get rid of monasticism. There's no hard-and-fast rule that they couldn't coexist only that the monasticism would have to change towards a Protestant slant.
My friend, with all due respect, Protestantism was the worst, most demonic ill to ever inflict the English people. Just because one uses the name of God does not mean that he serves Him. The Body of Christ cannot ever be separate; it is wholly unified. As it says in the Divine Liturgy, “one is holy, one is the Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, amen.” There is absolutely no Christianity without monasticism, neither is there truly an England without it. Civically speaking, perhaps there is, but who cares about that? Politics won’t help you gain the Kingdom. You won’t be asking for politics on your death bed, I can promise you that. Monasticism, not politics, built western Christian civilisation. Period, end of report, next case.
Thank you for this excellent documentary. Though I was aware of the dissolution, I never took into account the horrific impact it would have on the nearby towns and their inhabitants.
