Carthusian Use

In Brief

The Carthusian Use is the Carthusian Order's own Mass: a branch of the Roman Rite with eleventh- and twelfth-century roots, still the Order's living liturgy. Its signs are silence and sobriety — no instruments, no polyphony, the Order's proper Gregorian chant, the priest generally alone in the sanctuary. What the Order celebrates today is not the medieval book untouched, nor the 1962 Roman Missal. Its texts and rubrics were revised according to the guidelines of the Second Vatican Council, and the Order says so itself.¹

Where to Experience It

In the charterhouses of the Order, with the Grande Chartreuse as motherhouse. The Order's liturgy page is the address: it describes what every charterhouse prays.¹

Your First Visit

The Carthusian liturgy is the prayer of solitaries, and visitors meet it as guests of a silence they did not make. Masses are open where the houses receive guests; the Grande Chartreuse itself admits visitors to parts of the church at set times. Expect Latin — always, for the noted chant — and expect stillness: the liturgy's own page names silence and sobriety as its marks.¹

The Shape of the Liturgy

The Carthusian Mass looks like the Roman Mass simplified to essentials and slowed to contemplation. The Order's page names the features: silence and sobriety as the governing signs; no instruments and no polyphony, only the Order's proper Gregorian chant; concelebration kept to Sundays and major feasts, and even then limited; prostration at the consecration; the priest generally alone in the sanctuary; arms extended through the Eucharistic Prayer; no final blessing.¹

Latin is always used for the noted chant. The psalmody varies by house, Latin or vernacular; the readings are in the vernacular.¹ It is a post-conciliar settlement — the Council's vernacular and participation, the Order's silence and solitude, held together.

What makes it distinctive

• Silence and sobriety: the Order's liturgy page calls these the signs of the Carthusian Mass — no instruments, no polyphony.¹
• The Order's proper Gregorian chant, its own melodic tradition.¹
• Prostration at the consecration, with the priest generally alone in the sanctuary.¹
• Arms extended during the Eucharistic Prayer, and no final blessing.¹
• A living revision, not a museum piece: texts and rubrics revised according to the Second Vatican Council.¹

History

The Carthusians never set out to be liturgists. The first hermits, in the mountains above Grenoble, needed a Mass for a community of solitaries, and the usage that grew around them drew substantially on twelfth-century Grenoble, with other elements mixed in.³ Like the other medieval uses, it was old enough by 1570 to pass under Pius V's exemption for customs older than 200 years, and it kept its own books while the rest of the Latin Church took Rome's.⁴

What distinguishes the Carthusian story is what happened after the Council. Where other orders either adopted the Missal of Paul VI outright or kept their old books by permission, the Carthusians did neither: they revised their own texts and rubrics according to the Council's guidelines and kept celebrating their own rite.¹ The result is the only one of the five order uses in this Index whose books are neither the 1962 recension nor Paul VI's — a genuinely Carthusian post-conciliar liturgy.

Milestones

1. 12th centuryThe Order's liturgy takes shape, substantially from the usage of Grenoble, with other admixture³
2. 1570Pius V's Quo primum exempts uses with a custom older than 200 years from the imposed Roman books⁴
3. 1962–1965The Second Vatican Council; the Order revises its liturgical texts and rubrics according to the Council's guidelines¹
4. 2026The Order's liturgy page: the Carthusians 'have preserved their own rite of Mass', 'a branch of the Roman Rite' dating from the eleventh–twelfth centuries^1,5

Texts & Books

The book is the Order's own Missal, in its revised form. The Order's liturgy page does not give an edition date or a printer; it gives the principle — revised according to the Second Vatican Council — and the marks by which the revision is known.¹ For the use's medieval sources, the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia's account remains the accessible English guide: substantially twelfth-century Grenoble, with admixture.³

Theology & Spirit

The Carthusian Mass is the liturgy of men and women whose vocation is to disappear. The priest alone in the sanctuary, the prostration at the consecration, the absence of instruments — these are not archaism but anthropology: a community that has renounced the world will not perform for it. The Order's decision to revise rather than replace is of a piece with that: the Council asked for renewal, and the Carthusians renewed what was theirs instead of borrowing what was Rome's.

Family & Relations

It is a branch of the Roman Rite — the Order's own phrase.¹ Among the order uses it stands apart: the Dominicans, Carmelites, Cistercians and Premonstratensians all pray, where they pray their own Mass, from books that predate the Council; the Carthusians pray from books the Council's guidelines shaped. Compare the Vetus Ordo to see what the Carthusian revision is not, and the Novus Ordo to see the Council it answered — in its own books, on its own terms.

Compare with

• Vetus Ordo: the pre-conciliar Roman Missal; the Carthusian books, unlike it, were revised after the Council¹
• Novus Ordo: the post-conciliar Roman Missal; the Carthusian revision followed the same Council, in the Order's own books¹

The Rite Today

The use is living in the full sense: it is the Order's Mass, celebrated in its charterhouses as the norm, not by exception or permission.¹ The page the Order publishes describes a liturgy at once ancient in lineage and current in law — eleventh- and twelfth-century roots, post-conciliar books, Latin chant with vernacular readings. There is no canonical tangle here to steelman, no rescript to parse. The Carthusians simply never stopped praying their own Mass, and when the Church asked for revision, they revised.

As of 20 September 2026.

Disputed Questions

Go Deeper

The Carthusian Use quietly settles a question the other order uses leave open: whether an order's liturgy must be either the old books or the new. The Carthusians chose a third way — their own books, revised — and the Holy See let them. That choice is worth keeping in mind when the other uses are discussed as though 1962 and 1969 were the only options. It also sets the limit of what this page claims: the Order's page gives the principles and the marks, not a rubrical inventory. The details of the revised books — which prayers, which calendar, which Eucharistic Prayer — are not specified in the sources seen, and this page does not invent them.¹

On Domus Dei

• The Roman RiteThe rite from the fourth century and the lineage of its Missals
• Vetus OrdoThe received Roman Missal of 1962 — not the books the Carthusians use
• Novus OrdoThe Missal of Paul VI, the Council's other liturgical fruit

Official resources

• The Liturgy (Ordre des Chartreux)

Recommended reading

• Ordre des Chartreux, “The Liturgy”, chartreux.org.The Order's own account of its revised liturgy and its current marks Read online
• Webster, Douglas Raymund, “The Carthusian Order”, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, 1908.The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia's account of the use's twelfth-century sources Read online

Sources

1. Primary textOrdre des Chartreux, “The Liturgy”, chartreux.org. LinkVerified 2026-09-20 · read in full: 'Texts and rubrics were revised in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Second Vatican Council'; the Order 'has preserved its own rite of Mass', dating from the 11th-12th centuries, 'a branch of the Roman Rite'; 'the Carthusian liturgy is always celebrated in Latin', with 'silence and sobriety'; no instruments or polyphony; proper Gregorian chant; limited concelebration (Sundays and major feasts); prostration at the consecration; priest generally alone in the sanctuary; no final blessing; Latin 'always used' for noted chant, psalmody varies by house, readings in the vernacular
2. ReferenceFortescue, Adrian, “Rites”, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13, 1912. LinkVerified 2026-09-14 · read in the New Advent text: the general part, signed ADRIAN FORTESCUE (New Advent's citation line names P. Griffin, wrongly): 'merely the Roman Rite with local additions and modifications, most of which are to its disadvantage'; dioceses (e.g. Lyons) and orders 'keep their special uses'. It misdates Quo primum to 19 July 1570 (the bull: pridie Idus Julii, 14 July), so that date is not repeated
3. ReferenceWebster, Douglas Raymund, “The Carthusian Order”, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, 1908. LinkVerified 2026-09-14 · read in the New Advent text, under 'Life of the monks': 'differs considerably from the Roman Rite, being substantially that of Grenoble in the twelfth century with some admixture from other sources'
4. Magisterial / canonicalPius V, Quo primum (bull promulgating the Roman Missal), 1570. LinkVerified 2026-09-15 · Latin read in the front matter of the 1962 editio typica (archive.org sp07mr62-editio-typica, page images pp. [V]-VI) and of an 1862 Missal: 'nisi ab ipsa prima institutione a Sede Apostolica approbata, vel consuetudine, quae, vel ipsa institutio super ducentos annos … assidue observata sit'; dated 'pridie idus iulii' 1570; the Council of Trent's decrees had left the Missal to the pope: 'inter alia Sacri Tridentini Concilii decreta, nobis statuendum esset de sacris libris, Catechismo, Missali, et Breviario edendis, atque emendandis' (1862 front matter)
5. Primary textOrdre des Chartreux, “The Liturgy”, chartreux.org. LinkVerified 2026-09-14 · read: 'The Carthusians have preserved their own rite of Mass'