Monastery

A monastery is the habitation of monks. Originally: a hermit's cell. Christian monasteries are also called abbey, priory, charterhouse, friary, and preceptory, while the habitation of nuns can also be called a convent.

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The number of dedicated monastics in any religion has waxed and waned due to many factors. There have been Christian monasteries such as "The Cappadocian Caves" that have house upwards of 50,000 monks, or St Pantelaimons on the "Holy Mountain in Greece, who had 30,000 in its heyday. Today those numbers have dwindled considerably. Currently the monasteries containing the largest numbers are Buddhist: Drepung Monastery in Tibet housed around 15,000 monks prior to the Chinese invasion. Today its relocated monastery in India houses around 8,000 - nearly five times the current monastic population of the entire Holy Mountain.

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On the other hand, there are those among monastic leaders that are critical of monasteries that are too large. Such become institutions and lose that intensity of spiritual training that can better be handled when an elder has only 2 or 3 disciples. There are on the Holy Mountain areas such as the Skete of St Anne, which could be considered one entity but is in fact many small "Sketes" (Monastic houses containing one elder and 2 or 3 disciples) who come together in one church for services.

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The communal life of a monastery is called cenobitic, as opposed to the anchoretic (or anchoritic) life of an hermit.

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Monk: A monk is a person who practices monasticism, adopting a strict religious and ascetic lifestyle, usually in community with others following the same path. The word comes from the Greek monachos (μοναχός), commonly translated as a solitary person, and by convention ...

Hermit: A hermit (from the Greek erēmos, signifying "desert", "uninhabited", hence "desert-dweller") is a person who lives to some greater or lesser degree in seclusion and/or isolation from society....

Christian: :This article is about the religious people known as Christians; for the 1980s British music group, see The Christians.For other uses of the term Christian, see Christian (disambiguation)....

Monastery related Images and Photos (experimental)

Monastery on a Cliff Taktshang Monastery Paro Bhutan	Tuscan Monastery Amidst Autumn	Sanain Monastery Surrounded by Trees Armenia	Sumela Monastery Trabzon Anatolia Turkey Asia Minor Eurasia
In a Monastery Garden 19th Century	Former Monastery of Sant'Agostino in Bergamo	Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery Kiev Ukraine	Wayzayanda Monastery and Pagodas at Moulmein Burma c.1890
Door at Tikse Monastery	Cistercian Monastery of Senanque Beside Lavender Field Provence Region Gordes France	Wheel of Life Kopan Monastery Bhaktapur Nepal Asia	Upper Halls at Drepung Monastery Lhasa Tibet China Asia