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.

Christian monasteries

Christian monasticism started in Egypt. According to tradition, St. Anthony was the first Christian to adopt this lifestyle. After a short while others followed. Originally, all Christian monks were anchorites (hermits) seldom encountering other people. But because of the extreme difficulty of the solitary life, many monks failed, either returning to their previous lives in the city, or becoming spiritually deluded.

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A transitional form of monasticism was later created by Saint Amun in which ?solitary? monks lived close enough to one another to offer mutual support as well as gathering together on Sundays for common services.

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It was St. Pachomios who developed the idea of having monks live together and worship together under the same roof (Coenobitic Monasticism). Soon the Egyptian desert blossomed with monasteries, especially around Nitria, which was called the "Holy City?. Estimates are the upwards of 50,000 monks lived in this area at any one time.

Related Topics:
St. Pachomios - Nitria

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Anchoritism never died out though, but was reserved only for those advanced monks who had worked out their problems within a cenobitic monastery.

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The idea caught on, and other places followed:

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• Saint Eugenios founded a monastery on Mt. Izla above Nisibis in Mesopotamia (~350), and from this monastery the cenobitic tradition spread in Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, Georgia and even India and China.
• Saint Saba organized the monks of the Judean Desert in a monastery close to Betlehem (483), and this is considered the mother of all monsteries of the Eastern Orthodox churches.
• St. Benedict of Nursia founded the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy (529), which was the seed of Roman Catholic monasticism in general, and of the order of Benedict in particular.

Roman Catholic monasteries

A number of distinct monastic orders developed within Roman Catholicism. Eastern Orthodoxy does not have a system of individual Orders, per se.

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:Augustinian canons ('The Black Canons'), which evolved from the Priests Canon who would normally work with the Bishop: now living together with him as monks under St. Augustine's rule

Related Topics:
Augustinian canons - Canon

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:Augustinian friars

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:Benedictine monks ('The Black Monks'), founded by St. Benedict, stresses manual labor in a self-subsistent monastery.

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:Bridgettine sisters

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:Carmelite friars ('The White Friars'), Contemplative Order

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:Carthusian monks

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:Celestines

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:Cistercian monks ('The White Monks')

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:Cluniac monks

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:Dominican friars, ('The Black Friars'/'The Friars Preachers') Mendicant (preaching) order. They blend the active and the contemplative life: namely they practice contemplation, and go out to preach the fruits of that contemplation and encourage others to contemplate.

Related Topics:
Dominican friars - Mendicant

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:Franciscan friars ('The Grey Friars'/'Friarhellos Minor'), another Mendicant order, they were charged with preaching to the poor.

Related Topics:
Franciscan friars - Mendicant

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:Gilbertine

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:Poor Clares

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:Premonstratensian canons ('The White Canons')

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:Tironensian monks ('The Grey Monks')

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:Trinitarians ('The Red Friars')

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:Trappist

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:Redemptorist

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:Christian Brothers

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:Valliscaulian monks

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:Visitation Sisters

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:Knights Templar

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:Knights Hospitaller

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The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) is a religious order, having vows; but, it is not a monastic order, strictly speaking, as all its members live in the world.

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Famous Catholic monasteries include:

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• Glendalough
• Monte Cassino
• Melk Abbey
• Buckfast Abbey

Famous dissolved monasteries:

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• Fountains Abbey
• Cluny
• Lindisfarne
• Whitby Abbey
• Rievaulx Abbey
• Glastonbury Abbey
• Westminster Abbey
• Mont St Michel
• St Andrews Abbey

Orthodox Christian monasteries

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, monks and nuns follow a similar ascetic discipline. Unlike Roman Catholics, there is only one form of monasticism for the Orthodox. Monastics, male or female, live lives away from the world, in order to pray for the world. They do not run hospitals and orphanages, they do not teach or care for the sick; it is expected for lay people to do these things to work out their own salvation. Monasteries can be very large or very small. The largest monasteries can hold many thousands of monks and are called lavras. Small monasteries are often called “sketes” and usually only have one elder and 2 or 3 disciples. There are higher levels to ascetic practice but the monks who practice these do not live in monasteries, but alone. When monks live together, work together, and pray together, following the directions of the abbot and the elder monks, this is called a cenobium. The idea behind this is when you put many men together, like rocks with sharp edges, their “sharpness” becomes worn away and they become smooth and polished.

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One of the great centers of Orthodox monasticism is the Holy Mountain (also called Mt. Athos) in Greece, an isolated, self-governing peninsula approximately 20 miles long and 5 miles wide (similar to the Vatican, being a separate government), administered by the heads of the 20 major monasteries, and dotted with hundreds of smaller monasteries, sketes, and hesicaterons. Even today the population of the Holy Mountain numbers in the tens of thousands of monastics (men only) and cannot be visited except by men with special permission granted by both the Greek government and the government of the Holy Mountain itself.

Related Topics:
The Holy Mountain - Greece

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The leading monasteries of the Holy Mountain are:

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• Great Lavra
• Vatopedi
• Iveron
• Chelandari
• Dionysiou
• Koutloumousiou
• Pantokrator
• Xeropotamou
• Zographou
• Docheiariou
• Karakallou
• Simonos Petra
• St. Paul
• Stavronikita
• Xenophontos
• Gregoriou
• St. Panteleimon (Russian)
• Esphigmenou
• Philotheou
• Konstamonitou

Other famous Orthodox monasteries include:

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• Meteora, Greece
• St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai
• Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra, Russia
• Kievan monastery of the Caves, Ukraine
• Rila Monastery, Bulgaria
• Solovetsky Monastery, Russia
• Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, Russia
• Alexander Nevsky Lavra, St Petersburg
• Novodevichy Convent, Moscow