Concept
Christian monasticism
Related concepts (41)
Monk
A monk (mʌŋk, from μοναχός, monachos, "single, solitary" via Latin monachus) is a person who practices religious asceticism by living a monastic lifestyle, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedicate their life to serving other people and serving God, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live their life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in philosophy.
Hermitage (religious retreat)
A hermitage most authentically refers to a place where a hermit lives in seclusion from the world, or a building or settlement where a person or a group of people lived religiously, in seclusion. Particularly as a name or part of the name of properties its meaning is often imprecise, harking to a distant period of local history, components of the building material, or recalling any former sanctuary or holy place. Secondary churches or establishments run from a monastery were often called "hermitages".
English Dissenters
English Dissenters or English Separatists were Protestants who separated from the Church of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. A dissenter (from the Latin dissentire, "to disagree") is one who disagrees in opinion, belief and other matters. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters, and founded their own churches, educational establishments and communities. Some emigrated to the New World, especially to the Thirteen Colonies and Canada. Brownists founded the Plymouth colony.
Religious vows
Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices, and views. In the Buddhism tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of religious vows are taken by the lay community as well as by the monastic community, as they progress along the path of their practice. In the monastic tradition of all schools of Buddhism, the Vinaya expounds the vows of the fully ordained Nuns and Monks.
Judaean Desert
The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert (Barr al-Khalil, Midbar Yehuda) is a desert in the West Bank and Israel that lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. Under the name El-Bariyah, it has been nominated to the Tentative List of World Heritage Sites in the State of Palestine, particularly for its monastic ruins. The term originates in the Hebrew Bible, and it is mentioned in Judges and Psalms. It is sometimes known as יְשִׁימוֹן Yeshimon, meaning desert or wildland, or yet Wilderness of Judah or Wilderness of Judaea, among others.
Benedictines
The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (Ordo Sancti Benedicti, abbreviated as OSB), are a monastic religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are also sometimes called the Black Monks, in reference to the colour of their religious habits. They were founded in 529 by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule.
Hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament (i.e., the 40 years wandering in the desert that was meant to bring about a change of heart). In the Christian tradition the eremitic life is an early form of monastic living that preceded the monastic life in the cenobium.
Flagellant
Flagellants are practitioners of a form of mortification of the flesh by whipping their skin with various instruments of penance. Many Christian confraternities of penitents have flagellants, who beat themselves, both in the privacy of their dwellings and in public processions, in order to repent of sins and share in the Passion of Jesus. In the 14th century, a movement within Western Christianity known as Flagellantism became popular and adherents "began beating their flesh in a public penitential ritual in response to war, famine, plague and fear engendered by millenarianism.
Friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the older monastic orders' allegiance to a single monastery formalized by their vow of stability. A friar may be in holy orders or be a brother. The most significant orders of friars are the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Carmelites.
Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism is the tradition of mystical practices and mystical theology within Christianity which "concerns the preparation [of the person] for, the consciousness of, and the effect of [...] a direct and transformative presence of God" or Divine love. Until the sixth century the practice of what is now called mysticism was referred to by the term contemplatio, c.q. theoria, from contemplatio (Latin; Greek θεωρία, theoria), "looking at", "gazing at", "being aware of" God or the Divine.