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Those living the monastic life are known by the generic terms monks (men) and nuns (women). The word monk originated from the Greek μοναχός (monachos, 'monk'), itself from μόνος (monos) meaning 'alone'. [1] [2] Christian monks did not live in monasteries at first; rather, they began by living alone as solitaries, as the word monos ...
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ().A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a single building housing only one senior and ...
Members of religious communities may be known as monks or nuns, particularly in those communities which require their members to live permanently in one location; they may be known as friars or sisters, a term used particularly (though not exclusively) by religious orders whose members are more active in the wider community, often living in smaller groups.
Benedictine monks, for instance, have often staffed parishes and been allowed to leave monastery confines. Although the English word nun is often used to describe all Christian women who have joined religious institutes, strictly speaking, women are referred to as nuns only when they live in papal enclosure; otherwise, they are religious ...
Monks or nuns make their vows and commit to a particular community in a particular place. Friars commit to a community spread across a wider geographical area known as a province and so they will typically move around, spending time in different houses of the community within their province.
Monasticism (from Ancient Greek μοναχός (monakhós) 'solitary, monastic'; from μόνος (mónos) 'alone'), also called monachism or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work.
As with monks, there is quite a lot of variation in nuns' dress and social conventions between Buddhist cultures in Asia. Chinese nuns possess the full bhikkuni ordination, Tibetan nuns do not. In Theravada countries it is generally believed that the full ordination lineage of bhikkunis died out, though in many places they wear the "saffron ...
Portrait depicting a Carthusian monk in the Roman Catholic Church (1446) Buddhist monks collecting alms. A monk (/ m ʌ ŋ k /; from Greek: μοναχός, monachos, "single, solitary" via Latin monachus) [1] [2] is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. [3] A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation ...