A total of dedicated monk in any religion has waxed & waned due to numerous factors. There keep close at hand been Christian monasteries like "The Cappadocian Caves" that keep close at hand home upwards of 50,000 monks, or even St Pantelaimons on the "Holy Mountain" around Greece, which had 30,000 in its blossom. Now victims statistics stand dwindled well. Presently a monasteries containing a battalion come Buddhist: Drepung Monastery in Tibet housed around 15,000 monks before a Chinese invasion. in a area of todays world its resettled monastery in India houses around 8,000 - about 5 days the todays conventual people of the entire Holy place Mountain.

But then, there come people among conventual leaders that come critical of monasteries that are overlarge. Such turn into institutions & lose that intensity of spiritual step by step videos that might better exist as handled whilst an elder has merely Ii or even Tierce adherent. There are on a Holy Mountain areas like the Skete of St Anne, which can be considered a single breathe however is in point of fact numerous little "Sketes" (monastical houses containing of these elder & Deuce or even Trine adherent) world health organization close inside 1 church for services.

the communal life of a monastery is known as cenobitic, as opposed to the anchoretic (or hermitic) life of an hermit.

Etymology
A word monastery comes from either a Greek "monasterion", from a root "monos" = 1, or even alone (originally totally Christian monks were hermits).

Within England a word monasterium was as well applied to a habitation of a bishop & the cathedral clergy world health organization lived apart from either the lay community. So around English-language usage, cathedrals, which were never monasteries, developed list like York Minster, and abbeys can also exist as termed "minster" like Westminster Abbey. Watch a entry cathedral.

For the discussion of the history & development of monasteries watch monasticism and abbey.

Christian monasteries
Christian monasticism began within Egypt. Based on data from tradition, St. Anthony was the first Christian to adopt this lifestyle. Fallowing the short spell others followed. Originally, entirely Christian monks were hermit (hermits) rarely encountering more population. However because of the extreme difficulty of the solitary life, numerous monks failed, either giving to their last spends in the city, or even becoming spiritually deluded.

The transitional form of monasticism was late created by Saint Amun in which “solitary� monks lived close enough to 1 an additional to offer reciprocal trend lines likewise when gathering together in Sundays for most common services.

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

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

The idea caught on, and other places followed: 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.

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 Augustinian friars Benedictine monks ('The Black Monks'), founded by St. Benedict, stresses manual labor in a self-subsistent monastery. See Clunian Reforms. Bridgettine sisters Carmelite friars ('The White Friars'), Contemplative Order Carthusian monks Celestines Cistercian monks ('The White Monks') Cluniac monks 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. Franciscan friars ('The Grey Friars'/'Friarhellos Minor'), another Mendicant order, they were charged with preaching to the poor. Gilbertine Poor Clares Premonstratensian canons ('The White Canons') Tironensian monks ('The Grey Monks') Trinitarians ('The Red Friars') Trappist Redemptorist Christian Brothers Valliscaulian monks Visitation Sisters Knights Templar Knights Hospitaller

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.

Famous Catholic monasteries include:

Glendalough Monte Cassino Melk Abbey Buckfast Abbey

Famous dissolved monasteries:

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.

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.

The leading monasteries of the Holy Mountain are:

[http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/great_lavra.html Great Lavra] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/vatopedi.html Vatopedi] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/iveron.html Iveron] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/chelandari.html Chelandari] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/dionysiou.html Dionysiou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/koutloumousiou.html Koutloumousiou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/pantokrator.html Pantokrator] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/xeropotamou.html Xeropotamou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/zographou.html Zographou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/docheiariou.html Docheiariou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/karakallou.html Karakallou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/simonos_petra.html Simonos Petra] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/Saint_paul.html St. Paul] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/stavronikita.html Stavronikita] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/xenophontos.html Xenophontos] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/gregoriou.html Gregoriou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/panteleimonos.html St. Panteleimon] (Russian) [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/esphigmenou.html Esphigmenou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/philotheou.html Philotheou] [http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/Athos/Monastery/konstamonitou.html Konstamonitou]

Other famous Orthodox monasteries include:

[http://www.culture.gr/2/21/212/21207a/e212ga02.html 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

Buddhist monasteries
Buddhist monasteries, known as vihara, emerged from the practice of vassa, the retreat undertaken by Buddhist monks and nuns during the South Asian rainy season. In order to prevent wandering monks from disturbing new plant growth or becoming stranded in inclement weather, Buddhist monks and nuns were instructed to remain in a fixed location for the roughly three month period typically beginning in mid-July. Outside of the vassa period, monks and nuns both lived a migratory existence, wandering from town to town begging for food. These early fixed vassa retreats were held in pavilions and parks that had been donated to the sangha by wealthy supporters. Over the years, the custom of staying on property held in common by the sangha as a whole during the vassa retreat evolved into a more cenobitic lifestyle, in which monks and nuns resided year round in monasteries. In India, Buddhist monasteries gradually developed into centers of learning where philosophical principles were developed and debated; this tradition is currently preserved by monastic universities of Vajrayana Buddhists, as well as religious schools and universities founded by religious orders across the Buddhist world. In modern times, living a settled life in a monastery setting has become the most common lifestyle for Buddhist monks and nuns across the globe.

Whereas early monasteries are considered to have been held in common by the entire sangha, in later years this tradition diverged in a number of countries. Despite vinaya prohibitions on possessing wealth, many monasteries became large land owners, much like monasteries in Medievil Christian Europe. In China, peasant families worked monastic-owned land in exchange for paying a portion of their yearly crop to the monks resident in the monastery, just as they would to a feudal landlord. In Sri Lanka and Tibet, the ownership of a monastery often became vested in a single monk, who would often keep the property within the family by passing it on to a nephew who ordained as a monk. In Japan, where civil authorities required Buddhist monks to marry, being the head of a temple or monastery sometimes became a hereditary position, passed from father to son over many generations.

Forest monasteries- most commonly found in the Theravada traditions of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka- are monasteries dedicated primarily to the study of Buddhist meditation, rather than scholarship or ceremonial duties. Forest monasteries often function like early Christian monasteries, with small groups of monks living an essentially hermit-like life gathered loosely around a respected elder teacher. While the wandering lifestyle practiced by the Buddha and his disciples continues to be the ideal model for forest tradition monks in Thailand and elsewhere, practical concerns- including shrinking wilderness areas, lack of access to lay supporters, dangerous wildlife, and dangerous border conflicts- dictate that more and more 'meditation' monks live in monasteries, rather than wandering.

Tibetan Buddhist monasteries are sometimes known as lamaseries and the monks are sometimes known as lamas.

Nalanda, India Shaolin, China Donglin Temple, China Tengboche, Nepal