Pope Benedict XVI today told members of the Vatican Congregation dedicated to helping consecrated religious that monastic life must challenge the faithful to love God before all else. The Holy Father ...

What happened to the enigmatic Therapeutae, and what was their place in ancient history? The Therapeutae were primarily located near Lake Mareotis, close to Alexandria in Egypt. This city was a ...

Each time I was about to write one of the divine names (YHWH, Elohim), I would pause, gather myself, become intentionally ...

Recently, the German news magazine Der Spiegel ran an article on the decline of religious communities in Germany. It makes for depressing reading, telling of large religious houses with ever-dwindling ...

If Catholics want marriages and the priesthood to be renewed, then we need a vigorous revival of monastic life. ABOVE: The abbot and monks of Holy Resurrection Monastery. BELOW: (1) Bishop David ...

MOUNT ATHOS, Greece — The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls enclose a ...

The monastic alternative, at least in the West, has become so deeply unfashionable that most people no longer consider the possibility, but there is, at least to me, something deeply appealing about ...

In South Korea, the distance between Buddhist monastics and lay devotees tends to reduce as monasteries and temples multiply in urban areas. Even the remote mountain monasteries have broadened their ...

“When a monk gives his life to God, he has to express that in a physical way, not just an intellectual way, and singing involves the whole body and the mind and the soul, and so it’s a wonderful way ...

Sudosa Temple in the countryside beyond Pyeongtaek city affords an opportunity to glimpse enlightenment in a historic setting. Sudosa was built in A.D. 852. According to legend, a Buddhist monk named ...

Archaeologists uncovered a 1,400-year-old cross on Sir Bani Yas Island, linking small houses to a Christian monastic ...

Medieval art historians have frequently and inconclusively sought a "monastic mode," a specific way that monastic art differentiates itself from secular religious art of the period. This article ...