MOUNT ATHOS, Greece (AP) — Mount Athos, a verdant peninsula in northern Greece, has been a center of Christian Orthodox monasticism for more than 1,000 years. The all-male autonomous community, known ...

In Western Christian monasticism, the abbot was conceived as the supreme authority within the monastery. Under the Rule of St. Benedict, he governed the spiritual, moral and disciplinary life of the ...

Monasticism can also seem strange and confusing. In books, museums, and historical buildings, we often come across terms like ‘Benedictine’ and ‘Cistercian’, or ‘Dominican’ and ‘Jesuit’, without ...

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 ...