The Orthodox & Religious Orders

[Sunflower15]

Do the Orthodox have religious Orders of brothers [friars] and sisters [nuns] as we do in the Catholic Church?

Is there something similar to the Franciscan spirituality? Ecological, pro-animals, nature, social justice as part of their spirituality?

Peace be with all

 

[Volodymyr]

MONKS

Orthodox monks and women-monks belong to monastery which depends upon bishop or possible patriarch (stavropigial monastery).

There are sisterhoods of women monks and non-monk women who have some particular good work such as caring for sick or dying. But even these do are separate in each eparchy, as far as I am aware.

 

[The_Fool]

They do have monastics, as it developed there first from what I understand, but they aren’t religious orders. We picked up monasticism, as well as singing I think, from them. However, one should keep in mind that it developed among different lines than ours. For instance, to the best of my knowledge, a monk, who lives separate from others, cannot be a priest because it is a conflict of duties. Stereotypically they have more monks and hermits than we, in the West, do. They do not have religious orders in the sense that this group is a specific type of monastic (Franciscans, Trappists, Carmelites, etc). If you are wondering how that works, think of it as a group that decides to live simply together, perhaps following someone’s rule or advice, but not being as connected with others in the exclusive sense that a religious order would be. Our religious orders have a head and someone to report to, but I don’t think that’s the case for them, they’re more… localized? Unfortunately, I am only vaguely familiar with them and the above could be utterly incorrect. I thought there might be more responses to this though…

 

[Hesychios]

By way of clarification, Orthodox monks can be priests and bishops.

In fact, they do not cease to be monks when they reach these other offices in the church. Their lay clothing is, in fact, monastic habit.

In the east the monastic houses can be like a parish in relationship to the bishop, really under his authority. The bishop will probably appoint an Archimandrite to oversee them for him, but they are not tied together in any other way (like financially or organizationally).

Previously, monastics were subject to the local bishop in the west as well, or they established themselves in places no hierarchy existed yet. Sometimes during the initial missionary period of Europe, in fact, the local bishop actually was the Abbot of the local monastery.The reason religious orders are not known in the east is that they were developed in the west after the schism. It was part of a general trend subsequent to the Gregorian reformation.

The Benedictines still exhibit many traits of that earlier age. They tend to be very independent from the local bishop but also from each other, their relationship to other houses is cooperative. The Cluniacs and Cistercians, on the other hand, originated like any other Benedictine house, but maintained tight control of daughter houses, thus forming a prototypical order.

As the Papacy began to evolve it started to authorize other types of organizations which could function across diocesan borders. The new orders began to see the bishop of Rome as their primary Patron. In the beginning some local bishops disliked this trend, but they were ultimately replaced by a new breed of bishop, many of whom got their own clerical starts in the orders. This eventually helped centralize control of the church.