The cenobitic tradition is a monastic tradition that stresses community life. Often the community belongs to a religious order and the life of the cenobitic monk is regulated by rules. The opposite, to live as a hermit, is called eremetic. A monastery is the habitation of monks, derived from the Greek word for a hermits cell. ... A religious order is an organization of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with religious devotion. ... A hermit, also known as an anchorite or anchoress, is a person living in voluntary seclusion, often for religious reasons. ...

Cenobite and cenobitic are derived, via Latin from the Greek words κοινός and βίος (koinos and bios meaning "common" and "life"). The adjective is κοινοβιακόν in Greek. The group of monks is often referred to as a 'cenobium'. Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

Cenobitic monasticism exists in various religions, though Buddhist and Christian cenobitic monasticism are the most prominent. A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... As a noun, Christian is an appellation and moniker deriving from the appellation Christ, which many people associate exclusively with Jesus of Nazareth. ...

Christian cenobitic monasticism started in Egypt. Originally, all Christian monks were hermits, and especially in the Middle East, this continued to be very common until the decline of Syrian Christianity in the Late Middle Ages. But not everybody is fit for solitary life, and numerous cases of hermits losing their emotional stability are reported. A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Dante by Michelino The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe European history in the period of the 14th and 15th centuries (1300–1500 CE). ...

The need for some form of organized spiritual guidance was obvious, and around 300 St. Anthony started to organize his many followers in what was to become the first Christian monastery. Soon the Egyptian desert abounded with similar institutions. For other uses, see number 300. ... Saint Anthony the Great, Father of all Monks Saint Anthony the Great (251 - 356), Christian saint, also known as Saint Anthony of Egypt, Saint Anthony of the Desert, Saint Anthony the Anchorite, and The Father of All Monks was a leader among the Desert Fathers, who were Christian monks in...

The idea caught on, and other places followed:

• Mar Awgin 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.

• Mar Saba organized the monks of the Judean Desert in a monastery close to Bethlehem (483), and this is considered the mother of all monasteries 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.

• St. Bruno of Carthusia, prompted by the spectre of the damnation of the Good Doctor of Paris Cenodoxus founded a monastery just outside of Paris in the 11th Century.