Eastern Christian monasticism

thumb|287px|Roman tonsure (Catholicism) Tonsure () is the practice of cutting or shaving some or all of the hair on the scalp as a sign of religious devotion or humility. The term originates from the Latin word '''' (meaning "clipping" or "shearing") and referred to a specific practice in medieval Catholicism, abandoned by papal order in 1972. Tonsure, in its earliest Greek and Roman origin, was used as a sign or signifier for slavery. Tonsure can also refer to the secular practice of shaving all or part of the scalp to show support or sympathy, or to designate mourning. Current usage more gen

Hegumen, hegumenos, or igumen (, trans. ), is the title for the head of a monastery in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, or an archpriest in the Coptic Orthodox Church, similar to the title of abbot. The head of a convent of nuns is called a hegumenia or igumeni ().

thumb|Icon of Simeon Stylites the Elder with [[Simeon Stylites the Younger. Simeon the Elder appears to be shown at the left stepping down from his pillar in obedience to the monastic elders; the image may also reference a point in his life when, due to an ulcerous leg, he was forced to stand atop his pillar on one leg only.At right is represented Simeon Stylites the Younger (also known as "St. Simeon of the Admirable Mountain").]

promises made by members of religious communities

thumb|Barlaam of Kiev|Barlaam of the [[Kiev Caves Monastery, wearing his monastic habit and priestly epitrachelion]] A hieromonk, also called a priestmonk, is a person who is both monk and priest in the Eastern Christian tradition.

thumb|333px|A Russian monk playing a semantron

The Mechitarists, officially the Benedictine Congregation of the Mechitarists (), is an Armenian Catholic monastic order founded in 1701 by Mekhitar of Sebaste. Members use the postnominal abbreviation CAM.

Italian Roman Catholic territorial abbey

A stauropegion, also spelled stavropegion (from , in turn from σταυρός stauros "cross" and πήγνυμι pegnumi "to affirm"), is a monastery or a parish which depends directly on the primate or on the Holy Synod of a particular Church, and which is not under the jurisdiction of the local bishop. The name comes from the Byzantine tradition of summoning the Patriarch to place a cross at the foundation of stauropegic monasteries or parochial churches.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic monastic order

thumb | right | Melitian manuscript from 1524. The Melitians, sometimes called the Church of the Martyrs, were an early Christian sect in Egypt. They were founded about 306 by Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis and survived as a small group into the eighth century. The point on which they broke with the larger catholic church was the same as that of the contemporary Donatists in the province of Africa: the ease with which lapsed Christians were received back into communion. The resultant division in the church of Egypt is known as the Melitian schism.

7th-century collection of essays on Eastern Orthodox hesychasm and asceticism

thumb|Icon of Saint [[Dimitry of Rostov, wearing a white metropolitan's .]] thumb|Tikhon of Moscow|Saint Tikhon, [[Patriarch of Moscow wearing the patriarchal koukoulion with embroidered white .]]

sect of Basilian faith

7th-century book by John Moschus