psalms, fast incredibly; and that is all. Most of them are not priests, and those that are never have the care of souls outside their monastery. That is the business of the bishops and secular clergy. They are monks who have left all that. And they have no distinctions of orders. A monk is just a monk and needs no other name. They all follow the rule of St. Basil,[1] but they are indignant if one calls them Basilians. They do not belong to St. Basil's order, they explain, but St. Basil belonged to theirs. And the object of their life is to be like the Angels; it is the "Angelic life," and their habit is the "Angelic dress." Each monastery (λαῦρα) is independent of all the others—they have no generals, nor provincials. Most lauras, however, are under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan; a few of the greatest are immediately subject to the Patriarch and are called Stauropegia (σταυροπήγιον).[2] Many lauras have daughter-houses subject to their abbot; such a house is called Kellion (κελλίον) or Kalyba (καλύβα), and they are sometimes grouped in a sort of village called a Sketa (σκῆτα).[3] The head of a laura (abbot) is the Hegumenos (ἡγούμενος, leader).[4] He is appointed by the Metropolitan (or Patriarch), after having been elected by the monks, is blessed and enthroned by the same Metropolitan, while the monks cry "Worthy" (ἄξιος); and he then rules for life, unless he be deposed for very scandalous conduct. A Hegumenos is absolute master of his laura and its kellia; but he must govern according to the Canons and St. Basil's rule, and he is generally assisted by a parliament of the elder monks (the Synaxis). The
- ↑ There are a few monasteries that still follow an older rule, called that of St. Antony. Mount Sinai does so, as well as some on Lebanon and by the Red Sea (Silbernagl, p. 46).
- ↑ One laura, Mount Sinai, as we have seen, is independent even of any Patriarch.
- ↑ This is a shortened form of ἀσκητήρια, ἄσκητα. Such a group or village of monks' houses is united by the one church used by all.
- ↑ The Hegumenos of a specially important laura is called an Archimandrite—ἀρχιμανδρίτης, ἄρχων τῆς μάνδρας. Μάνδρα means hurdle, then sheepfold. The name begins about the 5th century. It has often been used as synonymous with ἡγούμενος, and also occurs in the Latin Church (cf. Ducange, s.v.). Silbernagl is wrong in thinking that every priest-monk is an archimandrite (p. 46). Cf. Cabrol: Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (Paris, 1906, in course of publication), s.v., col. 2,739, seq.
