Mount Athos has been exercising its magnetic attraction on monks and pilgrims for over a thousand years. Many of the papers collected here are concerned with aspects of pilgrimage to Athos and the effect that a visit to the Mountain has on pilgrims' lives.

This book looks at Eastern and Western monasticism’s continuous and intensive interactions with society in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Former Soviet Republics. It discusses the role monastics played in fostering national identities, as well as the potentiality of monasteries and religious orders to be vehicles of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue within and beyond national boundaries. Using a country-specific analysis, the book highlights the monastic tradition and monastic establishments. It addresses gaps in the academic study of religion in Eastern European and Russian historiography and looks at the role of monasticism as a cultural and national identity forming determinant in the region.

This volume includes seventeen essays on Byzantine monasticism, focusing on the 9th to 15th centuries. Envisaged as a companion Variorum volume to Talbot's Women and Religious Life in Byzantium (2001), this compendium complements its predecessor by focusing more attention on male monasteries, hermits and holy mountains, while offering some pioneering studies of female patrons, rural nuns, and the links of many Byzantine women to Mount Athos. The volume also complements Talbot's 2019 monograph, Varieties of Monastic Experience in Byzantium, 800-1453, by offering detailed analyses of topics that could only be briefly addressed in that book. Introductory essays include an overview of the historical development of Byzantine monasteries and holy mountains, emphasising the intertwining of monasticism with urban and rural society. Subsequent essays explore the regimen at coenobitic monasteries, while paying considerable attention to the less well-known lifestyles of hermits, especially those on holy mountains. Other topics include monastery gardens and horticulture; the culture of the refectory; challenges for adolescent novices; factors influencing the choice of a monastery’s foundation site; female patronage of monastery construction and restoration; the conversion of monasteries from male to female and vice-versa; rules regarding personal poverty for monastics; and the choice of a monastic name.

Uniquely authoritative and wide-ranging in its scope, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church is the indispensable reference work on all aspects of the Christian Church. It contains over 6,500 cross-referenced A-Z entries, and offers unrivalled coverage of all aspects of this vast and often complex subject, from theology; churches and denominations; patristic scholarship; and the bible; to the church calendar and its organization; popes; archbishops; other church leaders; saints; and mystics. In this new edition, great efforts have been made to increase and strengthen coverage of non-Anglican denominations (for example non-Western European Christianity), as well as broadening the focus on Christianity and the history of churches in areas beyond Western Europe. In particular, there have been extensive additions with regards to the Christian Church in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, and Australasia. Significant updates have also been included on topics such as liturgy, Canon Law, recent international developments, non-Anglican missionary activity, and the increasingly important area of moral and pastoral theology, among many others. Since its first appearance in 1957, the ODCC has established itself as an essential resource for ordinands, clergy, and members of religious orders, and an invaluable tool for academics, teachers, and students of church history and theology, as well as for the general reader.

Explores the role played by Athos in the spread of Orthodoxy and Orthodox monasticism throughout Eastern Europe and beyond.

Numerous laypersons have experienced that the guidelines of Saint Benedict's Rule offer inspiring and realistic ways toward a blessed life, aiming at the growth and flourishing of persons and communities in which they live and work. As in his previous and successful book, The Rule of Benedict for Beginners,Will Derkse in this sequel is searching for those basic attitudes and virtues that characterize Benedictine spirituality, making them available for those living and working outside a monastery. The cultivation of silence and restrained speech; the dedication to work and study; the importance of humility (which is the courage to serve); the cultivation of hospitality, care, and stewardship; mutual respect and taking care of speaking good words these are the book's main topics. All these attitudes are boundary conditions for a life on which God's blessing is resting. Will Derkse is married and a father of two adult daughters. He is an oblate with the Benedictine St. Willibrord's Abbey in Doetinchem, The Netherlands. He has degrees in chemistry and philosophy and has taught at several institutions of secondary and higher education. Since 2001, he is a director responsible for the Soeterbeeck Program for Science, Society, and Worldviews at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, where he also holds the Andreas van Melsen Chair.