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Monasteries thrived and it was a popular choice a man to become a monk, devoting his energy and his life to the Christian religion.
According to Orthodox belief, a Christian's ultimate goal is theosis, a Greek word meaning "becoming God." This is the belief that God became man so that man might become God. Christ was considered by the church to be both fully divine and fully human.
In the 4th century, Justinian builds a monastery dedicated to the Virgin on Mount Sinai; in the ninth century it is renamed for Saint Catherine.
In the Byzantine Empire, monasteries were often combined with hospitals. Christian doctors, understanding the unity of body and soul, as pointed out by the words and miracles of Christ, often sent patients for whom nothing more could be done medically to the monks for spiritual treatment. Confessing their sins to the spiritual fathers or mothers of the monastery, often located in the same building or on the same property as the hospital, and accepting anointing, many of these hopeless cases quickly recovered. Those who did not were assisted in preparing to die a truly Christian death.
According to Orthodox belief, a Christian's ultimate goal is theosis, a Greek word meaning "becoming God." This is the belief that God became man so that man might become God. Christ was considered by the church to be both fully divine and fully human.
In the cities, monasteries administered orphanages, craft schools, poor houses, rest homes, and hospitals. In the countryside, monasteries functioned as agricultural communes. Mount Athos in northeastern Greece was the international center of Orthodox monasticism by the eleventh century.
In the cities, monasteries administered orphanages, craft schools, poor houses, rest homes, and hospitals. In the countryside, monasteries functioned as agricultural communes. Mount Athos in northeastern Greece was the international center of Orthodox monasticism by the eleventh century.
All the same, the state of monasticism in the first half of the 9th century was not good. Most of the monks were still hermits, living in improvised huts, eating the fruits of wild trees, and suffering the effects of frequent pirate raids. This situation changed with the arrival of St Athansios the Athonite.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Athos became one of the most important monastic centres in the Byzantine Empire. Many monasteries were founded and the Byzantine emperors issued chrysobulls and sigillia granting them numerous privileges and vast tracts of farmland. At the time when the monastic communities in Asia Minor were being wiped out by Seljuk Turk raids, on Athos the coenobia were flourishing and their landed property was constantly increasing, as was their influence. The tradition of the ascetic hermits also remained very much alive.
Of the 300 monasteries on Athos at the beginning of the 14th century, only 35 were left by the end. In the middle of the century, however, Macedonia came into the hands of the Serbian ruler Stefan Dushan, who visited Mount Athos and gave many of the monasteries his financial support. New monasteries were founded, churches and refectories were frescoed, and the quality of monastic life improved, owing to the emergence of the Hesychast movement.
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