He had written to me about a dinner he had had with the Benedictine monks at St. Anselm's Priory in Washington.

Mahayana had gods, and magic, a pantheon, heavens and hells, and gorgeously appareled priests, monks, and nuns, all of whom wielded power over souls in the other world.

The hermit also claimed he had heard the demons complaining of the efficacy of the prayers of the faithful, and especially the monks of Cluny, in rescuing their victims.

Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him.

Of course, they always and everywhere had the power of admitting their own monks and vesting them with the religious habit.

Popes and sovereigns gradually encroached on the rights of the monks, until in Italy the pope had usurped the nomination of all abbots, and the king in France, with the exception of Cluny, Premontré and other houses, chiefs of their order.

This permission opening the door to luxurious living, the council of Aachen, AD 817, decreed that the abbot should dine in the refectory, and be content with the ordinary fare of the monks, unless he had to entertain a guest.

The Danish attacks had been particularly damaging to the monasteries, and though Alfred founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, the first new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth century, and enticed foreign monks to England, monasticism did not revive significantly during his reign.

When at last successful, he was excommunicated by Pope Callixtus II for having expelled the monks of Saint-Gilles, who had aided his enemies.

Since the beginnings of the Buddhist community, monks and nuns have had to commit themselves to Five Precepts of moral conduct.

During the following centuries the monks from this monastery had an influencing effect on Portuguese culture.

The Life of Ceolfrith, written in about 710, records that only two surviving monks were capable of singing the full offices ; one was Ceolfrith and the other a young boy, who according to the anonymous writer had been taught by Ceolfrith and was " now a priest of the same monastery ".

According to Jocelin of Brakelond, in 1198 during a fire at the abbey of St Edmundsbury ( now Bury St Edmunds ), the monks ' ran to the clock ' to fetch water, indicating that their water clock had a reservoir large enough to help extinguish the occasional fire.

Even the Church and hereditary clergy had become highly hierarchical, and the holders of benefices, the canons and the monks were under scandalous aspersions and mutual repulsion.

These monks ' violence had already been used, 15 years before, by Theophilus ( Cyril's uncle ) against the " Tall Brothers "; furthermore, it is said that Cyril had spent five years among them in ascetic training.

The alphabet, first described completely by Spanish monks, was adopted by the Abbé de l ' Épée's deaf school in Paris in the 18th century, and was then spread to deaf communities around the world in the 19th and 20th centuries via educators who had learned it in Paris.

By the 9th century Taoist monks or alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality had serendipitously stumbled upon gunpowder.

The study of modern languages has been greatly influenced by the grammar of these languages, seeing that the early grammarians, often monks, had no other reference point to describe their language.

Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction as a public institution: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds ( down from 54, 000 in 1917 ), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed.

The serious blunder that he had made at the beginning by abetting a severe persecution of the Monophysite bishops and monks and thereby embittering the population of vast regions and provinces, he remedied eventually.

Theophilus had disciplined four Egyptian monks ( known as " the Tall Brothers ") over their support of Origen's teachings.

He returned to Lutterworth, and sent out tracts against the monks and Urban VI, since the latter, contrary to the hopes of Wycliffe, had not turned out to be a reforming pope.

The degree to which these principles are practiced is different for householders and monks.

When abbots dined in their own private hall, the Rule of St Benedict charged them to invite their monks to their table, provided there was room, on which occasions the guests were to abstain from quarrels, slanderous talk and idle gossiping.

Once he has received this blessing, the abbot not only becomes father of his monks in a spiritual sense, but their major superior under canon law, and has the additional authority to confer the ministries of acolyte and lector ( formerly, he could confer the minor orders, which are not sacraments, that these ministries have replaced ).

" This title hails back to England's separation from the See of Rome, when King Henry, as supreme head of the newly independent church, took over all of the monasteries, mainly for their possessions, except for St. Benet, which he spared because the abbot and his monks possessed no wealth, and lived like simple beggars, disposing the incumbent Bishop of Norwich and seating the abbot in his place, thus the dual title still held to this day.

The kindness of some monks supplied him with his first workshop, which was the vacant cell of a monastery.

During this period, he established contacts with the hermits and monks of the desert, including Pachomius, which would be very valuable to him over the years.

He is regarded as the " first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks ", however, and there are monastic communities of the Maronite, Chaldean, and Orthodox churches which state that they follow his monastic rule.

The monks who originally brewed doppelbock named their beer " Salvator " (" Savior "), which today is trademarked by Paulaner.

While the precepts for monks and nuns differ somewhat depending on which tradition one has ordained in ( Tibetan, Thai Theravadan, etc.

Dr K. K. Shah said " Fasting is a method of curing the meditation of mind and body which has been proved by great jain monks, sanyasis and munis of ancient times.

When monks and nuns who follow the Theravadan way feed themselves by alms, they must eat leftover foods which are given to them, including meat.

) The exception to this alms rule is when monks and nuns have seen, heard or known that animal ( s ) have been specifically killed to feed the alms-seeker, in which case consumption of such meat would be karmically negative.

Some of these Buddhist vegetarian chefs are in the many monasteries which serve wu hun and mock-meat ( also known as ' meat analogues ') dishes to the monks and visitors ( including non-Buddhists who often stay for a few hours or days, to Buddhists who are not monks, but staying overnight for anywhere up to weeks or months ).

He directed another epistle to Pope Boniface IV, in which he prays that, if it be not contrary to the Faith, he confirm the tradition of his elders, so that by the papal decision ( judicium ) he and his monks may be enabled to follow the rites of their ancestors.

Among his principal miracles are: ( 1 ) procuring of food for a sick monk and curing the wife of his benefactor ; ( 2 ) escape from hurt when surrounded by wolves ; ( 3 ) obedience of a bear which evacuated a cave at his biddings ; ( 4 ) producing a spring of water near his cave ; ( 5 ) repletion of the Luxeuil granary when empty ; ( 6 ) multiplication of bread and beer for his community ; ( 7 ) curing of the sick monks, who rose from their beds at his request to reap the harvest ; ( 8 ) giving sight to a blind man at Orleans ; ( 9 ) taming a bear, and yoking it to a plough.

The habit of the monks consisted of a tunic of undyed wool, over which was worn the cuculla, or cowl, of the same material.

Celibacy is required of monastics — monks, nuns and friars — even in a rare system of double cloisters, in which husbands could enter the ( men's ) monastery while their wives entered a ( women's ) sister monastery.

Although the Digambara followers of Jainism are celibate monks, most Jains belong to the Shvetambara sect, which allows spouses and children.

The Five Precepts of the Daoist religion include No Sexual Misconduct, which is interpreted as prohibiting extramarital sex for lay practitioners and marriage or sexual intercourse for monks and nuns.

Born into a family of relatively low status, his parents sent him to be educated by the monks of Fulda-one of the most impressive centres of learning in the Frank lands-perhaps due to his small stature ( Einhard referred to himself as a " tiny manlet ") which restricted his riding and sword-fighting ability, Einhard concentrated his energies towards scholarship and especially to the mastering of Latin.

Many religions popular in ethnic regions of the Soviet Union, including the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism underwent ordeals similar to that which the Orthodox churches in other parts of the country suffered: thousands of monks were persecuted, and hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, sacred monuments, monasteries and other religious buildings were razed.

There were a number of monasteries in and around the town, including a Benedectine monastery after which the Barfussgässchen ( Barefoot Alley ) is named and a monastery of Irish monks near the present day Ranstädter Steinweg ( old Via Regia ).

The monks have long vanished, and the mead's recipe remains a secret of the family which still produces it.

* St. Sabbas the Sanctified organized the monks of the Judean Desert in a monastery close to Bethlehem ( 483 ), now known as Mar Saba, which is considered the mother of all monasteries of the Eastern Orthodox churches.