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Coptic monasticism was a movement in the Coptic Orthodox Church to create a holy, separate class of person from layman Christians.
It is said to be the original form of monasticism. as Anthony the Great became the first one to be called "monk" (Ancient Greek: μοναχός) and he was the first to establish a Christian monastery which is now known as the Monastery of Saint Anthony[1] at the base of Mount Colzim.
The Monastery of Saint Anthony is the oldest Christian monastery in the world. (It is not the oldest monastery because vihāras for Buddhist monasticism were established by 500 BCE, many hundreds of years earlier.[2]
Although Anthony's way of life was focused on solitarity, Pachomius the Great, a Copt from Upper Egypt, established cenobitic monasticism[1] in his monasteries in Upper Egypt, which laid the basic monastic structure for many of the monasteries today in many monastic orders even outside of Coptic Orthodoxy.
- ^ a b "Monasticism in Egypt by Pope Shenouda". Archived from the original on 2009-10-22. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
- ^ Winters, Dennis A. (1988). "The First Buddhist Monasteries". The Tibet Journal. 13 (2): 12–22. Retrieved 10 January 2021.