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The Desert Fathers, Hermits, and Monks

“A monk does not just study dogmas; he lives by them.  When he reads the Holy Scripture or the patristic writings, he is not doing it to gain knowledge but to learn a language of ineffable words with which God speaks through one’s prayer.” -An Athonite Elder

“Cenobites are those who live in monasteries and serve under a rule and an Abbot. Anchorites or Hermits: those who, no longer in the first fervor of their reformation, but after long probation in a monastery, having learned by the help of many brethren how to fight against the devil, go out well armed from the ranks of the community to the solitary combat of the desert.  They are able now,  with no help save from God, to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh and their own evil thoughts.” -Rule of Saint Benedict, Ch. 1 – Kinds of Monks


Saint Anthony the Great (of the Desert)

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Saint Paul the First Hermit

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Pachomius

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Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis

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Isaias the Abbot

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Orsisius

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Theodorus the Abbot

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Saint Benedict

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Saint Maurus

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Saint Placidus

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Saint Martin of Tours

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