Religious order (Catholic)

Uncommon card · No. 89105

In the Catholic Church, a religious order is a community of consecrated life with members who profess solemn vows. They are classed as a type of religious institute. Subcategories of religious orders are: canons regular (canons and canonesses regular who recite the Divine Office and serve a church and perhaps a parish); clerics regular (priests who take religious vows and have an active apostolic life); mendicants (friars and religious sisters, possibly living and working in a friary or a convent, who live from alms, recite the Divine Office, and, in the case of the men, participate in apostolic activities); and monastics (monks and nuns living and working in a monastery or a nunnery and reciting the Divine Office). Catholic religious orders began as early as the 500s, with the Order of Saint Benedict being formed in 529. The earliest orders include the Cistercians (1098), the Premonstratensians (1120), the Poor Clares founded by Francis of Assisi (1212), and the Benedictine reform movements...

Read on Wikipedia · Image El Greco, Public domain