Laura
LAURA
In church history, a name given to a collection of little cells at some distance from each other, in which the hermits of ancient times lived together in a wilderness. These hermits did not live in community, but each monk provided for himself in his distinct cell. the most celebrated lauras mentioned in ecclesiastical history were in Palestine; as the laura of St. Euthymus, St. Saba, the laura of the towers, &c.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
laura
(Greek: a passage, alley, avenue, or street; later a set of shops along a street, hence a bazaar)
In the ecclesiastical sense, a series of streets of hermitages clustered around a monastery and the type of life lived by the monks in a laura. In the first usage the term was applied to a section of Palestine where the hermitages founded by Chariton and Sabas were connected with a church. Later the term was applied to the section or quarter of a town in the immediate vicinity of a church or monastery . The type of monastic life followed in the lauras might be called quasi-eremitical or quasi-cenobitic. The monk lived in his own cell and reported at the monastery at stated times for certain community duties. Hence the life partook both of the cenobitic and eremitical. While the laura, and the type of life led there is little in evidence after the 10th century, still as late as 1927, Monsignor d’Herbigny saw several lauras of Oriental monks on the O Holy Mount of Athos.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Laura
The Greek word laura is employed by writers from the end of the fifth century to distinguish the monasteries of Palestine of the semi-eremitical type. The word signifies a narrow way or passage, and in later times the quarter of a town. We find it used in Alexandria for the different portions of the city grouped around the principal churches; and this latter sense of the word is in conformity with what we know of the Palestine laura, which was a group of hermitages surrounding a church.
Although the term laura has been almost exclusively used with regard to Palestine, the type of monastery which it designated existed, not only there, but in Syria and Mesopotamia; in Gaul; in Italy; and among the Celtic monks. The type of life led therein might be described as something midway between purely eremitical inaugurated by St. Paul the first hermit- and purely cenobitical life. The monk lived alone though depended on a superior, and was bound only to the common life on Saturdays and Sundays, when all met in church for the solemn Eucharistic Liturgy. This central church was the origin of what was afterwards called the coenobium or house of the imperfect, or of “children”. There the future solitary was to pass the time of his probation, and to it he might have to return if he had not the strength for the full rigour of the solitary life. The laura of palestine were originated by St. Chariton, who died about 350. He founded the laura of Pharan, to the northeast of Jerusalem and that of Douka, northeast of Jericho. But most of the lauras in the vicinity of Jerusalem owed their existence to a Cappadocian named Sabas. In 483 he founded the monastery which still bears his name, Mar Saba. It stands on the west bank of Cedron and was once known as the Great Laura. We know that in 814 the Laura of Pharan was still flourishing, and it appears that on Mount Athos this type of life was followed till late in the tenth century. It gave way, however, to the cenobitic, and no monastery now extant can be said really to resemble the ancient lauras.
———————————–
R. URBAN BUTTER Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas Dedicated to Mrs. Bet Hannagan
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Laura
(collection of anchorites’ cells), a name given by Church historians to collections of cells, the habitations of hermits or monastics of the early days of the Church, but incorrectly used as a synonyme of monasterium, from which it greatly differs, inasmuch as the inmates of the latter were coenobites, and held intercourse with each other, while those of the former lived apart, in seclusion. The holy tenants of a laura passed in solitude and silence five days in a week; their food was bread, water, and dates; on Saturday and Sunday they received the sacrament, and messed together on broth and a small allowance of wine. Bingham states that when many of the cells of anchorets were placed together in the same wilderness, at some distance from one another, they were all called by one common name, laura, which, as Evagrius informs us (1:21), differed from a coenobium in this, that a laura was many cells divided from each other, where every monk provided for himself; but a cenobium was but one habitation, where the monks lived in society, and had everything in common. Epiphanius (Hoeres. 69, 1) says Laura, or Labra, was the name of a street or district where a church stood in Alexandria; and it is probable that from this the name was taken to signify a multitude of cells in the willerness, united, as it were, in a certain district, yet so divided as to make up many separate habitations. The most celebrated lauras were established in the East, especially in Palestine, as the laura of St. Euthymus, St. Saba, the laura of the towers, etc. SEE MONACHISM; SEE MONASTERY.