hermit

Person living in seclusion, generally practising asceticism for religious reasons.

The Christian monastic movement developed as a way of organizing into communities the ascetic hermits living in the deserts of Egypt and the Middle East.

Christian hermits first became numerous in Egypt and adjacent lands towards the end of the 3rd century. The popularity of the eremitical life increased rapidly, especially during the period that saw the disintegration of the Roman Empire. The hermits observed no uniform rule of life; while some lived in isolation, others were united in loosely organized communities, which sometimes formed the nucleus of a monastery or a new religious order. Hermits often practised extremes of mortification (such as the stylites, who lived on top of pillars).

The Orthodox church has an unbroken tradition of hermits. In the West they disappeared almost completely after the Counter-Reformation, but the value of the eremitical lifestyle began to be re-asserted in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

While the term is usually used in a Christian context, a solitary lifestyle for religious reasons is common in several faiths. In both Hinduism and Buddhism, a solitary retreat for meditation is common as one stage in the religious life. Judaism and Islam, however, lay more stress on community as the heart of religious life, and do not encourage the life of a hermit.