HOLY

A term, properly speaking, applied to the different ranks of ecclesiastical persons; but, in ordinary language, used to indicate the character of such persons. The Roman Catholic church admits of seven orders: four minor, secular, or petty, of doorkeeper, exorcist, reader, and acolyth; three major, of deacon, priest, and bishop. The first are mere formalities, and generally conferred on the same day; the admi ion to the latter constitutes the sixth sacrament of Romanism: the Reformed churches acknowledge only the three latter orders. (See Episcopacy.) The Greek church rejects the four minor, but has the additional one of sub-deacon. See Ordination. ORDERS, RELIGIOUS, are of three kinds; 1. Monastic, 2. MilitM-y, 3. Mendicant. 1. The Monastic orders were distinguished by the rules to which they were subjected by their respective founders. Of these the principal are the Basilian, the Benedictine, and the August in i an. i. The earliest comprehension of a number of conven tual societies under one rule was effected by St. Basil, archbishop of Caesarea, in Asia Minor, who united the hermits and cenobites already established in his diocese, and prescribed an uniform constitution for them, in which he strongly recommended the obligation of avow upon admi ion. This recommendation was a novelty in the monastic system, which had existed up to that time (a. d. 370.) without any such imposition. This institution prevailed throughout the eastern districts of Christen dom, and has subsisted in the Greek church up to the present time with little variation. H. In the West, the first order of monks was founded by Benedict of Nursia (a. d. 529). He conceived that the ends of monastic seclusion might be better attained by a milder discipline, uniformly imposed, than by the fanatical and arbitrary austerities of many of the European communities. While other reformers of the monkish system have aimed at repairing its laxity and degeneracy by the infusion of greater strictne and severity, he alone seems to have adopted a contrary course, and to have provided for the attainment of more real excellence by the imposition of milder obligations. He insisted, moreover, very strongly, upon the duties of manual labour and reading, as well as of prayer; and gave, as was the custom with other founders, minute directions for the employment of the day. This rule was revised three centuries later by another Benedict, a native of Ariane, in the south of France. From this remodelled system, which was more severe than its predece or, and was soon adopted throughout the Benedictine monasteries, already exceedingly numerous, arose various branches, all more or le famous in ecclesiastical history. The ord^r of Cluni, the Cistercians, the Chartreux, the Camaldulenses, Prsemonstratenses, . are distinct off-shoots from this main trunk, 313 [s. 866]