Christian monasticism started in the east of the Egyptian desert of Nitria, by the western bank of Nile, with Abba Ammoun (+356) as its founder, and one in the desert of Skete, south of Nitria, with Saint Makarios of Egypt (+330) as its founder. Following the official recognition by the Roman Emperor Constantine in A.D. 335 with the edict of Milan (A.D. 313), there arose the danger which has not, with the passage of time, become less, that men might confuse the earthly kingdom with the Heavenly one. It was then, as it is now, the monks who kept the concept alive that the Kingdom of God is not of this world. Men and women too, fearing that the lure confort and security would divert them form their search for unity with God, left all behind and made their way into the desert, at the beginning singly, then in loosely formed groups. The leadership of monasticism shifted to Palestine where it flourished under Saint Euthymius the Great (+472) and especially under the discipline of Saint Sabas (+532) who greatly influenced the monastic rule, and at the end of the eight century to Constantinople where Saint Theodore was Abbot of the great and influential monastery of Studium, founded in 463. To this age belongs the monastery Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai, founded by Emperor Justinian by A.D. 560, which is still use and harbours a great treasure in manuscripts and holy icons that have escaped the ravage of the iconoclastic wars. With time developed in all Orthodox countries a rich and distinctive monastic life and each could present important spiritual centers which spread their life over the entire Orthodox world. To mention the foremost are Mount Athos and Patmos in Greece, Tismana and Neamtu in Romania, Lavra of Kiev and Optina in Russia, Ohrida in Serbia.
