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.