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Traditionally, nuns are members of enclosed religious orders and take solemn religious vows, while sisters do not live in the papal enclosure and formerly took vows called "simple vows". [4] As monastics, nuns living within an enclosure historically commit to recitation of the full Divine Office throughout the day in church, usually in a solemn ...
A religious sister (abbreviated: Sr.) [1] [2] in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to prayer and labor, or a canoness regular, who provides a service to the world, either teaching or nursing ...
The members of a religious order for men were called regulars, those belonging to a religious congregation were simply religious, a term that applied also to regulars. For women, those with simple vows were called religious sisters , with the term nun reserved in canon law for those who belonged to an institute of solemn vows, even if in some ...
The number of nuns, also called religious sisters, serving in the United States declined by 80% from 1965 (178,740) to 2023 (35,680) despite the number of Catholics affiliated with a parish ...
Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States have played a major role in American religion, education, nursing and social work since the early 19th century. In Catholic Europe, convents were heavily endowed over the centuries, and were sponsored by the aristocracy.
Members of religious communities may be known as monks or nuns, particularly in those communities which require their members to live permanently in one location; they may be known as friars or sisters, a term used particularly (though not exclusively) by religious orders whose members are more active in the wider community, often living in smaller groups.
The normal monastic color is black, symbolic of repentance and simplicity. The habits of monks and nuns are identical; additionally, nuns wear a scarf, called an apostolnik. The habit is bestowed in degrees, as the monk or nun advances in the spiritual life.
The distinctions between the Christian terms monk, nun, friar, Brother, and Sister are sometimes easily blurred because some orders (such as the Dominicans or Augustinians) include nuns who are enclosed, who are usually grouped as the Second Order of that movement, and religious sisters.