Editing Religious order (section)

===Catholic tradition===
{{Main article|Religious order (Catholic)}}
{{see also|Institute of consecrated life|Religious institute|Religious sister (Catholic)}}
A religious order in the Catholic Church is a kind of [[religious institute]], a society whose members (referred to as "[[religious (Catholicism)|religious]]") make [[Solemn vow|solemn vows]] that are accepted by a superior in the name of the Church,<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4E.HTM Code of Canon Law, canon 1192 §2]</ref> who wear a [[religious habit]] and who live a life of brothers or sisters in common.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P1Z.HTM Code of Canon Law, canons 607 §2]</ref> Religious orders are to be distinguished from [[religious congregation|religious congregations]], which are religious institutes whose members profess [[Solemn vow#Distinction from simple vows|simple vows]], and from [[Secular institute|secular institutes]], including [[society of apostolic life|societies of apostolic life]] and [[Catholic lay organisations|lay ecclesial movements]]. Unless they are also [[deacon]]s or [[priest]]s in [[Holy Orders]] members of religious orders are not [[clergy]] but [[laity]]. However, particular orders and institutes are classified as either specifically clerical or lay depending on their [[charism]].<ref>cf. [https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__PT.HTM The Code of Canon Law 1983, canon 207]</ref> 

Among the traditional forms of solemnly vowed religious order, there are four key categories:
* [[canons regular]] (canons and [[canoness]]es regular who recite the Divine Office and serve a church and perhaps a parish);
* [[clerics regular]] (priests who take religious vows and have an active apostolic life);
* [[Mendicant orders|mendicants]] ([[friar]]s and [[religious sister]]s, possibly living and working in a [[friary]] or a [[convent]], who live from alms, recite the Divine Office, and, in the case of the men, participate in apostolic activities); and
* [[Christian monasticism#Roman Catholicism|monastics]] ([[monk]]s and [[nun]]s living and working in a [[monastery]] or a [[nunnery]] and reciting the [[Liturgy of the Hours|Divine Office]]).

Religious life began in the [[Latin Church]] as early as the 3rd century, with the [[Order of Saint Benedict]] being formed in the 6th, in 529. All the earliest religious foundations were either essentially monastic or canonical depending on how much weight they placed on [[Enclosed religious orders|monastic enclosure]] or [[pastoral care]] respectively. Initially rules of life tended to vary between communities but gradually by the 10th century the [[Rule of St Benedict]] became the standardised norm among the Latin Church’s monks and nuns while the [[Rule of St Augustine]] was standardised among its canons and canonesses. The earliest orders include the [[Cistercians]] (1098), the  [[Premonstratensians]] (1120), the [[Poor Clares]] founded by [[Francis of Assisi]] (1212), and the Benedictine reform movements of [[Cluniac Reform|Cluny]] (1216). These orders consist entirely of independent abbeys and priories where power rests in the hands of the individual communities and their abbot or abbess, prior or prioress. Their members remain in the same community for life.

[[Image:Francisco de Zurbarán - Fray Pedro Machado - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|160px|[[Francisco de Zurbarán]]'s painting of a [[Mercedarian Order|Mercedarian]] Friar, Fra Pedro Machado]] Later in the 13th century the [[mendicant orders]] like the [[Carmelites]], the [[Order of Friars Minor]], the [[Order of Preachers]], the [[Trinitarian Order|Order of the Most Holy Trinity]] and the [[Order of Saint Augustine]] formed. These Mendicant orders did not hold property for their Religious Communities, instead begging for alms and going where they were needed. Their leadership structure included each member, as opposed to each Abbey or House, as subject to their direct superior. In the 16th century the orders of [[clerics regular]] began to emerge, including such institutes as the [[Society of Jesus]], the [[Theatines]], the [[Barnabites]], the [[Somaschi Fathers|Somascans]]. Most of these groups began to turn away from the common public celebration of the divine office. 

In accordance with the concept of independent communities in the Rule of Saint Benedict, the Benedictines, Cistercians, and [[Trappists]] have autonomous abbeys (so-called "independent houses"). Their members profess "stability" to the abbeys where they make their [[religious vows]]; hence their abbots or abbesses may not move them to other abbeys. An "independent house" may occasionally make a new foundation which remains a "dependent house" (identified by the name "priory") until it is granted independence by Rome and itself becomes an abbey. Each house's autonomy does not prevent it being affiliated into a [[Congregation (group of houses)|congregation]]—whether national or based on some other joint characteristic—and these, in turn, form the supra-national [[Benedictine Confederation]].

Non-monastic religious institutes typically have a motherhouse, generalate, or general curia with jurisdiction over any number of dependent religious communities, whose members may be moved by their superior general to its other communities as the institute's needs require.

Well-known Roman Catholic religious institute include [[Order of Saint Augustine|Augustinians]], [[Order of Saint Basil the Great|Basilians]], [[Benedictines]], [[Bethlehemite Brothers|Bethlehemites]], [[Bridgettines]], [[Camaldolese]], [[Carmelites]], [[Carthusians]], [[Cistercians]], [[Conceptionists]], [[Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross|Crosiers]], [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]], [[Franciscans]], [[Hieronymites]], [[Society of Jesus|Jesuits]], [[Minims (religious order)|Minims]], [[Piarists]], [[Salesians of Don Bosco|Salesians]], [[Olivetans]], [[Theatines]], [[Trappists]] and the [[Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary|Visitandines]].

Several religious orders evolved during the [[Crusades]] to incorporate a military mission becoming "religious [[Military order (religious society)|military orders]]", such as the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem]], the [[Knights Templar|Knights of the Order of the Temple]] and the [[Order of the Holy Sepulchre (Catholic)|Knights of the Holy Sepulchre]].