[2] The term is often used interchangeably with religious sisters who do take simple vows[3] but live an active vocation of prayer and charitable work.
In the Catholic tradition, there are many religious institutes of nuns and sisters (the female equivalent of male monks or friars), each with its own charism or special character.
[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 manner.
They were formerly distinguished within the monastic community as "choir nuns", as opposed to lay sisters who performed upkeep of the monastery or errands outside the cloister.
In general, when a woman enters a religious order or monastery she first undergoes a period of testing life for six months to two years called a postulancy.
In other traditions, such as the Poor Clares (the Franciscan Order) and the Dominican nuns, they take the threefold vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
They are usually self-sufficient, earning money by selling jams, candies or baked goods by mail order, or by making liturgical items (such as vestments, candles, or hosts to be consecrated at Mass for Holy Communion).
Over the tunic some nuns wear a scapular which is a garment of long wide piece of woolen cloth worn over the shoulders with an opening for the head.
[23] Nuns and sisters played a major role in American religion, education, nursing and social work since the early 19th century.
Stimulated by the influence in France, the popular religiosity of the Counter Reformation, new orders for women began appearing in the seventeenth century.
In the next three centuries women opened dozens of independent religious orders, funded in part by dowries provided by the parents of young nuns.
[30] King Phillip II acquired the aid of the Hieronymite order to ensure that monasteries abided by the decrees of the Council of Trent.
[33] Typically during early modern Spain many nuns were from elite families who had the means to afford the convent dowry and "maintenance allowances", which were annual fees.
[34] Once an aspiring nun has entered the convent and has the economic means to afford the dowry, she undergoes the process of apprenticeship known as the novitiate period.
In Greek, Russian, and other languages of primarily Christian Orthodox nations, both domiciles are called "monasteries" and the ascetics who live therein are "monastics".
The term for an abbess is the feminine form of abbot (hegumen) – Greek: ἡγουμένη (hegumeni); Serbian: игуманија (igumanija); Russian: игумения (igumenia).
A modern resurgence of the early Christian Deaconess office for women began in Germany in the 1840s and spread through Scandinavia, Britain and the United States, with some elements of the religious life, such as simple vows, and a daily obligation of prayer.
[40] The modern movement reached a zenith about 1910, then slowly declined as secularization undercut religiosity in Europe, and the professionalization of nursing and social work offered better career opportunities for young women.
Monasteries and convents were deprived of their lands and possessions, and monastics were forced to either live a secular life on a pension or flee the country.
Between 1841 and 1855, several religious orders for nuns were founded, among them the Community of St. Mary at Wantage and the Society of Saint Margaret at East Grinstead.
In the United States and Canada, the founding of Anglican religious orders of nuns began in 1845 with the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion (now defunct) in New York.
In Theravada countries it is generally believed that the full ordination lineage of bhikkunis died out, though in many places they wear the "saffron" colored robes, observing only ten precepts like novices.
In Thailand, a country which never had a tradition of fully ordained nuns (bhikkhuni), there developed a separate order of non-ordained female renunciates called mae chi.
There are in Thai Forest Tradition foremost nuns such as Mae Ji Kaew Sianglam, the founder of the Nunnery of Baan Huai Saai, who is believed by some to be enlightened[51] as well as Upasika Kee Nanayon.
[52] At the beginning of the 21st century, some Buddhist women in Thailand have started to introduce the bhikkhuni sangha in their country as well, even if public acceptance is still lacking.
[53] Dhammananda Bhikkhuni,[54] formerly the successful academic scholar Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, established a controversial monastery for the training of Buddhist nuns in Thailand.
Researcher Charles Brewer Jones estimates that from 1951 to 1999, when the Buddhist Association of the ROC organized public ordination, female applicants outnumbered males by about three to one.
She reports that while outsiders did not necessarily regard their vocation as unworthy of respect, they still tended to view the nuns as social misfits.
Cheng reviewed earlier studies which suggest that Taiwan's Zhaijiao tradition has a history of more female participation, and that the economic growth and loosening of family restriction have allowed more women to become nuns.
[57] The August 2007 International Congress on Buddhist Women's Role in the Sangha, with the support of the XIVth Dalai Lama, reinstated the Gelongma (Dharmaguptaka vinaya bhikkhuni) lineage, having been lost, in India and Tibet, for centuries.