Monasticism, from the greek words mònos (one) and oikìa (home), is a religious phenomenon characterised by the voluntary decision to abandon every single kind of social interaction to devote entirely to the contemplative life as a persistent search of God and a corporal mortification. One of the key elements of the monastic life was the lecture and the memorisation of many traits of the Holy Scriptures.
Many eastern monks started to emigrate from the Byzantine Empire and went to Sicily, Calabria, Lucania and Campania in the first half of the VI century, because of the Slavic invasions in the Corinth gulf and then moved from Syria, Libya and Egypt because of the first Arabic invasions and in the VIII century, after the crisis and terrible iconoclastic persecutions triggered, in the 726, by the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian and, in 754, by his son Constantine V.
The word “Typikon” (in greek τυπικόν plural τυπικα typika), in orthodox churches and Christian churches, is used to indicate the overall habits and rules of a monastery made by the founder that every monk must follow during daily activities.
The Arabic conquest of Sicily is considered as a crucial phase of the decline of eastern monasticism because of the downfall of many monasteries, abandoned by Byzantine monks to flee the island and search for refuge on the Continent.
