The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1989 page)

see INTRODUCTION.

 
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see
BONHOEFFER, DIETRICH
.

 
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Religionsgeschichtliche Schule
(History of Religions School)
.

A method developed originally at Göttingen (hence sometimes called ‘the little Göttingen faculty’) for attempting the study of religions as part of an unfolding historical development. Its main focus was to set the study of early Christianity firmly in the context of Jewish and Hellenistic religion, making it in effect ‘one among many’; but the method was applied to the Old Testament, and eventually, more ambitiously, to a general history of religions.

 
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see
HABIT, RELIGIOUS
.

 
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Religious Orders
.

The organization of groups of men or women living in accordance with a common rule, and owing obedience to a single superior. In W. Christianity such orders are distinct from monastic congregations, which are associations of independent monasteries, although the earliest orders were those of Cluny and Citeaux (the
Cistercians
), groups of monks living a particular interpretation of the Rule of
St Benedict
, who recognized a common abbot general and met in general congregations to determine matters of common policy. Although outside the RC Church religious orders disappeared at the
Reformation
, they were revived to some extent in
Anglicanism
in the 19th cent.
The phrase is also used, by application, for organized communities in other religions, e.g.
tar
qa
among
S
f
s
, sa
prad
ya among Hindus,
sa
gha
among Buddhists.