Excellent article from pravoslavie.ru…

The Obnora Road. A Historical EssayOld Russian monasticism was a clear manifestation of the morality of Russian secular society: the yearning for departure from the secular world was growing along with the rise of moral standards and not because of increasing calamities. It means that Russian monasticism was renouncing the world for the sake of ideals too high for it, and not for the sake of principles hostile to it. —V. Klyuchevsky