Good for them they stay...

...because that was their mission.

Don't get me wrong: I'm an atheist, but I grew up in a christian way, and that's what I learned from it.
In my opinion, the aim of being a monk is:
first, telling the word of God to people who need it;
second, stay in a place where people need help, hope and love;
third, never abandon them, because that would completely destroy the concept of solidarity, unselfishness, trust, fidelity... all the christian values they should teach to others.

What's the point in escaping to a safer place? Nobody needs a monk in a safe place. Peace is already there. Monks are needed in every place where there is war, destruction, misery, pain, evil. Monks are the soldiers of God, and for that reason, they can't just run away when there is a problem.

Plus, after being abandoned by the monks, one could have thought they're not reliable, that they're hypocrites, cowards, that they don't do what they preach etc etc (all those things haters say about christians...).

Now, they could choose to live, but how? As peaceful men with a job, a family, in a healthy european city, without problems, without fears, without remembering those who needed them in the worse moment of their lives?

I understand that every other person would have chosen otherwise.

But they choose to stay, because that was their life, that was their people and that was their mission. Wasn't it the most right thing to do, knowing the fact that they were actually monks and not regular people?

(sorry for my bad english ^^')