noviciate

English Thesaurus

1. the period during which you are a novice (especially in a religious order) (noun.time)

hypernym	:	period, period of time, time period,
definition	:	an amount of time (noun.time)

domain category	:	faith, religion, religious belief,
definition	:	a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny (noun.cognition)