Syrian Monastery
Encyclopedia
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
located in Wadi El Natrun
Wadi El Natrun
Wadi El Natrun is a valley located in Beheira Governorate, Egypt, including a town with the same name. The name refers to the presence of eight different lakes in the region that produce natron salt. In Christian literature, the region is also referred to as the Nitrian Desert...
(the Nitrian Desert), Beheira Governorate
Beheira Governorate
Beheira Governorate is a coastal governorate in Egypt. Located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, its capital is Damanhur.-Overview:Beheira governorate enjoys an important strategical place, west of the Rosetta branch of the Nile...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. It is located about 500 meters northwest of the Monastery of Saint Pishoy
Monastery of Saint Pishoy
The Monastery of Saint Pishoy in Wadi El Natrun , Beheira Governorate, Egypt, is the most famous Coptic Orthodox monastery named after Saint Pishoy. It is the easternmost monastery among the four current monasteries of the Nitrian Desert....
. Ecclesiastically, the monastery is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and carries her name. However, it is better known as the Syrian Monastery because it was mainly used by Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s.
(disambiquation: for monasteries in Syria see List of monasteries in Syria)
Etymology, foundation and ancient history
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
during the papacy of Pope Timothy III of Alexandria. The Julianists believed in the incorruptibility of Christ's body. This was in contradiction with the teaching of the Orthodox Church, which held that Christ had taken human flesh that prevented him from being ideal and abstract, and therefore corruptible. Yet, in the monasteries of Scetes, a majority of the monks embraced the Julian heresy. In reaction, those who did not follow the heresy obtained permission from the governor Aristomachus to erect new churches and monasteries, so that they could settle apart from the Julianists. These new facilities were often built alongside the old ones, even keeping the same name but adding to it the word Theotokos
Theotokos
Theotokos is the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its literal English translations include God-bearer and the one who gives birth to God. Less literal translations include Mother of God...
, thus recognizing the significance of the incarnation, which the Julians seemed to minimize. The Syrian Monastery was therefore established by those monks of the Monastery of Saint Pishoy
Monastery of Saint Pishoy
The Monastery of Saint Pishoy in Wadi El Natrun , Beheira Governorate, Egypt, is the most famous Coptic Orthodox monastery named after Saint Pishoy. It is the easternmost monastery among the four current monasteries of the Nitrian Desert....
who rejected the Julian heresy. At the time of its construction, they called it the Monastery of the Holy Virgin Theotokos.
Towards the beginning of the eighth century AD, the monastery was sold to a group of wealthy Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
merchants from Tikrit
Tikrit
Tikrit is a town in Iraq, located 140 km northwest of Baghdad on the Tigris river . The town, with an estimated population in 2002 of about 260,000 is the administrative center of the Salah ad Din Governorate.-Ancient times:...
, who had settled in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, for 12,000 dinars. These merchants converted the monastery for use by Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
monks, and rebaptized it Monastery of the Holy Virgin of the Syrians. This could be one of the sources of the monastery's modern name. Yet, it is also possible that the monastery had already been inhabited by Syrian monks since the fourth century AD, which could trace the monastery's name to that period.
The Syrian Monastery, like the rest of the monasteries in Scetes, was subject to fierce attacks by desert Bedouins and Berbers
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
. The fifth of these attacks, which took place in 817 AD, was particularly disastrous to this monastery. The monastery was then rebuilt in 850 AD by two monks, named Matthew and Abraham.
In 927 AD, one of the monastery's monks, known as Moses of Nisibis
Nisibis
Nusaybin Nisêbîn) is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey, populated mainly by Kurds. Earlier Arameans, Arabs, and Armenians lived in the city. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009.-Ancient Period:...
(c. 907 - 943 AD), traveled to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
to ask the Abbasid
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....
caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Al-Muqtadir
Al-Muqtadir
Al-Muqtadir was the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 908 AD to 932 AD .After the previous Caliph, al-Muktafi, was confined for several months to his sick-bed, intrigue was made for some time as to his successor...
to grant tax exemption to the monasteries. Moses of Nisibis
Nisibis
Nusaybin Nisêbîn) is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey, populated mainly by Kurds. Earlier Arameans, Arabs, and Armenians lived in the city. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009.-Ancient Period:...
then traveled through Syria
Greater Syria
Greater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....
and Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
in search of manuscripts. After three years of traveling, he returned to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, bringing with him 250 Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
manuscript. This made of the Syrian Monastery a prosperous and important facility, possessing many artistic treasures and a library rich in Syriac texts.
Inside the monastery, there is a large door known as, the Door of Prophecies
Door of Prophecies
The Door of Prophecies or Gate of Prophecies is a large door inside the Syrian Monastery, of Wadi El Natrun in Egypt, that features symbolic diagrams depicting the past and the future of the Christian faith through the eyes of Christian monks of the tenth century...
or Gate of Prophecies, that features symbolic diagrams depicting the past and the future of the Christian faith through the eyes of Christian monks of the tenth century.
Medieval history
Based on a census taken by Mawhub ibn Mansur ibn Mufarrig, the co-author of the History of the Patriarchs of AlexandriaHistory of the Patriarchs of Alexandria
The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria is a major historical work of the Coptic Church. It is written in Arabic, but draws extensively on Greek and Coptic sources....
, the Syrian Monastery had some sixty monks in 1088 AD. It was the third at the time in the Nitrian Desert, after the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great
Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great
The Monastery of Saint Macarius is a Coptic Orthodox monastery located in Wadi El Natrun, Beheira Governorate, about 92 km north west of Cairo, and off the highway between Cairo and Alexandria.-Ancient History:...
and the Monastery of Saint John the Dwarf.
In the middle of the twelfth century, the Syrian Monastery witnessed a period of trouble, when no Syrian priest was present. However, in 2000 an inscription from 1285/1286 was found, "which recorded building or other activities in the Monastery". This may have reflected an influx of Syrian refugees in the 1250's. In the fourteenth century, the monastery was decimated by the plague. When a monk named Moses from the Monastery of Mar Gabriel in Tur Abdin
Tur Abdin
Tur Abdin is a hilly region of south east Turkey incorporating the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria. The name 'Tur Abdin' is from the Syriac language meaning 'mountain of the servants '. Tur Abdin is of great importance to Syriac...
visited the monastery in 1413 AD, he found only one remaining Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the Patriarch of Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...
visited the Syrian Monastery, granting it many privileges and donations, in order to restore it to its former glory. However, Egyptian
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
monks continued to populate the monastery and, by 1516 AD, only 18 out of 43 monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s were Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
. By the time of Pope Gabriel VII of Alexandria
Pope Gabriel VII of Alexandria
Pope Gabriel VII of Alexandria was the Coptic Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark ....
, who himself had been a monk at the Syrian Monastery, it was able to supply ten monks to the Monastery of Saint Paul the Anchorite
Monastery of Saint Paul the Anchorite
The Monastery of Saint Paul the Anchorite in Egypt is a Coptic Orthodox monastery located in the Eastern Desert, near the Red Sea mountains. It is about south east of Cairo. The monastery is also known as the Monastery of the Tigers....
and twenty to the Monastery of Saint Anthony
Monastery of Saint Anthony
The Monastery of Saint Anthony is a Coptic Orthodox monastery standing in an oasis in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, in the southern part of the Suez Governorate. Hidden deep in the Red Sea mountains, it is located southeast of Cairo. It is one of the oldest monasteries in the world, together with...
in the Eastern Desert
Eastern Desert
The Eastern Desert is the section of Sahara Desert east of the Nile River, between the river and the Red Sea. It extends from Egypt in the north to Eritrea in the south, and also comprises parts of Sudan and Ethiopia.-Features:...
when those two communities were damaged by Bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
raids.
In the seventeenth century, western travelers from France, Germany and England visited the monastery and reported that there were two churches, one for the Syrians
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
and one for the Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
(Copt
Copt
The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....
s). They also mention a miraculous Tree of Saint Ephrem
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
. According to tradition, Saint Ephrem
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
was a fourth century Syrian
Greater Syria
Greater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....
theologian and ascetic from Nisibis
Nisibis
Nusaybin Nisêbîn) is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey, populated mainly by Kurds. Earlier Arameans, Arabs, and Armenians lived in the city. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009.-Ancient Period:...
. He sought to meet the holy monk Saint Pishoy, and thus came to the monastic centers of Scetes. When the two men met, they were unable to communicate because Ephrem
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
spoke only Syriac. Yet, suddenly and miraculously, Saint Pishoy began to express himself in that language, enabling his visitor to understand him. During this exchange, it is said that Saint Ephrem
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
leaned his staff against the door of the hermitage and all at once it became rooted and even sprouted foliage. Near the church of the Holy Virgin, monks will continue to point out even today this tamarind, miraculously born from Ephrem
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
's staff.
When Peter Heyling, a Lutheran missionary from Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, and Yusuf Simaan Assemani
Giuseppe Simone Assemani
Giuseppe Simone Assemani , 1687–1768, was a Lebanese Maronite orientalist.-Life:Giuseppe Simone Assemani was born on August 27, 1687 in Hasroun, Mount Lebanon. When very young he was sent to the Maronite College in Rome, and was transferred thence to the Vatican library. He was ordained priest on...
, a Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
envoy of Pope Clement XI of Rome
Pope Clement XI
Pope Clement XI , born Giovanni Francesco Albani, was Pope from 1700 until his death in 1721.-Early life:...
, visited the Syrian monastery between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries, they found no Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
monks living in it. The latter managed to acquire forty precious manuscripts from the monastery's library, which are kept today in the Vatican Library
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...
.
Modern history
Between 1839 and 1851, the British MuseumBritish Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in London was able to procure about five hundred Syriac manuscripts from the monastery's library, concerned not only with religious topics, but also with philosophy and literature. Famous visitors to the monastery during this time included Lansing (1862), Chester (1873), Junkers (1875), Jullien (1881) and Butler (1883).
The manuscripts found in the Syrian monastery inspired intense research on the Syriac language
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
and culture, for until that time, many classical texts from Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Euclid
Euclid
Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...
, Archimedes
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an...
, Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
and Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
were known to Western scholars only in their thirteenth century Latin translations. Even these were often translations from earlier Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
sources. These documents are the oldest copies of important Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
classical texts, with some dating back to the fifth century.
Today, the Syrian monastery provides a great opportunity to study the development of Copt
Copt
The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....
ic wall painting. Between 1991 and 1999, several segments of wall paintings layered on top of each other were uncovered in the Church of the Holy Virgin and the Chapel of the Forty-nine Martyrs, dating from between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries. There is currently an ongoing project to uncover, restore and conserve wall paintings within the monastery.
The monastery is enclosed by a large wall, built towards the end of the ninth century, and whose height varies between 9.5 and 11.5 meters. The monastery also includes a keep (tower) and a refectory. The five churches inside the monastery are named after the Virgin Mary (2 of the churches), the Forty Nine Elder Martyrs of Scetes, Saints Honnos and Marutha, and Saint John the Dwarf.
Coptic Popes from the Syrian Monastery
- Pope Gabriel VIPope Gabriel VI of AlexandriaPope Gabriel VI of Alexandria was the Coptic Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark ....
(1466–1475) - Pope Shenouda IIIPope Shenouda III of AlexandriaPope Shenouda III of Alexandria is the 117th Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark the Evangelist of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria...
(1971–present)
Other monasteries of the Nitrian Desert
- The Monastery of Saint PishoyMonastery of Saint PishoyThe Monastery of Saint Pishoy in Wadi El Natrun , Beheira Governorate, Egypt, is the most famous Coptic Orthodox monastery named after Saint Pishoy. It is the easternmost monastery among the four current monasteries of the Nitrian Desert....
- The Monastery of Saint Macarius the GreatMonastery of Saint Macarius the GreatThe Monastery of Saint Macarius is a Coptic Orthodox monastery located in Wadi El Natrun, Beheira Governorate, about 92 km north west of Cairo, and off the highway between Cairo and Alexandria.-Ancient History:...
- The Paromeos MonasteryParomeos MonasteryThe Paromeos Monastery, also known as Baramos Monastery, is a Coptic Orthodox monastery located in Wadi El Natrun , Beheira Governorate, Egypt. It is the most northern monastery among the four current monasteries of Scetes, about 9 km northeast of the Monastery of Saint Pishoy...
See also
- Door of PropheciesDoor of PropheciesThe Door of Prophecies or Gate of Prophecies is a large door inside the Syrian Monastery, of Wadi El Natrun in Egypt, that features symbolic diagrams depicting the past and the future of the Christian faith through the eyes of Christian monks of the tenth century...
- Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
- Desert FathersDesert FathersThe Desert Fathers were hermits, ascetics, monks, and nuns who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. The most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism...
- Wadi El NatrunWadi El NatrunWadi El Natrun is a valley located in Beheira Governorate, Egypt, including a town with the same name. The name refers to the presence of eight different lakes in the region that produce natron salt. In Christian literature, the region is also referred to as the Nitrian Desert...