Monastery of St. Paul of Thebes, Red Sea Coast

Monastery of St. Paul of Thebes - details and images

Monastery of St. Paul of Thebes (section 5) - built in honor of one of the greatest saints and hermits of Egypt, the place where St. Paul was the cave in which he lived. Here are the relics of St. Paul.

The first monks who lived in the convent may have been the Melkite, but they did not remain for long here, because after they came and stayed in the monastery monks Egyptians and Syrians.

The syrian monks occupied the monastery for a long time in the first half of the fifteenth century they were still in the monastery. After this date, their presence in the convent is not recorded by any documents.

Like most Egyptian monasteries, he it was hard hit by attacks from Bedouin tribes. The hardest part was that both the Bedouin in 1484, when most monks were killed, and her entire library being burned.

The monastery was rebuilt at a later date, under the care of the Patriarch Gabriel VII of Alexandria (1526-1569), who sent here a group of ten monks of the Syrian Monastery. Syrian monks rebuilt the congregation and put in the order of jobs and the monastic complex.

Monastery of St. Paul of Thebes still retains many of the manuscripts have passed through the hands of monks here. Of these, mention only Coptic language version of the Divine Liturgy and the Commentary on the Epistle to Titus of St. John Chrysostom.

Today, the monastery has three churches. Anchorite St. Paul Church, built underground in the cave they were found and are preserved today, his relics. The other two churches are dedicated, a St. Mercure, and other archangel St. Michael.

The monastery is surrounded by high stone walls, some built up over centuries of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Preserved walls and a large observation tower, an ancient refectory, a mill and a spring. It is believed that the source of St. Paul served as a source of water throughout his life lived in caves.

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