Syrian monastery

Frescoes in the monastery

The Syrian Monastery ( Egyptian-Arabic Deir el-Surian , Deir el-Syriani ) is a today Coptic- Orthodox monastery in Wadi Natrun (Sketis), in the Beheira district of Egypt . It is only about 500 meters northwest of the older St. Pischoi Monastery . The actual church name is “Monastery of the Theotokos”, but the better known “Syrian Monastery”, as it was founded by Syrian monks and used for centuries.

history

The monastery was founded at the beginning of the 9th century and its construction was completed in 818/19. The first leading figures were the monks Abraham, Joseph and Jacob, of Syrian origin, who came from the area of Tagrit in the Maphrianate . In accordance with the needs of the community, the library of the monastery was richly furnished with Syrian manuscripts, some imported and some copied on site in the monastery. Numerous manuscripts (around 250) brought back from his trip to Baghdad in 932 by his abbot Moses of Nisibis ; he also contributed to the further equipment of the monastery church. The Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Michael the Elder had numerous manuscripts borrowed from the Syrian monastery . Size († 1199) copy in Barsauma monastery . The most important abbot of the Middle Ages was Ǫuryaǫos Mar Severos (approx. 1489–1516) from Lebanon. Under him, Mor Gregorios, Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan of Jerusalem, visited the monastery and compiled a list of the books. The last manuscript (Vat. Syr. 524) still written in Syrian letters (now Garschuni ) in the monastery dates from 1631. Soon after, the presence of Syrian monks ended and the monastery was completely taken over by Copts. The Syrian library holdings were dispersed over time. Between 1839 and 1851 the British Museum (now the British Library, London) acquired around 500 Syrian manuscripts from it.

Other monasteries in the Sketian desert

literature

Peter Grossmann - Aelred Cody: Dayr Al-Suryan . In: The Coptic Encyclopedia 3 (1991) Sp. 876a-881a.
Lucas Van Rompay - Andrea Schmidt: Takritans in the Egyptian Dessert: The Monastery of the Syrians in the ninth century . In: Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 1 (2001) 41-60.
Lucas Van Rompay: Le couvent des Syriens en Égypte aux 15e et 16e siècles . In: Parole de l'Orient 41 (2015) 549-572.
Sebastian Brock: Dated Syriac Manuscripts copied at Deir al-Surian . In: Between the Cross and the Crescent , Festschrift S. Kh. Samir (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 304). PIO, Roma 2018, 355–371. ISBN 978-88-7210-398-2
Amir Harrak: The Monastery of the Syrians as a Pilgrimage Destination . In: Journal of the Canadian Society for Coptic Studies 11 (2019) 81–98.

Individual evidence

↑ J. Leroy: Un temoignage inédit sur l'état du monastère of Syria au Wadi 'n Natrun au début du 16e siècle . In: Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale 65 (1967) 1–23.

30.317777777778 30.354166666667Coordinates: 30 ° 19 ′ 4 ″ N , 30 ° 21 ′ 15 ″ E

[1] J. Leroy: Un temoignage inédit sur l'état du monastère of Syria au Wadi 'n Natrun au début du 16e siècle . In: Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale 65 (1967) 1–23.