Paromeos Monastery
The Paromeos Monastery or Boromaeos Monastery is a Coptic Orthodox monastery in the Wadi Natrun ( Nitrian Desert), al-Buhaira Governorate in Egypt . It is the northernmost of the four monasteries in the Sketian Desert , about 9 km northeast of the St. Pischoi Monastery. The name Paromeos is derived from Coptic Pa-Romeos (German: "Roman"). The monastery is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Etymology, foundation and early history
The Paromeos monastery is probably the oldest of the four existing Sketical monasteries. It was founded around 355 by Saint Macarius the Great . The Roman saints Maximus and Domitius, children of the Roman emperor Valentinian I , are said to have lived in their cell on the site of today's monastery. According to Coptic tradition, the two saints are said to have gone into the Sketical desert, while Saint Makarios the Great tried in vain to dissuade them from staying here. Still, they stayed and achieved an ascetic perfection before dying at a young age. One year after her death, St. Makarios consecrated her cell with the construction of a chapel, which he called the "Cell of the Romans". Another tradition refers the name to the Roman emperors Arcadius and Honorius , the disciples of St. Arsenius . The latter was himself a Roman monk who had settled in Sketes, the two emperors could have visited their teacher in his seclusion, which is how the monastery got its name.
After the monastery was destroyed by the Berbers and Bedouins in 407, St. Arsenius had it rebuilt. Following a second Berber attack in 410, he retired to Troe, today's Cairo district of Tura, where he died.
In addition to St. Makarios and St. Arsenius, other saints of the fourth and fifth centuries lived in the Paromeos Monastery, such as St. Isidore and St. Moses the Black , who was martyred in the attack of 407.
Medieval story
After the attacks by the Berbers and Bedouins, Pope Shenuda I of Alexandria (859–880) had walls built around the monasteries in the Nitrian desert. They were between ten and eleven meters high, about two meters wide and covered with a thick layer of plaster.
During the first half of the 15th century, the historian al-Maqrīzī visited the monastery, which he identified as Monastery of Moses the Ethiopian . At that time there were only a few monks here. Other important visitors were Jean Coppin (1638), Jean de Thévenot (1657), Benoît de Maillet (1692), Guillaume Du Bernat (1710), Claude Sicard (1712), Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt (1778), Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland (Lord Algernon Percy) (1828), George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1837), Henry Tattam (1839), Konstantin von Tischendorf (1845), Marie-Hélène Jullien 1881 and Alfred Joshua Butler (1883). Their reports indicate that 712 monks lived in seven monasteries in the region, including twenty monks in Paromeos in 1088, twelve monks in 1712, nine in 1799, seven in 1842, thirty in 1905, thirty-five in 1937, twenty in 1960 and forty-six in 1970. Today the monastery is inhabited by about fifty monks.
Although the monastic community was relatively insignificant in the Middle Ages, in 1047 a monk, Pope Christodolus of Alexandria, achieved the title of patriarch, who proved himself to be a man of great holiness. In the seventeenth century two monks establish the patriarchal office: Pope Matthias III. of Alexandria and Pope Matthias IV of Alexandria. A number of eminent theologians emerged from the monastery, including Father Naum and Father Abdel Massih ibn el Girgis Masuudi in the 19th century.
Modern history
The monastery keeps a large part of its ancestral traditions. It has five churches. The oldest church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and contains the relics of Moses the Ethiopian. The building, which dates from the sixth century, is considered to be the oldest Sketical church. The second church is dedicated to Saint Theodor Tiro, the third St George, the fourth John the Baptist and the fifth Archangel Michael. The walls built by Pope Shenuda I of Alexandria have been preserved. The monastery contains a keep, a tower, two dining rooms and a guest house.
About two and a half kilometers northwest of this monastery is the stalactite cave of Pope Kirellos VI. Marked with twelve wooden crosses, it became known as the Rock of Sarabamun and became a popular place of pilgrimage. An iron grille protects the entrance to the site. The spacious cave is decorated with numerous pictures and icons of Pope Kirellos VI. fitted. There are other caves in the desert that are obviously inhabited by hermits.
Under Pope Schenuda III. The monastery has recently undergone a series of renovations. An asphalt road now leads to the monastery, several large extensions have been added, as well as six water pumps, a sheep pen, a chicken coop and two generators, new living cells both inside and outside the monastery. There is a clinic and a pharmacy for the monks, as well as a spacious retreat building for conferences; a large two-story guest house opened in January 1981.
Ruins and excavations
In 1996, the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the archaeological faculty of the University of Leiden financed research on the archaeological site of the monastery of Mose der Äthioper near the Paromeos monastery . This was surrounded by a wall that was probably built in the ninth century.
Inside the old monastery in the southeast corner, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a 16 m² structure. Its original purpose was initially unclear, most likely it was a 25 m high defense tower. Ceramic finds from the 4th or early 5th century indicated, however, that the tower was used for monastic purposes very early on. It is believed that it was initially built as a Roman military fortification to protect salt production in the Nitrian desert. After it was abandoned in the 4th century, it was probably used by the newly arrived hermits.
In 1998 a structure was uncovered that later turned out to be the remains of a church. The poorly crafted walls of the nave, made of improvised masonry, indicate that the church was perhaps hastily rebuilt after being destroyed. The choir of the church was of better quality, apparently rebuilt a little later, perhaps at the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century. The well-preserved altar on the right is one step higher on a podium.
Remnants of what was probably an earlier structure of solid masonry with finely cut limestone blocks have been found in the western part of the nave. In one of these blocks there were hieroglyphs inscribed in high relief, so that one assumes the existence of an ancient Egyptian monument in the immediate vicinity of the site.
Dept
Bishop Isithoros (Isidore) has been the abbot of the monastery since 2013.
Popes from the Paromeos Monastery
- Christodolus (1047-1077)
- John XIV (1571–1586)
- Matthias III (1631-1646)
- Matthias IV (1660–1675)
- Kirellos V. (1874–1927)
- John XIX. (1928–1942)
- Kirello VI (1959–1971)
Other monasteries in the Nitrian desert
Coordinates: 30 ° 21 ′ 25.7 ″ N , 30 ° 16 ′ 14.1 ″ E