沙漠研究 22-1, 139 -142 (2012 )"ICAL 1 / DT X"

Journal of Arid Land Studies－Refereed Paper－

The Significance and the Role of the Desert in the Coptic Monasticism:
Monastery of St. Samuel as a Case Study
Maki IWASAKI*1)
Abstract: Egypt known as one of the centers of Islamic world today used to be one of the centers of Christian world for more than
500 years before Islam came to Egypt in 7th century. Today 10-15% of total population of Egypt is Christian and it constitutes thebiggest Christian community in the Middle East. The major denomination of Egyptian Christianity is Coptic Orthodox Church
which belongs to the category of the Oriental Orthodox Churches who separated from the Western Church due to the difference ofChristology at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Although Coptic Orthodox Church has not been the forefront in the Christian world
compared with the Catholic and Protestant Churches, it is important to note that Christian monasticism first appeared in Egypt and it isdeeply related with Coptic Orthodox Church. In 3rd century people who secluded themselves from cities or villages along the Nile
Valley started living a monastic life in the vast desert. They started to be called “Desert Fathers (Mothers)” and their ways of life andwords later had a great influence on Christian monasticism both in East and West. Coptic Orthodox Church has kept the tradition of
the desert monasticism throughout history and in 1960s modern religious revival movement made it even more important in the Copticsociety. In this paper, the significance and the role of the desert in the Coptic monasticism will be discussed by using the data of theauthor’s fieldwork at Monastery of St. Samuel, al-Minyā Governorate in Upper Egypt as a case study.
Key Words: Coptic christianity, Desert, Egypt, Monasticism

1. Who are Coptic Christians?
Although Egypt is known as one of the leading Islamic
countries today, 10-15% of its total population believes inChristianity. It means that there are about 8 to 12 million
Christians in Egypt today and they are called Coptic Christians.
Among the several Christian denominations in the Middle East
such as Syrian Orthodox Church, the Maronite, Catholic
Church and Protestant Churches, Coptic Orthodox Church, themajor Christian denomination in Egypt is the biggest in
number and is one of the most influential Christiancommunities in Middle East and North Africa. It is one of theOriental Orthodox Churches, the Christian denomination
which separated from the Western Church due to the differenceof Christology at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
As for the official history of Coptic Orthodox Church, its
beginning dates back to 1st century. Christianity came toEgypt in 1st century right after its birth in Palestine as it is
known today. Copts believe that their patriarch wasestablished by St. Mark, the Evangelist. Christianity became
and had been a major religion of Egypt for more than 500 years
until Islam was brought by the Arabs in 7th century. The name“Copt” is derived from Greek word “aigyptos” which means
Egypt. Since most of the population of Egypt was Christianwhen the Arabs came to Egypt, they called the native

Egyptians “aigyptos,” later reduced in Arabic “qibṭ” and later itcame to refer to “Christians in Egypt.” Today Copt or Coptic
Christian substantially means Christian Egyptian no matter
what denomination he or she belongs to but the word
Copt/Coptic Christian often refers to the Coptic Orthodox
Christian and it is the denomination which this paper focuses on.

2. Christian Monasticism and the Desert
Christian monasticism was first started in Egypt in the late
3rd century by St. Anthony (251-356) who is known as “theFather of the Monks.” Though Anthony was born in a
wealthy Christian family in Egypt, he went through his parents’
deaths in his twenties. When he heard the words of theGospel: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess andgive to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; come,follow me.” (Gospel according to St. Matthew 19:21) was readin the church, he decided to seclude himself from society(Guillaumont, 1991). He first stayed near his village where
he met other hermit but later on he put himself into the innerdesert which was the periphery or almost outside of this world
and ordinary people never went to. His life as a hermit in thedesert became considered as the ideal Christian life and many
people followed him (van Door-Harder, 1995).
Another important figure in the beginning of themonasticism is St. Pachomius (292-346). He was a Roman* Corresponding Author: maki@sakura.cc.tsukuba.ac.jp
c/o Alliance for Research on North Africa, University of Tsukuba 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken, 305-8572 Japan1) Alliance for Research on North Africa, University of Tsukuba

Fig. 2. Environment of Monastery of St. Samuel. It is located in themidst of the Western Desert. The circled area is where themonastery is. The photo was taken by the author on December
20 2009.

3. Monastery of St. Samuel as a Case Study

Fig. 1. Locations of the monasteries in Egypt (Gabra 1992: xiv). Asymbol “+” signifies a monastery.

soldier who later converted to Christianity. He started acommunal way of life with monks and nuns by establishing
precise rules of cenobitic monasticism.
As Brown (1993) suggested, for the ordinary people, to livein the desert was out of the question in the late antiquity
because they needed the water from the River Nile to live.
However, as seen in the monastic lives of St. Anthony, St.
Pachomius and their followers, monasticism is deeply relatedwith the desert and that is why they are called “Desert Fathers”
and their sayings and ways of livings are still influential to theCoptic Christians.
Today most of the monasteries in Egypt are surrounded bythe desert. Figure 1 shows the locations of the monasteries inEgypt. It tells us that the monasteries are not right beside theRiver Nile as most of the cities are but they are located at least
twenty to thirty kilometers away from the Nile. It means they
are at the midst of the desert or at the border between thehuman habitation and the desert. In this paper, Monastery ofSt. Samuel (dayr anbā ṣamū’īl) in Upper Egypt is discussed asa case study to investigate the significance and the role of thedesert in the Coptic Christianity.

3.1. Fieldwork on Monastery of St. SamuelAmong the major inhabited monasteries in Egypt,
Monastery of St. Samuel (underlined in Figure 1) is located in
the midst of the Western Desert. It is the furthest monasteryfrom the human habitation in Egypt. Figure 2 shows themonastery is surrounded by the desert. To reach themonastery the visitor has to get off the high way and takenon-paved road in the desert for about forty kilometers. On
this road there is no shop, restaurant or even a house until
reaching the monastery. Geographically it belongs toal-Minyā governorate in Upper Egypt and in terms of the orderof Coptic Orthodox Church, it belongs to the Fayyūmmonastery group.
One of the characteristics of this monastery is that itexcludes the touristy side while some other monasteries
somehow allow themselves to be like touristic sites. Forexample, it only allows the family of the monks to spend anight inside of the monastery but not regular visitors as theother “touristic” monasteries have a large number ofaccommodations on the site. In this sense, the Monastery ofSt. Samuel tries to keep the original ways of monastic life andthat is one of the reasons it was chosen to be the field for theresearch.
The author has been conducting a fieldwork on thismonastery since August 2009. Author’s fieldwork in Egypt
first started focusing on religious practices of Coptic Christians
and inter-religious relations among Copts, Muslims andBahā’is in al-Minyā in 2004 and later on the Coptic
monasteries were included. The languages used during thefieldwork were both Egyptian colloquial Arabic and English.

Fig. 4. Monks (at the center) and the laity. Monks are highly
respected by the laity. Many lay believers visit Monastery of St.
Samuel despite of its location in the midst of the desert . The
photo was taken by the author on December 20 2009.

Fig. 3. Icon and relics of St. Samuel. The body of St. Samuel has been
kept in the monastery as holy relics. The photo was taken by theauthor on August 20 2009.

3.2. History of Monastery of St. SamuelHistory of Monastery of St. Samuel is deeply related withthe saint whom under the name of. St. Samuel (597-695) wasborn in a Christian family near northwest Delta. At the age oftwenty-two he became a monk in Wādī al-Naṭrūn (Northwestof Cairo in Figure 1). When the foreign Patriarch Cyrus wassent to Egypt by the Roman emperor with a new doctrine, themonks of Wādī al-Naṭrūn, led by Samuel, refused to accept it.
The troops of Patriarch Cyrus severely tortured Samuel and helost his right eye during this torture. Samuel left Wādīal-Naṭrūn and traveled through the hot desert until he reached amonastery in al-Fayyūm (Southwest of Cairo in Figure 1)
called al-Naqlūn and made this monastery a big community.
However he was again captured and tortured by the soldiers ofPatriarch Cyrus. The soldiers finally set him free so that
Samuel and his followers wandered through the desert until hefound a long abundant monastery in the area called Qalamūn
where the Monastery of St. Samuel is now. Although he wascaptured by Berber raiders twice even after his new life at
Qalamūn, he was released because of his miraculous deeds.
Soon after his return to Qalamūn the monastery became full ofmonks and donations. Samuel spent fifty-five years at
Qalamūn and passed away at the age of ninety-eight (Alcock1992).
Monastery of St. Samuel has also been famous since theformer Patriarch Kyrillos VI (papacy 1959-1971) and thepresent Patriarch Shenouda III (papacy 1971-) had once been

its monks (After the submission of this paper, Shenouda III
passed away on March 17, 2012).
3.3. Contemporary monastic life and the desert: In thecase of Father Bijol
3.3.1 Background of Father Bijol
In the Monastery of St. Samuel, 110 monks from the age oftwenty-five to eighty-four are living the cenobitic lives as ofauthor’s fieldwork in December 20 2009. Some monks
prefer to live alone in his cell in the desert as semianchorites fora certain period and others live inner part of the monastery
because they prefer not to meet visitors. They are considered
to be contemplative monks. Another type of monks is called
active monks and he does social works and interacts with visitors.
The case of Father Bijol (the third one from the right in Fig. 4)
who is an active monk and with whom the author hadinterviews tells us an example how monks are related with thedesert. Father Bijol was born in 1968 in the relatively wealthyfamily in Ṭihnā al-Jabal, the village in al-Minyā governorate.
He graduated from the department of English, al-Minyā
University and worked as English teacher in the high school forsix years. He has been religious since his childhood and heoften came to Monastery of St. Samuel to put himself in thereligious (Christian) environment so it was almost natural for
him to decide to be a monk. At the age of twenty-nine, heentered the gate of Monastery of St. Samuel to be a monk.
After having spent the novitiate for five years he became amonk in 2002.
3.3.2 The relationship between the monk and the desert
In the Monastery of St. Samuel, monks are not allowed tohave their own mobile phones or e-mail addresses inaccordance with the provision of the present abbot, Abbot

that a monk is the one who finished his life in the secular world
and was reborn into the holy world.
Therefore the family of a monk usually had hard time to let
their son go. Although, as seen in the case of Father Bijol’sfamily, once one became a monk, his family is proud of his son
because he is a servant for the God and a monk for all theCopts, they still miss their son whom they can no longer easily
contact with. For the family of a monk, desert is one of themost significant things which physically and symbolicallyseparate the two worlds.

4. Conclusion
Fig. 5. A cell for the monk. Monks of Monastery of St. Samuel spenddays and weeks in the caves near the monastery to devote
themselves to the God. The photo was taken by the author on
December 20 2009.

Basilius as opposed to some other monasteries where monks
talks on their own mobiles. In this sense and because of its
location in the middle of the desert, the monks of Monastery ofSt. Samuel are more kept away from the secular world than theother monasteries. However they say it is good for them.
“Love your friends and/but keep away from them.” is theword Father Bijol told the author. This saying implies a monk
should live a monastic life in which he devotes himself to God
without interacting with his old life. As Brown (1993) saysthat early Egyptian anchorites such as St. Anthony in third
century tried not to interact with others, we can see the sameattitude among monks today. In the desert around themonastery, there are many caves (Fig. 5) which are originally
natural but later modified by anchorites as cells for themselves.
All the monks of Monastery of St. Samuel stay their own cellfor certain period after they have consultations with the Abbot.
As seen in the comment of Father Bijol: “I feel peace in the cellbecause I can talk with the God,” the cell, the desert in a
broader sense, works as a fort to guarantee their monastic life
physically and mentally.
3.3.3 The meaning of the desert to the family of the monk
Through the interviews in his hometown, brother of Father
Bijol told the author that their parents were first so sad to hear
his decision to be a monk but years later, their feeling changed
from sadness to pride in his son. As van Doorn-Harder(1997) pointed out that monasteries in Egypt are regarded as
not being of this world, to be a monk means the separationfrom the family, the social system that gives a person hisidentity and security. That is why it was very hard for thefamily of Father Bijol to accept him becoming a monk.
It is also important to point out that the ritual to become amonk closely resembles with the funeral ritual. It signifies

In this paper, the relationship between the Coptic
monasticism and the desert in Egypt was discussed. From its
historical beginning, the Coptic monasticism has been deeply
related with the desert. Today, as seen in the case ofMonastery of St. Samuel, the most significant thing which
separates the monks and the secular world is the desert. For
the family of the monk, the desert means another world whichkeeps their son away, while for the monk it signifies a fort toprotect their faith from the secular world including theirrelationships with their family and friends.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks monks, members and the laity ofMonastery of St. Samuel, especially Father Bijol who attended
my visits to his monastery and Mr. Marzūq Sulaymān who has
been my fieldwork assistant in al-Minyā since 2004. This
research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research (23720033).
References
Alcock A. (1991): Samū’īl of Qalamūn, Saint. In Atiya. A. eds.,
The Coptic Encyclopedia. Macmillan Publishing Company,
7: 2092-2093.
Guillaumont A. (1991): Anthony of Egypt, Saint. In Atiya. A.
eds., The Coptic Encyclopedia. Macmillan Publishing
Company, 1: 149-151.
Brown P. (1993): The Making of Late Antiquity. Harvard
University Press, Cambridge.
Van Doorn-Harder P. (1995): Contemporary Coptic Nuns.
University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
Gabra G. (2002): Coptic monasteries: Egypt’s Monastic Artand Architecture. The American University in Cairo Press,Cairo.
Meinardus O.F.A. (2003): Monks and Monasteries of theEgyptian Desert. The American University in Cairo Press,Cairo.