First thing to see. When you just enter the monastery, you will find this church. It is under the name of St. Anthony and St. Paul.

What a water spring! It is the main source of water in the monastery, flowing from the time of St. Anthony. The natural tunnel is ten meters deep inside the mountain. It provides the monastery a daily flow of 100 cubic meters of pure water.

What a wall!! The monastery wall in the picture is 10 meters high. In the wall is the balcony of the lift room. On the left is the ancient pulley and tight rope in the lift room. This ancient pulley used to lift people and monastery supplies up to the monastery.

This Coptic painting of Jesus behind is the first altar in the monastery, St Anthony himself used to pray in it with his disciples. This painting is full of symbols. For example, Jesus hand that represents the father, the Son, and the holy Spirit, one God, the other one has the bible. Jesus’ eyes are wide, which means great knowledge. His chair is gold in color, and gold represent purity and greatness. There are also four animal like creatures, two on each side, each one of them represents a gospel from the four gospels in the bible. For example the one that looks like an eagle on the right stands for St John’s gospel. Every inch of this painting stands for something or someone and in Coptic art majors in college, they study it for a long time.

Icon of St Anthony and St Paul

Church of St Mark the Ascetic

Look at this! Although the monastery is in the middle of the desert, it contains a good amount of beautiful greeneries.

Inside an Altar in the monastery

Monks through out the years plant different fruits and vegetables, like grapes, olive, dates, etc.

18th century walls!! This monastery has three different walls. One dating back to the 18th century, the “new” one was built in the 19th century, and the oldest one, the monks there say it has always been there, from the time of very early monks.

Extremely wonderful! The monastery has more than 75 amazing domes. Some of which date back to the 4th century.

Angels on the arches and ceilings show that they are always there watching over and protecting all the monks from any danger, evil spirits, or temptations. They are a sign of reassurance and security.

A huge statue of St Anthony the Great is engraved by hand on the mountain at the bottom of his cave

An old picture of the monastery

This Coptic icon was done about ten years ago by a monk in the monastery (Father Bishoy El Anthony) It represent the resurrection. As I asked the monk what kind of colors he used, he said “in order to draw a correct Coptic icon, you have to use the same technique they used thousands of years ago, that is by mixing acids and oxides and other complicated and hard to find materials. Also before drawing any icon I have to read a lot about the saint and pray some Coptic hymns for this saint I am drawing in order for him to help me draw his image correctly. That’s a tradition from hundreds of years.”

The Ostrich eggs that hang from the vault symbolize steadfast watchfulness. They bring to mind the way the ostrich buries her eggs in the sand and keeps her eyes fixed on the spot which is consequently meant to remind us that our thoughts should be similarly focusing on spiritual matters. Generally speaking, the Coptic tradition regards the egg as an emblem of the resurrection (the life coming out of the seemingly lifeless egg).