Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 April 1999 Issue No. 424
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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A life like no other

Copts prepare to celebrate Easter next Sunday, and Egypt's monasteries are making ready. It is the desert fathers who caused the monastic movement to bloom worldwide, and it is their spiritual heirs who continue to take the vows today. But Mariz Tadros, travelling into the wilderness, finds more than silence and self-denial

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A LITTLE BOY visiting a monastery at Wadi Natroun was struck with horror: Coca-Cola was being served! This was not what he had expected: after all, monasteries are the places where the self-mortifying desert fathers lived long ago, eating nothing and drinking no more than brackish water -- certainly not soft drinks.

The story is recounted by a monk at the Monastery of Baramous, who adds: "I explained to him that monasticism is not just about austerity; it is something much deeper. The problem is that monks are supposed to be saintly people who don't eat and drink much. People are shocked when they see that we even laugh and joke."

No doubt the idea of monks being superhuman is rooted in the history of Egypt's desert fathers. Monasticism worldwide takes its roots in their lives.

In the fourth century, men withdrew from the world to lead a solitary life as hermits, while women became anchorites. St Paul of Thebes, recognised as the first hermit, lived in a cave for 90 years; for a third of this time, he did not set eyes on a human being. Then came St Anthony, regarded as the founder of the monastic order, who distributed his wealth to the poor and went into the wilderness. Throughout the fourth century, Egyptians left for the desert to become disciples of the "desert fathers", and gradually monasticism started to become a movement in its own right.

A traveller through Egypt and Palestine in 394AD reported that the dwellers in the desert were equal to the population in the towns. There was talk of an "ascetic epidemic"; according to many accounts, men in their thousands were taking off, hoping to find God in the silence and stillness of the desert. The desert, since the time of the Pharaohs, has been the place to go in search of spirituality. As one steps into the fourth-century Monastery of St Bishoy at Wadi Natroun, where 130 monks abide, one's steps suddenly seemed outrageously loud, one's voice inappropriately high. The same experience was relived in every monastery. The silence engulfed us.

From the fourth century onward, Christian pilgrims from the West and the East set off to find out about this emerging new way of life. Since then, the Coptic monastic movement has had its fair share of ups and downs although, according to His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, the past two decades have definitely witnessed a renaissance. Few can deny the efforts exerted in recent years to upgrade, renovate and revive old, remote and almost abandoned monasteries sprawled across the Egyptian desert. The numbers of men and women who have sought this way of life, according to the Pope, have also increased -- only today, they are often highly educated. Traditionally, monks were recruited from the ranks of the fellahin, who continued to work the land even after joining the order.

Whether educated or not, a person who decides to run away to the wilderness to worship God still seems strange or insane to many -- to put it mildly. In the early days of monasticism, when Egypt was under Roman rule, some fled to the desert to escape the heavy burden of taxation or to avoid being recruited as soldiers, thus leaving behind a land with no one to tend to; others fled as objectors to fighting with the Roman troops. Most returned after a while. Today, popular images of monks include individuals trying to escape life, anxious not to confront a personal crisis of some sort (possibly a love affair gone sour), or perhaps people who just didn't make it in life and have decided to retire to the desert. Most of the older monks, however, believe that "the types that come here to escape life's problems or because they are unhappy don't last long in the desert. They feel that the monastery is a prison and, after a while, they are desperate to get out. Even if they endure this kind of lifestyle at the beginning, they usually leave in the first three years."

Anba Bishoy with the nuns at the St Demiana Convent; Abu Seifein Convent -- the nuns' cells;

What is intriguing in the contemporary Coptic monastic movement are the men and women whose daily lives betrayed no sense of inclination toward a spiritual path. One monk, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was happily working for a company in the morning and managing his shop in the evening. Ten years ago, he decided to fulfil his lifelong wish and joined the monastery. To avoid problems with the family, he quietly took off one day and never returned home. His parents eventually found out through a letter he had sent them. "When I was young, they used to ask us all 'what would you like to be when you grow up?' A friend would say a pilot, another a doctor and I would always say 'a monk'. The decision I made was not based on personal circumstances but on a firm belief that God has called me to serve and worship him in this particular way."

Another monk who has been at the monastery for 15 years also wanted to be a monk since he was very young. Born and raised in the countryside, he used to get very upset when his relatives talked to him about growing up, getting married and starting a family of his own.

One monk at the Baramous Monastery said that, after three years working as an engineer after graduation, he asked for a leave of absence. He only returned to his work to present his papers of resignation a year later and go back to the monastery. After the initial period on probation, a ceremony takes place at which the prayer usually said for the dead is said for the ordained monk. So final is the withdrawal from society, it seems, that it is tantamount to death. Father Kyrollos, one of the managers of the Monastery of St Macarious, says the prayer of the dead is symbolic of a parting with and a separation from the world and the commencement of a new life. "You are dying to the world and to your ego, and uniting yourself to God," he asserts. "This union between the monk and God is like when two people decide to get married, they have a ceremony to announce to the whole world their new lifelong commitment."

Yet the million-dollar question is: do you have to observe extended fasts, vigils, long periods of silence in absolute obedience? Legends of the early desert fathers depicted them as hermits who maintained the vow of silence for years on end, living on dry bread and lentils. To some, this kind of life must seem masochistic in the extreme. But self-denial, many monks point out, is not an aim in itself; it is a means by which the person frees himself from materialistic attachments, thereby gaining purity of heart and union with God. "Self-mortification is not about physical discipline, but about keeping an internal check on your ego, and making sure that what you do is not a show for self-glorification." The idea of self-effacement is integral to the monastic way of life -- many monks would speak only on condition of anonymity; others would disappear at the sight of strangers in the monastery, while most refused to be photographed.

Many monks have no difficulty in identifying obedience as the most difficult lesson to be learned, especially because, as one monk observed, "they come to the monastery as university graduates and highly experienced professionals and they are required to obey instructions that sometimes don't make much sense." It is not rare to find PHD holders and men who have reached the apex of their career only to abandon it all. Even Father Yohanna and Father Kyrollos, the elderly monks of the Monastery of St Macarious, when asked about the greatest challenge in the monastic way of life, reply in unison, rather painfully: "Putting your own will behind you." A case in point, which an elderly monk recounts: "The abbot would suddenly announce to the monks: 'Tomorrow morning I want you to wake up and go pick the fruits off the trees at 4am'. Of course it seemed irrational and incomprehensible to us: why pick fruits at dawn? But we would simply do as he said, to the letter, in total obedience. At the end of the day, the abbot would explain that the wisdom behind it was to teach us the importance of waking up early for prayer and hard work."

Pope Shenouda asserts that "every monk lives according to his spiritual level: the monk who can live in a community can do so, he who has the capacity to live in solitude can do so, the monk who feels he is able to live in a cave in the mountain, can also do so... the door is open to all abilities. I lived in a cave about 12km from the monastery. Weeks used to pass when I would not see the face of a human being." Most monks, however, celebrate Holy Communion in church together, which is usually followed by a meal in fellowship.

And leading a life of meditation and solitude was never a justification for "idleness". The early desert fathers passed their days in their cells weaving baskets and mats from palm trees which were sold in the market. They were almost all involved in manual work of some sort -- they grew their own vegetables, herbs and corn; during the harvest season, some of them would hire themselves out to farmers as labourers, the additional money being distributed to the poor.

A favourite story is that of a fourth-century monk who, visiting the abbot in Mount Sinai, saw the brethren busy in the fields and openly criticised them for their occupation with materialistic living. When evening came and nobody called him for dinner, he sought an explanation from the abbot, who replied sarcastically "you are a spiritual man, and you do not hold food to be necessary, but we, being carnal, have need to eat, and to that end we work. You read all day, and have no wish for food."

...a 4th century wheat mill, no longer in use, at the Monastery of Baramous at Wadi Natroun ...a nun at work in the sewing department at St Demiana's; ...nuns make a variety of leather products, stained-glass windows, and reproductions of icons. They also have a farm overseen by two veterinarians; ...a monk working at St Macarious Monastery; ...maintenance of vehicles; ...a monk baking qurban, the bread used for the Eucharist in mass; ...a monk ready for construction work at Baramous Monastery

Today, said Pope Shenouda, the monks are involved in a different type of work: "There are monks who work in the library, those who do translations because they know foreign languages, those who write books and do printing. This does not prevent them from leading a monastic life. The circle of life does not stop." Today, the emphasis is still on work for self-sufficiency. The monasteries of Wadi Natroun have a reputation for being powerhouses of production -- in particular the Monastery of St Macarious, which is renowned for its revolutionary desert reclamation work, carried out under the leadership of the abbot, Father Matta Al-Miskin. Visitors to the Monastery of St Macarious cannot miss the endless waves of lush green vegetation in the midst of a vast, arid expanse. Father Matta was a pharmacist in his "previous life", but he had a passionate interest in agriculture. At the request of the late Pope Kyrollos, he and 12 other monks left their solitary cells in Fayoum and came to the Monastery of St Macarious, where six monks dwelt.

One of the 12 monks was Father Yohanna. "In 1976-'77, the monastery bought 300 feddans which we wanted to plant. We needed fertilisers for that, and so we used to buy cow dung, which was rather expensive." So why not buy cattle? Well, Father Matta wanted to improve on the quality of the cattle and they decided to cross-breed with certain breeds from Germany. "We thought, since they eat beetroot fodder, why don't we try to grow that, too? We started experimenting until once we ended up with a beetroot that weighed 25kg! Nobody had seen anything like it. We sent it to the late President Sadat, who, to encourage us to continue with our experimentation in reclaiming the desert, gave us 1,000 feddans. On this land, we grew palm trees and different kinds of olives. We bred chickens, too. We introduced one breed to Egypt. In 1978-'79 we started using more advanced scientific methods like the artificial fertilisation of plants and cattle. The monks were sent on three-month scholarships abroad and came back to apply and develop what they had learned. Gradually we moved into tissue culture and we are now experimenting with cross-varieties of different plants. The quality and the high yield of our experiments were quite unexpected."

Today, to give a rough estimate, there are 450 feddans of olives grown (the monks have some of the best olives in town), 850 feddans of palm trees, 12 feddans of two varieties of bananas, 90 of mangoes, five each of apples and cantaloupes, 40 of beetroot fodder. When they first arrived at the monastery, there was a single well; now there are 20 from which they draw water to irrigate the land. Experts from the Ministry of Agriculture drop in to discuss land reclamation and genetic engineering, while apprentices are sent from agricultural institutes to be trained by the monks. It is not the monks who are working the land, however -- hired agricultural labourers probably exceed the 100 or so monks at St Macarious. Father Yohanna admits: "None of us were farmers; we were all university graduates, so we had to get people who knew how to work the land." Their daily contact with the peasants is not the only link with the outside world, since visitors flock to all the monasteries for a visit and for retreats.

Traditionally, monks have been reputed for their hospitality and generosity, but then again, there have rarely been more than a handful of visitors. There were no roads and no tracks; those who sought them in the desert most often came by camel. Today, Father Yohanna, who has been a monk for over 35 years, points to the increasing difficulties the monasteries face in preserving their solitary way of life: "As monks, we want to live in isolation, in silence. We can no longer do that. Urbanisation is creeping in, easy transport allows people to flock to us and of course there is the reclamation of the desert around us and the emergence of new cities. Many monks find this distracting; they can no longer enjoy peace and quiet."

Monasticism today has much to reconcile between its past and its present: one can feel it all around. The monks are dressed exactly as they were hundreds of years ago, yet they discuss how work is progressing on different sites via mobile phones. They still live in modest cells, yet large churches are being constructed to accommodate the continuous floods of visitors. They are at the forefront of experimentation in genetic engineering for plants, no longer engaged in the manual work of the past. Perhaps what has remained intact is the daily struggle to live a life of obedience, chastity and poverty.

IN THE HISTORY of the Egyptian monastic movement, one does not have to be especially perceptive to note the absence of any reference to "the desert mothers". There are, of course, stories of nuns who have been canonised as saints, but by far, the dominant image of women in the Coptic monastic history is anything but positive -- women are more often than not construed as seductresses whose many guises tempted monks to fall away from their vow of chastity. In fact, the image of women sometimes stands on the borderline of implicit or explicit misogyny. One monk at the Monastery of Baramous, asked what was the best thing about monastic life, grinned: "Not having to be nagged by a woman first thing in the morning."

And yet Father Yohanna and Father Kyrollos were very surprised at the suggestion that monks hate women. "No, we don't hate women, but at the heart of our monastic way of life is the principle of seclusion from women because they are associated with emotional attachments to previous lives," said Father Yohanna. "In fact," added Father Kyrollos, "one of the biggest impediments we face when teaching novices the new way is their attachment to their mothers and, especially, their sisters."

But some women have readily and happily given up attachments to the men in their lives to dedicate themselves to God. According to Bishop Bishoy, who is head of St Demiana's Convent, however, the absence of any reference to "the desert mothers" is due to the fact that nuns had to live in populated areas, where their convent could be under the close protection of the church. "That is why you find that, apart from St Demiana's, the other five convents are all in the middle of Cairo. Nuns could never live like hermits; once a woman becomes a nun, she should only leave the convent when carried to the graveyard." St Demiana's Convent has taken care of that by building a graveyard within the premises of the convent.

St Demiana's, built in the third century, is in close proximity to Damietta, close to the village of Barrari Bilqas. St Demiana is one of the most revered female saints in the Coptic Orthodox Church. Her father was an influential ruler and, when his daughter Demiana was converted to Christianity, he was flabbergasted. After attempts to dissuade her failed, he tried to marry her off to a rich man, but she adamantly refused, saying she would never marry because she wanted to devote her life to God. She and 40 other women, who also decided to live a celibate life dedicated to worshipping God, set out to live in seclusion in a house on their own. She underwent the most brutal tortures, but none of the women would deny their beliefs. They were martyred, but other women continued to follow the trail that Demiana had blazed -- despite all the prejudices against unmarried women.

In 1978, Demiana's tradition was revived, and there are now 60 nuns living in the convent. Anba Bishoy believes that it has always been harder for women to become nuns than for men to become monks because of the restrictions on their mobility, their exclusion from decision-making and the pressure to get married. "It is especially difficult for women who live in Upper Egypt, where there are no convents. In the old days, many women would escape from home, take the train and turn up at the door of one of the convents in the city."

..Father Pachomious at the dining table made of stone where the monks eat together after mass at the Baramous Monastery; ..St Demiana's Convent; ..washing on the roof of St Demiana's; nuns at work at St Demiana's; the staircase at the Abu Seifein Convent, leading up to the nuns' cells. Visitors cannot go upstairs -- customarily, no one may enter a nun's cell until she dies

These "escape stories" are not entirely a thing of the past, as many nuns will recount today. Sometimes a convent is besieged by infuriated parents demanding to "have their daughters back"; when the young women refuse, a few have headed to the police station to report that the convent has kidnapped their daughters. Partly to avoid such problems, convents do not accept women under the age of 21.

One mother (in the Coptic Orthodox Church nuns are called mothers, not sisters) who has been at the monastery for 16 years remembers the difficulties she faced. Confident that she did not want to get married, she still faced considerable pressure from her family not to join the convent. Eventually, she decided that she was going to wait no longer. "I went to church one day to attend mass, I taught my Sunday school class, then quietly took the train and came to the convent instead of going home."

Mother Epiphania's parents discovered by chance that their daughter was going to join the convent 11 years ago, when she took a leave of absence from her work as a computer engineer. Her parents became alarmed -- they had sensed that she was heading in that direction, she says, because of her frequent retreats at the convent, "and well because I didn't do all the things young women liked to do: I never put on any make-up, I dressed simply, spent a lot of my spare time at church and was not interested in getting married." She reassured them that this was only a trial, that she might not like it and end up coming home. She never did. It was agonising for her parents, who are only permitted to visit her four times a year. Most of the nuns agree that it was more difficult for their parents than for themselves: "We become part of a new family, where strong bonds are formed, but it is the parents who always feel that they have lost a member of the family. Still, eventually they accept it because they see how happy we are," says Mother Anna, a dentist who continues to practice at the convent's medical centre.

Some of the stories recounted by many nuns about their struggle to pursue the way of life they believe in are baffling. They rejected certain norms of femininity, turned down one suitor after another and engaged in long and tiresome battles with their families. The struggle also took place on a social level, as they challenged patriarchal views of women's sacred role as wives and mothers. What they did was often seen as scandalous -- they did not follow the well-marked path from their father's to their husband's house. This struggle dates back to the beginning of the Christian era.

Mother Ireni, mother superior at the Abu Seifein Convent, is deeply involved in her effort to bring to light women's real contribution to monastic life in Egypt. Mother Ireni must be the one nun Coptic Christians today love the most; she is considered a living saint by the majority. While traditional accounts have consecrated St Paul of Thebes and St Anthony as the pioneers of monastic life and seclusion from the world, Mother Ireni insists that it was women who started this tradition, in the first century AD. Shortly after the resurrection of Christ, she believes, a group of women vowed to live a celibate life of prayer in a community at Mount Olive. They are supposed to have been in close contact with St Mary, the mother of Christ. Although this was the first of its kind, according to Mother Ireni, such communities of women proliferated and became commonly known as the "houses of virgins". In the centuries that followed, women also sought a solitary life in the desert as anchorites, but disguised themselves as men. Their real identity was only discovered after their death. Mother Ireni, however, emphasises that some of the anchorites who reached high levels of spirituality even had monks as disciples, "like Anisimone, the anchorite who taught many monks."

The first convent, where 400 nuns lived, followed the rule of St Pachomious. In the first centuries, there were also women's convents in Akhmim, Sohag, while another convent in Upper Egypt had more than 1,800 nuns within its walls. At one point, the number of nuns exceeded the number of monks; near Beni Suef, there were monastic communities where 10,000 monks and 20,000 nuns lived.

Mother Ireni, who hails from Upper Egypt, became head of the convent at the age of 16. She holds fast to the tradition of St Pachomious in the monastic way of life. In the second half of the fourth century, St Pachomious began a movement in which monks and nuns were organised in strictly regulated communities. In his monastery of Tabenna near the Nile, 7,000 men and women lived in congregations. Their garments included a tunic of linen, a cloak of goat or sheepskin, and a hood. They came to live within a walled enclosure, which included a church, refectory, dormitory, garden, and a separate lodging for visitors. St Pachomious's way of life has been instrumental in shaping the contemporary Catholic monastic movement. Mother Ireni insists on the importance of living in a community. "While it is up to each nun to decide on the level of austerity appropriate for her, our life is still essentially built on partnership and love."

Mother Ireni doesn't run a convent like a traditional mother superior -- she emphasises the importance of leading a community in a democratic way. "I don't like to point to the sisters' faults and shortcomings. Words of love and encouragement are more effective." Still, despite her non-confrontational, non-aggressive philosophy, Mother Ireni is anything but a submissive, introverted woman. She is reputed for being outspoken and for not budging once she has taken a stand. In the Coptic Church, only priests are allowed to anoint people with oil, but Mother Ireni is an exception. This right was given to her by former Pope Kyrollos, and she continues to exercise it as people flock to see her, ask for her prayers and request that she anoint them.

To all the questions about her philosophy and her community, she would state over and over again the importance of love.

Was it all so simple for her?

"In a family, different people take on similar features and traits. It is like that when you live your life with God. You are influenced by those you spend the most time with. Peace, joy and love come from prayer with God. That's why our life here is a life of prayer."

photos: Randa Shaath (convents)
and Sherif Sonbol (monasteries)

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