Coptic Villagers of the Upper Nile

 The following is information from other writers which shines light on some cultural and religious aspects of life in Egypt.

Coptic Villagers of the Upper Nile – Islands of Christianity 

by Kenneth Cline, CNEWA Summer 1986

In the ancient Nile Valley, the past flows imperceptibly into the present, particularly for the Coptic fellahin, “the people who work the land.” These contemporary Christian peasants toil under the empty blue sky of Egypt using pharaonic-age methods, including hand operated well sweeps and single-bladed plows pulled by oxen.

Although the Coptic Church officially dates from St. Mark’s visit to Egypt in the middle of the first century, in the popular imagination Egypt’s Christianity begins with the visit of the Holy Family. In the Coptic elaboration of Matthew’s gospel story, Joseph and Mary brought the infant Jesus from what is now Ismailia in the north through the Delta to Cairo, and then up the Nile Valley to Asyut before returning to Palestine after Herod’s death.

Coptic Christians can trace their ancient peasant heritage back farther than the predominant Muslim population. In fact, the word Egyptian, from the Greek Aigyptios, derives from the Arabic word for Christian, Gibt. Copt, in turn, comes from this word. Egypt’s six million Copts, out of a total population of 47 million, generally consider themselves to be the true direct descendants of the pharaonicage people. Muslims trace their ancestry back to the Islamic conquest of 640. Before then Egypt was a Christian country centered around Alexandria’s patriarchate. Even today the Copts form the largest Christian group in any Muslim country.

Isolation has kept rural Copts unchanged for centuries. For the past 1300 years they have had almost no contact with Christians of the West. They rarely travel abroad for business or education, preferring to cling to their land. They live in remote hamlets along the 700-mile stretch of the Egyptian Nile from Alexandria to Aswan, like Christian islands in a Muslim sea.

If the Holy Family traveled as far as Asyut, they probably would have encountered fellahin like those surviving further upriver in Ezbat Basili, a Christian hamlet on the Nile’s west bank opposite Luxor. Here, in the plain of ancient Thebes, where monuments to the pharaohs draw hordes of Western tourists, 400 Christians live among 12,000 Muslims within the larger village of Bairat.

Ezbat Basili is one of Bairat’s poorest hamlets, perched at the very edge of the desert, far from the more fertile riparian land. The shabby mud-brick Christian houses are distinguished by crosses over the doorways. Signs of prestige, such as televisions, washing machines, and ceiling fans, are more commonly found in the Muslim homes.

Some 220 yards to the west of the hamlet in the desert sits the focus of Ezbat Basili’s Christian community. The Deir Shahid Tadros al Mahareb, “Monastery of St. Theodore the Warrior,” consists of a multi-domed church and several outbuildings enclosed by a wall. Local tradition holds that the church dates from 785. Indeed, some stone columns inside the church are embossed with Greek crosses in the Byzantine style and may be of great antiquity, but the structure itself appears to have been rebuilt many times.

Having such an important Christian institution is Ezbat Basili’s only relief from isolation. Local Copts contribute food and voluntary labor to support the Deir. Then, every January 20 a major festival is held there in honor of its patron, who was martyred during a great persecution initiated by the Roman emperor Diocletian in 303. The festival attracts hundreds of people from the Upper Nile region.

The hamlet owes its existence to the Deir. During the latter part of the 19th century, most of Bairat’s Christians lived in the hamlet of El Kom. Sheikh Balad Basili, then chief of the ghafirs (rural police), decided to move his home nearer the Deir. As a man of prestige in the village, he attracted other Christian families from El Kom to settle near him. The new hamlet was named Ezbat, “place of,” Basili in his honor.

Sheikh Basili’s son Mata went into the priesthood and became a figure of great importance to Christians in the Luxor area. When Father Mata died in the late 1970s, he was buried at the Deir in a tomb whose dome is higher than that of the church itself. Almost every Copt in the Upper Nile region knows Father Mata is buried here. The tomb is now a pilgrimage site for local Copts, who leave animal sacrifices at its entrance and write on the white-washed walls imploring the dead priest’s intercession for solving their problems. When Father Mata was active in his ministry, another Ezbat Basili family produced a prominent priest, Father Tadros, of whom the villagers still tell miracle stories.

Now these priests are gone, and Ezbat Basili no longer attracts the stream of important visitors who visited them. Only poor farmers live there, on the edge of the desert. The hamlet is quiet at night, except for cool desert breezes rustling the date palm fronds and for the desultory barking of dogs.

As they live their hard lot as fellahin, the Christians of Ezbat Basili tap the strength of their deep faith. It is not unusual to see families of villagers traveling along the desert road to celebrate feast days at shrines such as the Monastery of St. Mary at Armant. They bring their high spirits as they clap joyfully and sing the praises of Mary: “You are a good mother, Mary. You can help us when we have problems. Lovely Mary, when we have problems, we come to you and your Son.”

To see them on their small pilgrimage is like seeing the Holy Family travel that same landscape during an earlier sojourn. At the monastery the Coptic worshippers’ communion reaffirms their long-lived Christian tradition.

The Monasteries of Wadi el Natrun 
text and photographs by Armineh Johannes, CNEWA, July-August 1996

In the desert, midway between the sprawling cities of Cairo and Alexandria, lie the monasteries of Wadi el Natrun. For 1,500 years, the monks of Wadi el Natrun enjoyed the isolation of the desert. However, the construction of the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway in 1936 and the recent raising of a nearby guest house have diminished this cherished tranquility. Isolation has been supplanted by the increasing integration of the Coptic Church with the secular world. Today hundreds of pilgrims and tourists visit the monasteries daily; Wadi el Natrun may be reached in just 90 minutes by car from either Cairo or Alexandria.

The history of Wadi el Natrun, or Valley of Salt, can be traced to Pharaonic times. The region is rich in nitrate, which the ancient Egyptians extracted for their embalming process.

According to Coptic tradition, the Christian history of the valley began when an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, the husband of Mary, urging the bewildered man to take his wife and child to Egypt: “Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him (Matthew 2:13).” Finding in the desert a safe haven for her child, the Virgin. it is said, blessed the valley in thanksgiving.

Beginning in the late third century, the valley offered another kind of refuge: solitude for those seeking to flee the distractions of society, to live lives of uninterrupted prayer. Following the example of St. Pachomius, the pioneer of community life. St. Macarius established, in the mid-fourth century, the first religious house in Wadi el Natrun, a place where men and women, bound by vows of poverty, lived and prayed in community.

Until the Arab invasion of Egypt (640-642), Wadi el Natrun was a beehive of activity. Thousands of Copts (a name derived from the Greek, Aigyptios, meaning Egyptian), and Armenians, Ethiopians, Greeks and Latins – professors and philosophers as well as peasants – gathered in these monasteries to live and pray.

Today more than 400 monks inhabit four remaining monasteries – Deir Amba Maqar (Monastery of St. Macarius), the fourth-century Deir el Barambus (Monastery of the Romans), the eighth-century Deir as-Suryani (Monastery of the Syrians) and Deir Amba Bishoi (Monastery of St. Bishoi), reconstructed in the 14th century – faithfully follow the rule of monastic life established by the desert fathers.

“The life of the monk revolves around prayer and fasting,” asserts Abuna Sedrak of Deir Amba Bishoi, which is home to more than 100 monks. “The only prerequisite for a candidate to enter the monastery is love of God.” It is customary that a candidate enter after he has completed his university studies and his military service. Thus, many enter after their 25th birthday.

Once a candidate is accepted, he will wear the white robe of a postulant for the first year. For the second year, he will don the brown robe of a novice and grow a beard. On 25 August of the third year, on the feast of St. Macarius, as he lies on the cold floor of the ancient chapel, his head facing the altar, the monk will he formally accepted, receiving the black robe and a new, religious name, forever discarding his worldly past.

The ringing of a solitary bell at 3:00 A.M. begins the daily routine at Deir Amba Bishoi. As with other monasteries of Wadi el Natrun, a second bell peals an hour later, calling the monk from his meditation and inviting him to join the community in the chapel for morning prayer. “The monk attends his tasks, which are chores usually related to his previous profession and assigned by the superior, at 6:00 A.M.,”continues Abuna Sedrak.

In fact, a majority of the monks at Wadi el Natrun are university graduates who have entered monastic life after years in the “real world.” Agronomists, doctors, engineers, lawyers and pharmacists have all discovered a religious vocation.

After the recitation of 12 psalms at noon, the community gathers in the refectory for the midday meal, the only one that is taken in common. The other meals, which are much smaller, are prepared by each monk in his individual cell.

The 110 monks of St. Macarius, not unlike the other communities in the valley, have reclaimed large areas of the desert. Just north of the monastery, large farm buildings house more than 400 cattle, chickens and sheep, which are bred and sold. Beet fodder, introduced to the country by the monks, is cultivated on land formerly arid. The monks also grow olives, dates, melons and other produce animals,” explains Abuna Wadid, an engineer who has been charged with construction activities at the monastery.

Since 1960, the Egyptian government has attempted to revitalize the desert around the monasteries, providing windbreaks and irrigation systems. Crops of alfalfa, castor beans, tomatoes, watermelons and other vegetables are now cultivated.

In 1978, in recognition and in gratitude for its work, President Anwar Sadat (1970-81) donated a substantial portion of land to St. Macanus Monastery, as well as two tractors and a new well, drilled to obtain subsoil water.

Although the monastic life calls for silence and a cessation of worldly distractions, the monks communicate regularly with the secular world. St. Mark magazine, a monthly journal published at Wadi el Natrun, discusses topics of interest to the Coptic Orthodox Church and Egyptian society and culture. Published on a modern printing press, St. Mark is available in Arabic and several foreign languages.

Over the past few years, the number of monastic aspirants has increased and, in the last 25 years, the monastic population has multiplied tenfold. Critics point out that, although the monastic life is a simple one, it assures one some measure of peace – the monastery provides shelter and food as well as a refuge from the economic and political chaos of modem Egypt.

“If only I was born a Christian, I could have joined a monastery and lived in peace,” comments Makdi, a taxi driver in Cairo.

The trials and temptations of modern society, however, confront each monk every day. Recall the medieval and Renaissance paintings depicting the temptations of St. Anthony of Egypt!

The limitations of Egypt’s secular government in an environment of escalating Islamic extremism are but one trial. The Copts, who encompass just 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 58 million, have to act with moderation and discretion:

“Each time we have tried to claim our rights by using pressure, we have suffered,” Abuna Wadid says seriously. “We try to proceed with logic, to discuss issues cordially and gently.”

Nevertheless, the 1,500-year-old vision of St. Macarius and his desert friends does not just survive, it thrives. The monasteries of Wadi el Natrun, and the holy people who dwell therein, are beginning a new millennium with great hope and faith.

Armineh Johannes is a photojournalist based in Paris, France.