Saint Paul the Anchorite Monastery
The eastern mountain range near the Red Sea is home to a Coptic Orthodox church called St Paul’s Anchorite Monastery situated in Egypt. This monastery Valentines day origami is approximately – in kilometers and miles – thousands located to the southeast of Cairo. The clip image of the tiger is popularly known as the Monastery of Tigers. St Paul’s Monastery is located in the town of Ras Ghareb which is part of the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt.
The beginnings of the Anchorite Monastery of Saint Paul date from the IV century A.D. It was founded by the early Christians over the cave where Paul lived for more than eighty years. The first travel account of the monastery was given by Antonius the Martyr, a native of Placentia, who visited the tomb of St. Paul of Assyria between 560 and 570 AD.
The first monks who occupied the monastery were disciples of Anthony the Great. After they knew the story of Paul the Anchorite, the Melkites occupied the place for a short time. However, the Egyptians and Syrian monks followed them back to this place. According to an isolated Ethiopian authority, the 70th Coptic Orthodox Pope, Gabriel II (1131-1145 AD) was exiled to St. Paul of Assyria Monastery for three years.
Like most monasteries in Egypt, this one suffered repeatedly at the hands of Bedouin tribes. The most devastating raid was in 1484 AD. The Bedouins killed many of the monastery's monks and put the library in the torch by then. Later, the monastery was rebuilt by Christians under Pope Gabriel VII of Alexandria (1526-69 AD). The Pope sent ten monks from the Syrian monastery to inhabit the Anchorite monastery of St. Paul.
During the second half of the 16th century, the monastery was again attacked and looted twice by Bedouins, forcing the monks to finally leave. The monastery remained abandoned for 119 years, only to be inhabited by a group of monks from St. Anthony's Monastery under the patronage of Pope John XVI of Alexandria (1676-1718 AD). He encouraged a large-scale reconstruction of the monastery in 1701 AD.