THE RESTORATION OF SAINT ANTONY’S MONASTERY, EGYPT, UNDER FATHER MAXIMUS AL-ANTONY – A HERITAGE KEY PRODUCTION
January 13, 2012
In 2009, Heritage Key produced a short excellent documentary showing the restoration of the Monastery of Saint Antony at the Red Sea, Egypt. Father Maximus al-Antony, the Coptic monk at the monastery who is supervising the restoration work features in it: he explains the expert work done to restore and preserve the monastery’s buildings and wall paintings. The Monastery of Saint Antony is a sacred space for Coptia but it is also a world heritage site that is important to so many people across the globe, particularly Christians.
7 Comments
leave one →
عظيم ومبارك مجهودك وتعبك يا ابونا مكسيموس الانطوني الرب قادران يستخدمك لمجد اسمه
Thanks, Fr. Isaac. There is no doubt that Fr. Maximus has rendered a great service to the Church and to the Coptic nation.
Thank you for sharing, for a minute it felt as if I were there. So the original Church predated Islam, nice to see it survived.
Will.
Thanks, Will. It did predate Islam; and it perhaps survived because it is in a monastery in the far eastern desert, far away from the reach of the mobs of the Islamists, and those who represented them in government. So, while Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (996-1021) systematic campaign and the Mamluk concerted attacks in 1301, 1321 and 1254 managed to destroy almost all Coptic churches in towns and villages across Egypt, they could not do much to destroy churches in isolated monasteries. The monastery of St. Antony the Great somehow, through the artwork it preserved and much more, connects us to the past, culture and identity which our enemies tried hard to destroy.
Please keep me in touch.
Will sure do. Dioscorus