The Monastery of Baramus | Coptic Attractions
The Monastery of Baramus | Coptic Attractions
One of the oldest monasteries of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Monastery of the Virgin of Pramous is located in Wadi El Natrun, about 12 kilometres from the Cairo-Alexandria road. St Makarios was the first hermit to inhabit the wilderness of Shehit around 330 AD in search of peace and tranquillity, and he founded the first monastic community.
The Brahmos grew as a monastic community, complete with a church in which they prayed and monks' caves spread around it without a wall, around 356 AD. The monastery is associated with the Roman saints Maximus and Domadius. The current monastery is considered one of the Theotokos monasteries, as the Orthodox monks wanted to resist the Julian heresy in the sixth century AD and established churches with the title Theotokos alongside the original churches bearing the name of the monastic community.
Among the saints of the monastery: Bishop Moussa, one of the best examples of a life of repentance, St Isodorus, the priest of Iskit, and St Arsanius, the teacher of the children of kings. The monastery has towering walls built after the sixth barbarian raid in 817, 11 metres high and two and a half metres wide, as well as a palace used for hospitality and two lighthouses.
Monastery churches:
- The main archaeological church of Our Lady of the Assumption
- Attached to it are two churches
- Prince Tadros Church
- Marjorgis Romanesque Church
- Church of Mariohna the Baptist
- The current abbot of the monastery: Bishop Isodoros
- Six of his monks have ascended to the papal throne
