Monastery of the Syrians

(Local Name: Wadi Natrun - Deir el-Suryan) The most accessible of the monasteries is the Deir el-Suryan, a sombre colored building surrounded by palms. It was founded in the sixth C. and purchased in the eighth C. by a wealthy and pious Syrian merchant named Tekrit for monks from Syria. Like the other monasteries in the Wadi Natrun, it was several times devastated by Berber raiders in the ninth C., and in the 14th C. it was visited by a devastating plague. In the 16th C. the monastery, then almost totally abandoned, was taken over by Coptic monks, who still occupy it.