Kellia

With kellia is an Egyptian Christian hermit settlement in the western part of the Nile delta, about 60 to 80 km southeast of Alexandria and about 30 km south of Damanhur, respectively. The kellia encloses a hilly area of over 100 square kilometers along the Al- Nubanya Canal, which connects the western branch of the Nile with the Mareotissee in Alexandria, outside the former cultivated land.

In addition to the Natrontal ( Wadi an Natrun ) in the south and the Nitria in the north kellia is one of the areas in the Sahara foothills ( Sketische desert ) southwest of the Nile Delta between Alexandria and Giza, where in the first half of the 4th century one of the basic forms of Christian monasticism developed, that of the hermit community. Moved here after the example of Saint Anthony Christians back to renounce the world in asceticism. The kellia was in 1964 by the French archaeologist Antoine Guillaumont ( 1915-2000 ) discovered and explored for over 25 years by excavations. She is one of the most important archaeological sites of early Christian monasticism in Egypt, as the remains of the monks' cells have been well preserved in the desert sand and have not been destroyed by agricultural use and irrigation. In Egyptian Arabic, the cells are called Qusur (plural of Ksar sing. ), small castles and fortifications, because the monks wanted to protect with small fortified perimeter around their hermitages from unwelcome visitors and robbers.

The foundation of the monastic settlement kellia is handed radically Aryan. It was 338 AD by the student Anthony Amun ( Ammon 288-356 ), which has been about ten years ago founded the Nitria, established on the occasion of a visit of Antony at Amun in the Nitria. Amun told his teacher from the hustle and bustle in the Nitria, and that it would be unbearable for him here and some of the monks who were more calm and seclusion. Anthony suggested that after eating the 9th hour (maybe in the afternoon around 3 clock ) or a hike in the southern desert, to take out of the built up area of the Nile Delta. After three hours, when it was dark, they came to the new site and put them firmly as the new place of settlement. The individual hermitages were built at a large distance from each other and secured with wall rings. It also churches were built, in which the monks on Saturday and Sunday came together to worship and the Lord's Supper.

In the new settlement hermits settled at the end of the 4th century up to 600 monks with their students on until the 6th century, more than 1,500 cells were created. Since the 7th century, the population declined because of dogmatic disputes, many nomadic raids and the Islamization of Egypt, in the 9th century, this settlement was abandoned altogether.