Wadi El Natrun

The Sketische Desert, also called the Skete or desert Sketis, is a desert valley ( wadi ), which as an offshoot of the Sahara ( Libyan Desert ) is located about 100 km southeast of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria and south-west of the Nile Delta, halfway to the car road to Giza. It is also known as Wadi Natrun to - (Arabic وادي النطرون, DMG Wādī to - Natrun, Natrontal ' ) is known. The name Sketis is " asceticism " interpreted descended in Christian- Coptic understanding than the Greek, but is derived from the ancient Egyptian Sekhet - hemat (salt box ). From the label, the more meaning for the term Skete derives, under which one understands, among other things, a small chapel or church with some surrounding separately hermit or recluse house. Already in the late antique monastic writers who described the life of the hermit, the term Sketis was also used as a collective term for the other hermit settlements in the western Nile Delta.

The Sketis is next to the Nitria ( Natron ) and the kellia ( cells desert ), one of the areas south-west of the Nile Delta between Alexandria and Giza, which developed one of the most basic forms of Christian monasticism in the second half of the 4th century, that of the hermit community. Moved here following the example of Saint Anthony the Christians back to renounce the world in asceticism. Among them, the Holy Arsenius, Macarius the Egyptians were ( the spiritual center of this hermit colony represented ), and Macarius of Alexandria, who headed the community as abbot. The monasteries were repeatedly exposed to attacks of the Berbers and Bedouins. Abbas Makarios attributed it to the sins of the monks; he said of the devastation of the Sketis to the brothers: "When you see that near a Kellion is being built by the lake, then know that its desolation is near. If you see trees, then it is at the door, and when you see boys, then take your coats and walks away. " ( Apophthegmata 458 )

After the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century many monasteries in Wadi Natrun were dissolved. In the year 705 was the Emir Abd -al- Aziz monks pressed the Ungläubigensteuer. Arab historian al - Maqrizi reports that many monks tortured and killed, destroyed the churches and the crosses were broken.

Today are in this transected by the Alexandria - Cairo highway desert valley four monasteries:

• Monastery of St.. Makarios - Dair Anba Maqar
• Monastery of Boromäos - Dair al - Baramus
• Monastery of the Syrians - Dair al- Suryan
• Monastery of St.. Pischoi - Dair Anba Bischoi

The Wadi Natrun to - got its name as an already -used in ancient place of decomposition of naturally occurring soda, which has also been used for mummification and for glass manufacture.