Egypt, the birthplace of communal monasticism, has a rich store of monasteries and monastic art. Coptic Monasteries takes the reader on a tour of the best preserved and most significant of these ancient religious centers, documenting in exhaustive detail the richness and the glory of the Coptic heritage. An informative introduction by Tim Vivian brings to life the early Christian era, with background information on the origins of the Coptic Church as well as its rites and ceremonies, sketches of some of monasticism's founding figures, and accounts of some of the difficulties they faced, from religious schism to nomadic attacks. Gawdat Gabra's expert commentary, complemented by almost one hundred full-color photographs of newly restored wall paintings and architectural features, covers monasteries from Aswan to Wadi al-Natrun. Ranging across a thousand years of history, Gabra's observations will make any reader an expert on the composition and content of some of Egypt's most outstanding religious art, the salient architectural features of each monastery, as well as the ongoing process of restoration that has returned much of their original vibrancy to these works. A unique and invaluable historical record, Coptic Monasteries is equally an in-depth, on-the-spot guide to these living monuments or an armchair trip back in time to the roots of one of the world's oldest Christian traditions.

"Coptic Monasteries takes the reader on a tour of the best preserved and most significant of Egypt's ancient religious centers, documenting the richness and the glory of this country's Coptic heritage." "An informative introduction by Tim Vivian brings to life the early Christian era, with background information on the origins of the Coptic Church as well as its rites and ceremonies, sketches of some of monasticism's founding figures, and accounts of some of the difficulties they faced, from religious schism to nomadic attacks." "Gawdat Gabra's expert commentary, complemented by almost one hundred full-color photographs of wall paintings and architectural features, covers monasteries from Aswan to Wadi al-Natrun. Ranging across a thousand years of history, Gabra's observations will make any reader an expert on the composition and content of some of Egypt's most outstanding religious art and the salient architectural features of each monastery, as well as the ongoing process of restoration that has returned much of their original vibrancy to some of these works."--Jacket.

During the first century, Saint Mark brought Christianity to Egypt and in so doing, formed the basis for the Coptic Orthodox Church. Today, Copts, members of the Coptic Church, compromise the largest Christian Community in the Middle East. The Coptic Church is more than 19 centuries old and has produced thousands of texts and biblical and theological studies. During the last half of the 20th century, however, economic and political discrimination has forced between 400,000 and one million Copts to emigrate from Egypt, with the majority settling in North America and Australia. The A to Z of the Coptic Church details the history of one of the oldest Christian churches. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and more than 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important people, organizations, and structures; the theology and practices of the church; its literature and liturgy; and monasteries and churches.

The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: point of departure for a relative chronology / Renate Dekker -- Intellectural life in Middle Egypt: the case of the Monastery of Bawit (sixth-eighth centuries) / Alain Delattre -- Christianity and monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic sources / Sherin Sadek El Gendi -- Mesokemic or 'middle Egyptian': the Coptic dialect of Oxyrhynchos / Frank Feder -- The Monastery of Apollo at Bala'iza and its literary texts / James E. Goehring -- "Twenty thousand nuns": the domestic virgins of Oxyrhynchos / AnneMarie Luijendijk -- Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834-81 / Bishop Martyros -- The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: history and heritage (reflections of its monks) / Fr. Angelos al-Muharraqi and a group of the monastery's monks -- John of Shmoun and Coptic identity / Samuel Moawad -- Christianity in Asyut in modern history / Adel F. Sadek -- The place of Qusqam in the textual data on the flight into Egypt / Ashraf Alexandre Sadek -- John of Lykopolis / Mark Sheridan -- Discerning the true religion in late fourteenth-century Egypt: pages from the Dayr al-Muharraq edition of al-Hawi by al-Makin Jirjis ibn al-'Amid / Mark Swanson -- Egyptian gnosticism from its cradle in the Alexandrian quarters of the second century to its jar tomb in the upper Egyptian town of Nag' Hammadi / Hany N. Takla -- Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fami: a Coptic saint of the fourteenth century / Asuka Tsuji -- Snippets from the past: two ancient sites in the Asyut region: Dayr al-Gabrawi and Dayr al-'Izam / Jacques van der Vliet -- Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq / Youhanna Nessim Youssef -- L* as a secret language: social functions of early Coptic / Ewa D. Zakrzewska -- Bawit in the twenty-first century: bibliography 1997-2014 / Dominique Bénazeth -- Children's burials from Antinoopolis: discoveries from recent excavations / Cäcilia Fluck -- Recent excavations at Bawit / Gisèle Hadji-Minaglou -- Funerary aspects in the paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit / Karel Innemée -- The cave of John of Lykopolis / Jochem Kahl -- Al-Shaykh Sa'id revisited: a reassessment of the spatial layout of a monastic community / Gertrud J.M. van Loon -- Toward the documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut / Howard Middleton-Jones -- The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: reflections of its monks today / Fr. Philoxenos al-Muharraqi and a group of the monastery's monks -- An overview of rock-cut Coptic sites in Asyut / Ashraf Nageh and Mary Kupelian -- Architectural typology of historic Coptic churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla / Sami Sabri Shaker

The desert fathers of ancient Egypt are an inherently fascinating, historical phenomenon. Sacrifice in the Desert is an anthropological study of the contemporary spiritual descendents of these monks as they live out their lives in some of the most primitive and remote monasteries of the Sahara Desert.