THE MONASTERY OF SAINT ANTONY

The Monastery of Saint Antony is a gated space composed of light limestone architecture and bright glass mosaics.  Trees are scattered from place to place, and the surrounding natural hills where Antony once lived as a hermit serve as a lovely backdrop.

Father Maximus invited us into his living quarters, where we sat in a long room with white walls covered in matte prints of the paintings in the Church of Saint Antony.  Décor in this space includes an incense holder, which adds a sacred flair to an otherwise secular space.  Mirrors and crosses of various sizes and materials fill in the blank spaces on the walls.

This is the space where the conservators working on the Church of Saint Antony stayed during their project, and on one of the coffee tables in the sitting room is the book that resulted from the conservation work, which I also saw for sale at Deir el-Medina (I thumbed through it, but decided not to buy it and regret that at this moment).  We passed the book around while we sipped tea from cups printed with the Monastery’s name.  (Cliché?  The commercialization of sacred space?)

Father Maximus himself is quite a character: tall, soft-spoken yet assertive, and dressed rather casually for a Man of the Church (in loafers and with his sleeves rolled up).  He has a very dry sense of humor and the tendency to slip a joke in here and there in a small voice during serious conversations.  He gave us a tour of the major spaces at the Monastery, including a room with two mills, the Church of the Apostles and the Church of Saint Antony.

What I liked most about our tour was the honesty, interest and grateful attitude expressed by Father Maximus concerning restoration and archaeology inside the Church of the Apostles.  Firstly, I must note that the glass floor placed over the recently-uncovered remains of 4th-century structures is a great way to allow visitors insight into the layering effect created by construction-over-construction.  Archaeology is the uncovering of these layers, and the exposure of older ones in a church functioning in the present offers an interesting look at how science and religion can function successfully as coexisting institutions.  But my main point here is that Father Maximus is so involved in the project at this Church that he knows enough to guide a group of archaeology students around the place; not only is he accepting of the need for preservation via archaeology at Saint Antony’s—he’s also enthusiastic about it.

Father Maximus told us that when the project is finished, the glass floor will be covered by a carpet during services.  The carpet will be removed at all other times, so that visitors may take advantage of the dual function of the space (display and ritual) at different times.

I feel like I might get carried away in describing the paintings in the Church of Saint Antony if I allow myself to write about it for too long; so instead, I’ll make some very simple statements about what I gathered from our visit there today:

• The paint is remarkably well-preserved, or at least has the appearance of having been well-preserved thanks to the Italian team I’ve spoken about in several other entries.  The use of “dirty water” to camouflage areas of missing paint within the larger scheme of the painting works as well here as it does in the Red Monastery and elsewhere.
• The painting of Mary and the infant Jesus on the far left as you walk through the nave towards the apse is missing the IC XC I expected to find there.  All of the other figures are labeled—why not this one?
• I was able to identify several of the equestrian martyrs and other saints when inside the church from the images I saw in the book before our tour!  Exciting!
• The graffiti on the walls (in 9 languages, according to Father Maximus,) provides a striking example of the craftsmanship of the writings of those visiting the Monastery; some of the inscriptions are so well-executed that they fit right in with the rest of the décor!
• There is a very funny painting (which I’m sure wasn’t intended to be funny at the time) of a Jew stealing furniture from the church.  I say that it’s funny because I want to look at the anti-Semitism of yore with a lighthearted attitude, something everyone else seemed to agree with.  Adam took a picture of this painting as a souvenir.
• The paintings in the space right before the apse (“horos”) are in a style comparable to those found in Cyprus (they’re very Byzantine); William noted that the artist who executed these works may actually have been trained there.
• There’s a lot of red in this church (the rugs, the paint…): is red symbolic of martyrdom, sacrifice or religious fervor in the Coptic church?

What a day.  I really wish I could recap it all, but I’d be here all day describing the direction Saint George’s eyes are facing and the patterns on the robes of the martyrs.  Let’s save that for when I’m a church-art analyst!