The Monastery of Saint Paul the Anchorite is a Coptic Orthodox monastery in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, about 250 miles (405 kilometers) southeast of Cairo. It dates to the fourth century and stands over the cave where Paul the Anchorite is said to have lived for more than 80 years.
A Bedouin raid in 1484 killed many monks and burned the library. The monks were rebuilt under Pope Gabriel VII in the sixteenth century, then forced out by later attacks. The monastery stayed empty for 119 years before monks from the Monastery of Saint Anthony resettled it. Extensive rebuilding followed in 1701, and the surrounding walls were raised in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The monastery has three churches, a tower, an ancient refectory and a mill. The underground Church of Saint Paul holds his remains. A spring believed to have served him still flows.
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