Sohag's heritage in focus

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/780/eg3.htm

A week-long symposium on Christianity and monasticism opens today at Sohag's White Monastery: "Sohag has two monasteries, popularly known as the White and the Red, in reference to their construction in limestone and red brick respectively, and both are associated with St Shenoute, a local saint born in a village near Akhmim in the 4th century. Shenoute was a charismatic figure, an ardent nationalist and strict disciplinarian who emerged as an important social reformer. He was a well- educated man, with knowledge of Greek language and literature, and led attempts to purge Greek influence from Coptic writings. He gained wide renown, encouraged literacy and required monks to undertake the copying and illustration of manuscripts. Our knowledge of the early church in Egypt would have been much deeper had the library of the White Monastery survived intact. Unfortunately it was plundered towards the end of the nineteenth century. Texts were removed from their bindings by 19th century explorers and travelers and dismembered, and many, inevitably, were lost."