MONASTERY OF ST. SIMEON - If the outside looked bleak, the rooms inside were even more so. The monastery was originally called Anba Hatre after a religious hermit who was consecrated a bishop of Syene (now Aswan) in the late AD 300s. Tradition tells us that on the day of Anba Hatre’s wedding, he chanced upon a funeral procession that inspired him to preserve his chastity (probably to his bride’s dismay). He eventually retired to the desert and applied himself to the study of the life of Saint Antony.

MONASTERY OF ST. SIMEON - If the outside looked bleak, the rooms inside were even more so. The monastery was originally called Anba Hatre after a religious hermit who was consecrated a bishop of Syene (now Aswan) in the late AD 300s. Tradition tells us that on the day of Anba Hatre’s wedding, he chanced upon a funeral procession that inspired him to preserve his chastity (probably to his bride’s dismay). He eventually retired to the desert and applied himself to the study of the life of Saint Antony.