Abandoned Abbey

The shadowy abbey echoes the slightest sound as ancient ascetics still haunt the hallowed halls in this cathedral of silence and self sacrifice. You wander the stone ways and wonder how many men and women once stood here, staring at the sky, seeking an answer from the almighty. An abbey, derived from Aramaic language abba, is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community. The earliest known Christian monastic communities consisted of groups of cells or huts collected about a common center, which was usually the house of some hermit or anchorite famous for holiness or singular asceticism, but without any attempt at orderly arrangement. This arrangement probably followed the example set in part by the Essenes in Judea. In the earliest age of Christian monasticism the ascetics were accustomed to live singly, independent of one another, not far from some village church, supporting themselves by the labour of their own hands, and distributing the surplus after the supply of their own scanty wants to the poor. Increasing religious fervour, aided by persecution, drove them farther and farther away from the civilization into mountain solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts of Egypt swarmed with the "cells" or huts of these anchorites. Anthony the Great, who had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid during the persecution of Maximian, AD 312, was the most celebrated among them for his austerities, his sanctity, and his power as an exorcist. His fame collected round him a host of followers imitating his asceticism in an attempt to imitate his sanctity.