TRANSFORMATIONS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SPACE
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why these spurts occurred. They reflect relationships with other
Christian communities, and with the larger Egyptian community,
that need further study. The new or reshaped spaces must have had
effects on liturgical and non-liturgical activity that can be only
suggested here.
The Late Antique origins of church building in Egypt are fairly
clear, the later phases much less so, and the final spurt remains for
now the most intriguing because the most unclear.
In Late Antiquity, Akhmim was the important city of Panopolis.
Pachomius (c. 290-346) is known to have established three monasteries in or near the city,3 but the earliest churches that survive
in this vicinity today are Dayr al Abyad and Dayr al-Ahmar: the
great church built by Shenute at the White Monastery near Sohag
and the church of the Red Monastery to the north of it. Both lie
across the river from Akhmim.4 They come into this paper only as
they influenced what went on in humbler churches on the east bank
of the Nile.
The churches I am discussing are, from north to south (see
Plate 8):
(1) Dayr Anba Tumas (or Dayr Mar Tumas, St. Thomas),5
(2) Dayr Anba Bakhtm (St. Pachomius),6
(3) Dayr al-Malak Mikha'il (St. Michael, also known as Dayr
al-Bahry, the northern monastery),7
3 Little effort has been made to establish their locations: Rend-Georges
Coquin, Coptic Encyclopedia (1991) sv. Akhmim: Monasteries; McNally and
Schrunk, 6.
4 The church of the White Monastery was built when Shenute was abbot,
between about 385 and 449. The Red Monastery is presumed to be slightly later:
Grossmann 1978, 137-39 and passim; Meinardus, 293-94; Ugo Monneret de
Villard, Les couvents pres de Sohdg (Milan, 1925); Samuel al-Syriany, 80-82.
5 Grossmann 1978, 142; McNally; Samuel al-Syriany, 78-79.
6 Coquin and Martin; Grossmann 1980, 304-5; McNally; Meinardus, 406-7;
Samuel al-Syriany, 77-78.
7 Coquin and Martin; McNally; Meinardus, 407-8; Samuel al-Syriany, 78-79.
