Monastic Hospitals in Byzantine Egypt: Pachomius and Shenoute's Hospitals as Coenobitic models

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Tourism Guidance, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, University of Sadat-City, Egypt.

2 Tourist Guiding Department ,Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Sadat City University

3 Touist Guiding Department ,Faculty of Tourism and Hotels ,Sadat City University

Abstract

Caring the sick is a fundamental concept in early Christian Egypt. its development in Egypt affected by the previous healthcare stages, up till it reaches its form of monastic hospitals. Defining the phenomenon of monastic hospitals in byzantine Egypt as one of the healthcare facilities in this period, and showing the efforts of early Coptic fathers to offer models for the coming centuries, are very important. Byzantine monastic hospitals were charitable institutions, and were differed in some aspects from all classical healthcare facilities (healing temples of gods and goddesses, physicians' clinics or shops, public physicians, slaves' hospitals, and military hospitals) that were before the fourth century AD, in Egypt. Early monastic fathers developed the hospitals as independent building inside their monasteries for serving the sick and the needy, who came to hospitals to receive shelter, food, and medical care. Early Coenobitic fathers, like Sts. Pachomius and Shenoute put the rules and regulations to organize healthcare facilities in their monastic communities. The objectives of this study are; firstly, to show the distinguished characteristics of Byzantine monastic hospital, that make it differ from the previous healthcare facilities in Egypt. Secondly, to declare the Pachomius's rules and Shenoute's canons, that were related to their hospitals and healthcare facilities in their monasteries as models for healthcare systems in Coenobitic monasteries in Byzantine Egypt.

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