Desert Prayer With Egyptian Roots
Life at North America's only Coptic Orthodox monastery is rigorous and strictly for worship. It draws those who seek a deeper insight into Christianity.
By David Kelly, Times Staff Writer
July 3, 2006

NEWBERRY SPRINGS, Calif. — Down an unpaved road, past brooding icons and swaying stands of mesquite, lies St. Antony's Monastery, a place of scorching winds and emptiness that perhaps only a holy man could love.

Little moves when the sun is high, but as the day wears on, black figures emerge from solitary rooms. These shrouded men, most from Egypt, are practicing the oldest monastic tradition in Christendom and tending its sole outpost in North America.

They spend days and night in prayer, seeking a mystical union with the divine."The desert gives you a great calmness of heart," said Father Antonious Saint Antony, one of 10 monks living here. "After a while God seems like a friend."

Despite its remoteness, this 800-acre swath of the Mojave 25 miles northeast of Barstow has become a magnet for thousands yearning to embrace a way of life far different from mainstream America — one shunning materialism, embracing poverty and denying the self.

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