Standing at an altitude of 1150 meters, it overlooks the resort towns of Bikfaya, Khinshara, and Shwayr, and a string of small mountainside villages such as Zighrine, Shwayya, Ayn Teffaha, Shrine, and Jouar.
The entire region is covered with lush pine forests, and the area surrounding the monastery is unusually diverse in flora, with oak, eucalyptus, willow, and maple trees, orchards of apples, pears, prunes, and peaches, and vines terraced on the slopes.
As defender of the true faith, he did not hesitate to use force in slitting the throats of the priests of the Canaanite god Ba'al, worshipped by the king of Israel, Ahab, and his wife Jezebel.
However, there is architectural evidence of an older foundation date in the monastic basement, which includes six cells joined by small doorways and two larger rooms that probably served as a twin-nave church.
A document published by the historian Asad Rustom records that the Greek Orthodox finally recovered the monastery in 1749, when Yunis Nicolas al-Jbayli paid 1500 piastres to the emirs Isma‘il and Hassan Abillama‘.
[5] However, the modern history of St. Elias Shwayya may be said to begin in 1760, when it was rebuilt after a severe earthquake by a Beiruti notable, Yunis Nicolas al-Jbayli and the superior Sophronios al-Sayqali.
It received the deposits of rich Greek Orthodox merchants from Beirut and the Biqa‘, and it loaned funds to peasant freeholders and sharecroppers of the region.
Several agricultural domains were acquired and the monastery gained more waqf land in neighboring Abou-Mizane and Qinnabeh near Broumana.
The English traveler David Urquhart visited St Elias Shwayya in 1850 and reported that the monastery had profited from a good silk harvest and a new building was to be constructed beside the church.
Their simplicity and piety gained them the sympathy of the local inhabitants, but they were forced to leave when Turkey declared war against Russia in 1915.
In 1906, for example, he advised the superior Gerasimos al-Dimashqi to build new houses for the sharecroppers of Abou-Mizane, and he planted twelve thousand mulberry trees on the monastic lands.
During the Lebanese civil war, the monastery was seriously damaged by artillery fire, but the superior undertook meticulous repairs, which were completed in 1996.
The first cell holds the coffin of Makarios Sadaqa, bishop of Beirut at the end of the nineteenth century, whose body is still well preserved.
The local inhabitants gather in this courtyard on Sundays and feast days to ring the bell above the Arabic-style church door.
The church door in the middle of the west façade is fronted by a porch similar in its decoration to those in the houses of Dayr al-Qamar and Bayt ad-Din.
Reliefs in the center of the lower register illustrate the Annunciation, the beheading of St. John the Baptist, the Nativity, and St. Elias executing the priests of Ba'al.
To the right, the throne of the bishop or superior is topped by a cupola decorated with flowers, arabesques, and an angel holding a serpent, symbolizing victory over evil.
Raised two meters above the floor, it is decorated by a pigeon depositing the Bible and two angels holding candlesticks, all surrounded by a motif of arabesques and fruits.
For this, however, pupils could use the two courtyards on the upper floor, accessible through the vaulted staircase leading up from the basement, or they could simply go into the neighbouring forest and orchards.
The interior staircase functioned like those in traditional Lebanese mountain homes: the inhabitants on the upper floor used it to bring food and fuel from the cellar without having to go outside.
Since the region is very cold in winter, the Russian monks built inlaid wall-chimneys drawing from small wood-burning stoves in each room.
They also established a mechanically controlled irrigation system: the flow of water to the gardens and orchards was regulated by a network of cords operated by lines from the monastery.
Perhaps the most important manuscript is the typicon of St. Saba, an ancient rule of monastic and liturgical life, copied at the monastery of St. John the Baptist Douma in 1595.
Housed in a glass frame to the left of the church, it has suffered deterioration and its style and manner of execution are difficult to discern.
They are typical of the Aleppine iconographic school, with Arabic inscriptions, brown faces, almond eyes, and sumptuous gilded costumes that reveal something of the prosperity and tastes of urban Syrian Christians at that time.
He wears a tiara, above which is a halo decorated with spiral arabesques, and his gilded tunic displays floral and checkerboard motifs.
The icon is covered with shimmering gilded lines outlining the hair and clothing, so that it almost resembles a work of gold jewelry.
Above right, the kneeling Elie sees Christ appearing in a blue sphere borne by two angels amid rosy clouds.
In his right hand, Christ holds a phylactery inscribed: ‘The people of Israel have renounced God and demolished his temples.’ Above the hill, St. Elias is borne upwards in a chariot of fire drawn by four horses.