It is located near the Upper Egyptian cities of Tahta and Sohag, and about two and a half miles (4.0 km) south-east of the Red Monastery.

[3] The monastery was founded by Saint Pigol (Coptic: ⲡⲓϫⲱⲗ[4]), the maternal uncle of Shenoute, in 442[Questionable date: see here].

Such an area included cells, kitchens, and storehouses, the ruins of which can still be seen to the north, west, and south sides of the church complex.

The state of decline can be attributed in part to the heavy taxes that the monasteries in Egypt had to endure.

In the middle of the 8th century, the Arab governor al-Qasim ibn Ubayd Allah forced his way into the monastery church with his female concubine on horseback.

Abu al-Makarim also tells of an enclosure wall around the monastery within which a garden full of all sorts of trees existed.

The lack of literary manuscripts after the 14th century indicates that the monastery was in an advanced state of decline from that time onwards.

Both of them made an incorrect attribution of the foundation of the monastery to Helena of Constantinople, Emperor Constantine's mother.

In 1907, the church complex experienced another repair which included the removal of the encrustation of brick work and the undercovering of the doorways.

The only surviving piece of the original monastery is its church complex, which was built in the Basilica style.

They are separated from the nave by long rows of columns with a returned isle in the west to define the eso-narthex.

There existed atop these isles mezzanine galleries, as evidenced by the two rows of windows seen on the walls.

This is separated from the open court by a solid red brick wall, of medieval construction, with doors and windows.

The rectangular space, defined by the apses to its north, south and east sides, served as the altar for the basilica.

There is also a new iconostasis made with solid wood and adorned by small icons on its top register.

The source of these limestones is probably from ruins of nearby Ancient Egyptian temples, which Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite contributed to their demise figuratively and literally.

The great wall that defines the western boundary of the current church is made up of red bricks which encase the original columns and arches.

The four arches carrying the squinches of the central, original, sanctuary dome are also made up of red bricks except for the one toward the east which is of marble construction.

Louis Théophile Lefort, a coptologist of Louvain, made the first comprehensive attempt toward achieving this monumental goal.

[9] They were able to identify hundreds of separate codices with the aid of the prior works that Coptic scholars had previously done.

The following is a partial list of those places that possess such fragments: The ancient library of the White Monastery is rich in many categories such as biblical, hagiographical, liturgical, etc.

The dialect of these manuscripts were predominantly in Sahidic Coptic, which was perfected in its literary form by Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite.

A second category is the apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Biblical lives that were frequently read in Egyptian monasteries.

In addition, there are several fragments of codices that record the acts of the great Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus.

They are primarily intended for the spiritual edification of the monks rather than being accurate historical records of the saints.

This library has yielded a great number of manuscripts, preserving texts of the composition of Egyptian writers, as well as Coptic translation of Greek writings of Church Fathers.

Other texts of original Coptic composition include those of Constantine of Asyut, John of Burulus, and Rufus of Shotep.