is that it defeated the original goal of seeking solitude. Early communities began forming, with the monks building small one- or two-room cells or occupying caves. Eventually, these small communities would draw more people, leading to the need for a simple, communal infrastructure. The monks would work together to build a church, then retreat to the solitude of their cells or caves to embrace the (at least partial) hermetic and ascetic lifestyle. After building a communal church they could gather for the weekly liturgy or Eucharist. Locations of the earliest Skete monasteries The Scetis Valley in Egypt, now known as the Wadi al-Natrun, is 22 miles long and lies west of the Nile River in the Libyan Desert. The name Scetis comes from the Coptic word Shi-het, meaning “to weigh the heart”. The valley lies slightly below sea level and is dotted with oases and marshes. Despite the low elevation and water resources, the Scetis Valley was a dangerous place; early writings are replete with travelers who went astray and died trying to cross it. The monasteries of the Scetis Valley were not like the large centralized communities that would come to define monasteries in the Middle Ages. Instead, the Scetis monasteries were a collection of hermits who for the most part lived separately, each in his own cell, but who would come together for weekly prayers and holy days. These small cells could be close together or widely scattered, making their exact locations hard to find. Later, when major buildings were erected, the cells associated with them were relatively easy to find, but the locations of the earliest cells became even harder to know with certainty. Modern scholars now estimate the most famous of these monasteries, the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great, to be roughly northwest of Cairo. Notable early Skete leader Saint Macarius Saint Macarius was born into a middle-class family in Upper Egypt around the year 300. As a boy, he accompanied his father, a camel driver and merchant, on desert excursions and came to know the Scetis Valley. When his parents arranged a marriage for him, he feigned an illness and retreated to the desert to decide what to do. When he returned, he found that his fiancée had died. Following the death of his parents soon after that, he gave all his money to the poor. When the bishop of Ashmoun became aware of