St. George's Monastery

Halfway up the sheer wall of Wadi Qelt, a deep desert gorge in the Judaean Desert, the Monastery of St George of Choziba seems to grow out of the rock: a stack of chapels, cells and terraces clinging to the cliff, with irrigated gardens and olive trees watered by old aqueducts. Visitors reach it on foot, crossing a small bridge over the ravine. The setting has long been linked with scripture – many identify the gorge with the "valley of the shadow of death" of Psalm 23, and the old Roman road to Jericho that runs nearby is the setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Monastic life here began around 420, when a few hermits settled around a cave where, according to tradition, the prophet Elijah was fed by ravens. Hermits from the surrounding cliffs gathered there once a week for prayer and a shared meal. Around 480–520 John of Thebes, an Egyptian known as St John of Choziba, organised the community as a monastery dedicated to the Mother of God, and in the sixth and seventh centuries it flourished under St George of Choziba, after whom it came to be named. In 614 Persian forces swept through the valley and killed the monks; their skulls and bones are still kept in a chapel. By the late eighth century another tradition had attached itself to the site: that Joachim, father of the Virgin Mary, wept here over his childless marriage until an angel announced the coming birth of his daughter.

The monastery was restored in the Crusader era – the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos funded work in 1179 – and then abandoned again. The present buildings are largely the work of the Greek monk Kalinikos, who settled here in 1878 and finished the reconstruction in 1901 with the support of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Today Greek Orthodox monks live here, and the main church keeps the relics of three saints: John of Choziba, George of Choziba and the Romanian monk John Iacob, who lived as a hermit in a nearby cave until his death in 1960 and was canonised in 1992.

Getting there

The monastery lies in Wadi Qelt, in the Jericho Governorate of the West Bank, about 4 km west of Jericho. It is approached from Highway 1 between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, via the turn-off towards Mitzpe Yericho, with a car park and viewpoint across the gorge and a steep path of about 1 km down to the monastery; footpaths also follow the wadi from Jericho. The nearest international airport is Ben Gurion (TLV), about 53 km away.