Mar Saba (Mar Sabaʿ), founded in the 5th century by Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in the Judean Desert near Jerusalem, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited Greek Orthodox monasteries in the world and has long been a center of strict ascetic monastic life; its history is marked by deep spirituality, scholarship, and periods of persecution, shaping a rule of life centered on withdrawal from worldly distraction. Women are traditionally not permitted to enter the monastery itself in order to pr