Information about Ein Pra and Faran Monastery itself will be provided after this announcement.
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Ein Prat, or Spring of Prat, is the biggest of three perennial springs along Prat Stream (Wadi Qelt), which flows along the northern Judean desert from Jerusalem to Jericho.

History of Ein Prat
Ein prat Humans utilized the springs along the Prat stream from prehistorical times. The water was channeled to irrigate fields around Jericho in the Neolithic period, leading humanity into the agricultural revolution. In the classical period, the Hasmoneans and the Herodian family installed aqueducts along the stream to irrigate their date and Balsam groves. The remains of the aqueducts are still visible today. The British pumped the spring water to Jerusalem, but since 1970, the spring and its water have been protected as a nature reserve.

Faran Monastery
Around 330 AD, a Christian monk named Kharitun settled next to the Ein Prat and formed the first monastery in the Judean Desert – Faran monastery. In the following centuries, monks established over 50 monasteries in this region. In 614 AD, the Persians invaded the Holy Land and destroyed Faran Monastery. It would be restored only in the 19th century by the Russian Church.

The Greek-Orthodox Paran Monastery (Dir Farah) at Wadi Qelt was built by the monk St. Haritun (St. Chariton) in the fourth century CE and is the earliest of the Judean Desert monasteries. He dedicated the monastery to Makarius, then bishop of Jerusalem.

Legend says that he built the monastery on this spot became he was miraculously saved after being brought here by highway robbers who imprisoned him in a cave.

According to one legend, Haritun, a secluded hermit, was caught by band of robbers who left him imprisoned exactly here at his hermitage. One day after the brigands left him all tied up in this cave a viper snake entered it; It did not bite Haritun, and instead spilled its venom into one robbers’ bottle of wine. After the brigands returned from looting they drunk the wine and Haritun was saved. Haritun understood on the spot that he must build a monastery in the cave where he was imprisoned and saved from the brigands, and so he established there the Laura of Farah.

The monastery is surrounded by orchards, agricultural terraces and cisterns, as well as the remains of buildings that once housed pilgrims, revealing its importance on the ancient pilgrims’ route

The monastery was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 614 CE. The monastery was restored in the 19th century by the White Russian Church funded by donations of the Russian Czars. Part of it is built over the Byzantine monastery; some of the rooms and chapels are built around caves in which the first monks lived. At the heart of the monastery is the traditional tomb of Haritoun. The monastery is still intermittently inhabited.