Talk:Monastery of Saint Mary Deipara

Is THIS the 'famous' "Saint Mary Deipara" monastery?

From numerous wp articles, and from external link texts, I've noted that there is a large collection of manuscripts at the British Museum, acquired in 1842, and variously described as coming from the "convent" or the "covenant" or the "monastery" of Saint Mary Deipara. This convent/covenant/monastery is described as situated "in the Nitrian Desert", and the approximately 500 manuscripts are called "the Nitrian Collection". However, I've just not been able to find an article about this convent/covenant/monastery.

On the other hand, here is an article about a monastery, in the same place, and from which the B. M. has "procured" 500 manuscripts. Our text states:

Ecclesiastically, the monastery is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and carries her name. However, it is better known as the Syrian Monastery because it was mainly used by Syrian monks.

There are about 35 links to "Syrian Monastery" or "Syrian Monastery, Egypt", but about half of these might be due to a navbox. In Peshitta, there is a reference to another manuscript from the "Syrian Monastery", which however left the monastery several houndred years earlier. In one case, it is called the Monastery of the Most Holy Virgin Mary known as the Syrian Monastery. There are slightly less than 20 wp articles referring to the convent/covenant/monastery of Saint Mary Deipara; however, without wp links, seemingly, since there is nothing to link to. To this comes all the external links.

From all this, I'm building a two-fold thesis:

1. I'm fairly convinced, that "the convent or covenant or monastery of Saint Mary Deipara", "the Monastery of the Most Holy Virgin Mary", and "the Syrian Monastery" are one and the same institution. Moreover, the name Deir al-Surian was used in this article (found via the frwp sister). Therefore, all these variants should be mentioned at the beginning of the article.
2. I suspect, that "Saint Mary Deipara" is part of the best known English name for this place. This seems obviously so, as regards the references to the manuscript collection. It may or may not be the case else; this depends on whether e.g. there is an established denomination for the monastery in modern tourist brochures. (If there is no tourism in the Nitrian Desert, this point is moot.)

I therefore tentatively propose that the article is moved to the new title Monastery of Saint Mary Deipara; or, possibly Deir al-Surian, if this is used in several modern scolarly articles. However, I very much prefer that people knowing more about present-day Egypt place name anglicisations decide this. (In either case, of course, we should redirect from the alternative names.)

In any case, I do not think it should be that hard to find links ti the monastery article, from the articles about the manuscripts. JoergenB (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 16 August 2019

Syrian Monastery, Egypt → Monastery of Saint Mary Deipara – Extending leeway to WP:PRECISE. Syrian is generally associated with the Syrian Arab Republic, so that's potentially misleading here. PPEMES (talk) 12:02, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

There being no objections, I moved the article. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:21, 25 August 2019 (UTC)