It has ever been the calling of ascetics and hermits to retire from the world and commence the spiritual struggle in the desert. Many of the greatest Orthodox monastics have gone out to live in the desert. One may think of St Paul of Thebes, St Anthony the Great, St Simeon Stylites, St Mary of Egypt and many many others.

Why was there this desire to enter the desert? There are a number of reasons. One of the most important, certainly in the early days was the idea that the desert was inhabited by demons. This was because the desert seemed to be the absolute antithesis of Creation. It was bleak, it was lifeless and thus seemed to speak of an absence of God. The Christian life was seen in terms of a cosmic battle between the forces of the evil one and God. Remembering this we cannot call the action of the first desert hermits a "retreat"; far from it, it was an advance into a battlefield.

A second reason was that in the desert the ascetic was free of a great many of the distractions of "the world" and could thus concentrate on the inner struggle and the advance in the spiritual life. In fact such a life is not wholly devoid of distractions because we all take most of our distractions around with us. These distractions were accentuated in the desert and thus could be dealt with — distractions like the passions (or the temptation to satisfy the unnecessary desires), strengthened by loneliness, hunger, thirst, the heat during the day and the cold at night, and the desire to sleep. All these very necessary things threw the ascetic not onto his own resources but onto God. He was able quite literally to "find himself" and learn that by himself he could do nothing, but with God all things are possible. The result of this was that he was often able to grow spiritually at an accelerated rate to those still "in the world."

Sometimes one is asked if the desire to enter the desert is not purely a selfish one — a desire to save one's own soul without doing any good for anyone else. Behind such questions there is a purely materialistic world view — a view that only believes in what it can see; where good can only be comprehended as doing good to others, rather than seeing that a truly good man has an effect far greater and far beyond his own immediate sphere of influence. It thus fails to comprehend the supernatural, denies the efficacy of prayer, and by inference the existence of God Himself. One must think of the spiritual life and the life of prayer in a different way. Our prayers are not a private matter between us and God. It is an activity where we join in something (the prayer of countless others throughout the world, in eternity, and the prayer of Christ Himself). None can say what the effect of those prayers will certainly be, but it has ever been the Christian understanding that prayers are heard and as the Gospel says, "Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth" (John 9:31).

In time, the spiritual growth of the ascetics was widely recognised and people flocked to the deserts and founded many monasteries there. Some remain to this day: one thinks of St Catherine's on Mt Sinai, St Savvas above the Jordan and the Coptic monasteries in the Wadi Natrun.

As time passed it was realised that there were plenty of demons to deal with in all sorts of places, let alone the desert, and that other remote places could serve equally well and thus we find the establishment of "deserts" everywhere in the Christian world. It is this type of "desert" that came to be established in Britain. Here are four examples.

The Hill Desert

A number of ascetics chose the tops of hills. One such was the hermit and monastic founder St Gwyddfarch. We know little about his early life beyond the fact that he was part of the community founded by his spiritual father, St Llywelyn at Trallwng (Tre=town, Llwng=Llywelyn, i.e. Llywelyn's Town), now know in English as Welshpool. This was at some point during the sixth century. It was part of the "Eastern Mission" i.e. the influx of Christian Britons into Wales from what is now Shropshire and probably in particular from the town of Wroxeter (Uriconium).

From Trallwng Gwyddfarch set out into rather wilder country to the North East and settled in the Vyrnwy Valley near to the present-day village of Meifod. Above this valley is a solitary, steep-sided hill and it was close to the summit of this that Gwyddfarch built his cell, lived and finally died. It was here that he was buried and he is still there to this day. The hill is now known as Moel yr Ancr (the bald hill of the anchorite). Looking at the setting today it is astonishingly beautiful and pastoral and shows little signs of being a desert. In winter, however, when there is a cold East wind one can better appreciate that living on the top of that hill surrounded by wolf-infested woods was hard, cold and uncomfortable — not so far off the deserts of North Africa! St Gwyddfarch is commemorated on November 3rd.

The Valley Desert

Another kind of desert was the life in an extremely remote and hidden valley. This was the life chosen by the hermitess St Melangell (the final "ll" is pronounced in the Welsh way as in Llan). Again little is known of her early life but she was one of a group of Welsh female hermits who established cells in remote corners of Wales (at the beginning of the seventh century). The valley she chose was so remote that no one knew she was there, until one day the prince came into the valley hunting a hare which took refuge under Melangell's skirt. So impressed was the prince that he there and then gave her the valley. The valley chosen by St Melangell is still remote, though there is now a road to it. It is a very beautiful valley with steep hillsides all around or in some cases sheer cliffs. Melangell became quite famous in her life and when she died and was buried at the East end of the church, pilgrimages commenced and the Bala road was built close to it. The road was now been diverted and tranquillity has been restored. The church is being restored and the place of Melangell's burial and subsequent shrine can still be seen. St Melangell is commemorated on May 27th.

The Island

By no means all islands were considered as deserts. In days when it was much easier to communicate by sea and up rivers, islands had a very important communications and strategic role. Islands like Iona and Lindisfarne fall into this category. However there were also some islands that were so difficult to get to that they were ideal deserts. Much the best example of this is Ynil Enlli or Bardsey off the extreme tip of North Wales Lleyn peninsula. The problem here is a terrifying tide race that runs between the mainland and the island, and unless the island is approached at exactly the right point of the tide one is swept past the island onto rocks or out to sea. Even now there is only one boat a week that runs and then only in fine weather. It was on Bardsey that St Cadfan, the leader of the "Armorican Mission," founded a desert in the late fifth century. He "retired" there after founding a number of churches on the West Coast of Wales, particularly in the Towyn area. In time Bardsey became one of the most popular places of pilgrimage in Britain and many went there to be buried so as to be close to the numerous ascetic saints who died there. In time it became known as the "island of 22, 000 saints." Human bones were so common that they were used to mend fences!

The Marsh

Now that the fens and Norfolk Broads are more or less all drained it is hard to imagine what this part of England was like in the Dark Ages. About the only places left are some of the undrained carrs in Norfolk. These are plots of soggy, impenetrable vegetation, rotten fallen trees, brambles well over the top of one's head, and ferocious nettles. It was to such a place as this, though wetter and probably treeless, that St Guthlac retired to win his eternal reward. Guthlac was a member of the Mercian royal family who was converted, rather in the same manner as St Paul, and went to Repton Abbey. Here he resolved to become a hermit and paddled and poled himself in a small boat to the "island" of Croyland and Crowland some miles South West of the Wash. Apart from its inaccessibility the ground must have been exceedingly difficult to cultivate while in summer the mosquitoes must have been insufferable. Yet here Guthlac remained making for himself a hut over a scrapped out hole. He clothed himself in animal skins and ate only a little barley bread and muddy water. Gradually a small community gathered around him that eventually blossomed after his death in 714 into the great Abbey of Crowland. Guthlac is commemorated on April 11th.

The kind of ascetical exercises followed by Guthlac were probably exactly mirrored in the other saints that we have mentioned. A very popular discipline in Britain was to stand up naked up to the neck in water. A monastic friend has suggested to me that the probable purpose of this was to keep them awake, especially during the long watches of the night when they would have stood reciting the Psalms.

Every one of these "desert" places is accessible today (even if with considerable difficulty in the case of Bardsey). They are silent witnesses to a great devotion to God and a desire to establish in the soul a deep-seated repentance and reliance on God.