EGYPT: Are there still Christian monks in the Egyptian desert? 

I also found Saint Catherine's Monastery amazing, but the letter with Muhammed's handprint is probably not authentic. See Dr Jay Smith's video "ASHTINAME - Muhammad's letter to Egyptian Monks DEBUNKED (7thC.-01)." One scholar believes it was probably written some time later by the monks themselves to provide 'proof' to the Muslims around them that they were protected by Islam.

CHRIST IS RISEN!!

There are a lot of cave monks around the world not just in Egypt so this kind of practice will probably not go extinct until the end of the world

Yh they were being persecuted for being mysephites by the romans

What? Your comment makes no sense

Huh? At the time of the Arab conquest there were 70,000 monks in Scetis alone! This theory that the Arab conquest saved the Copts from the Byzantines, is very funny. The Arabs were so "peaceful", so peaceful that they banned the Coptic Language to be spoken by cutting off the tongues of those who spoke it, and closed the majority of churches and destroyed the priceless School of Alexandria, made the Copts pay Jizya, and killed millions. FYI there are also hundreds of thousands all over the world outside Egypt.