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AS FAR BACK as the fifth century, the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt was renowned, in the words of one travel guide, for its “exceptional splendor and prestige.’’ Today that grandeur is gone. Instead the monastery has become a symbol of the abuse and degradation to which Egypt’s ancient Coptic Christian community is regularly subjected.

On May 31, 2008, a band of Bedouin Muslims stormed Abu Fana, destroying a small church and burning the monastery’s farm. Nine monks and monastery employees were wounded, and four others were abducted. “One of the [abducted] monks had his arm and legs broken,’’ the Egyptian lawyer and human-rights activist Nagib Gabriel later testified. “The other two were tied together with ropes, suspended from a tree, and severely beaten...