Founded in the sixteenth century, and celebrating the holiday of its intercessor on 25 June.
The monastery of Saint John is one of the oldest monasteries of Zakrit; it was built on the ruins of an old center for hermits that were built in the sixth century AD. The evidence for this, is the presence of a cross and another cross topped with a crown that are both craved on one of the ancient stones of the church, and what proves that, is the size of the stone located on the corner of the monastery church at the East side. And if we entered the monastery church, we find that the roof was built in three phases and this is proven by the difference in the types of stones used in the construction of the ceiling and the walls and the construction method. It turns out that the church was initially kind of a small altar circular shape of ancient stones good for construction, as well as it is shown from the outside building which large size stones appear in the Eastern side, as if this church was built on the remains of an ancient temple, and this building did not exceeded three meters, and then the second and the third sections were added and it was also shown the quality of construction and the existing stones. The monastery has been restored in the sixteenth century at the hands of Habakouk family members coming from the town of Bachehla, who were the first inhabitants of the town and then families of Yammine and El Hawat followed them which we knew of them father Moses El Hawat who renewed the monastery church in the mid-eighteenth century and added to it the Southern part. Anyone entering the church can notice that the ceiling built with knots was built on two phases. The thing that proves this is the different types of stones in each of the two mentioned parts.
It is useful to note that there is a cylindrical stone above the Western entrance of the church; this is an evidence of a Roman civilization in the place. The oldest document that talked about the monastery of Saint John was one of the documents left by the first sponsor of the Maronite Diocese of Cyprus in year 1674 and he used to live in the monastery before they added rooms on the North side of the church. Father Gabriel Al Shababi says in his book “the detection of sappers to the spot of Beit Shabab” (no date) that the monastery of Saint John is one of the old Maronite monasteries and was demolished in 1305 after the Keserwan disaster then sons of Habakouk rebuilt with the collaboration of sons of El Hawat and Yammine, led by father Moses El Hawat which has had a significant contribution in the construction of the monastery church, and father John Habakouk, who handed the monastery to the legal monks. Father Gabriel adds that a manuscript placed by father Atallah El Hawat states were as follows: “I am the one putting my name under, testify before God and human beings that father Moses El Hawat built the church of Saint John with his money. And no one of the town helped him except Abo Saleh Youssef who conducted for him instructors by the order of the priest, and recompensed him with what they coasted him by giving him a big amount of berries. So no one but him helped the priest. And the one that was working was always getting rewarded for his labor efforts. The sons of Yammine family gave four supplies of only wheat and I put one gold for my efforts. Thus I testify in front of humans and God the greatest witness, accepting the testimony on him father Joseph Yammine: Character editor father Elias Saad testifies to what is said also. Father Moses El Hawat bought two plots of vineyard to the monastery in Karkouf in the amount of one hundred and nine pennies by knowing Abboud Abo Matar from Mazrahet Yachouh on 14 September 1781 with the testimony of Elias Habakouk, Abdo El Haddad, Youssef El Kadous and Hanna Suleiman the vendor.
In 1798 father Daniel El Gemayel was the responsible of the monastery after being abandoned by monks due to a dispute between them, and it transformed in year 1818 to a school belonging to the diocese to remain under the authority of the monastery monks of Notre Dame and then Archbishop Joseph Geagea returned it to the ownership of the parish in year 1843, so he added to it the room adjacent to the church to the North.
In 2010 the abandoned and partially demolished monastery was restored by the engineer Nada Al Hakim and businessman Kaadi Kaadi who both rented the monastery for a period of twenty-five years with the aim of creating celebrations of weddings and similar events in the monastery after they restored it.