Feast of Saint Anba Shenouda
Feast of Saint Anba Shenouda
Saint Anba Shenouda the Archimandrite is one of the great saints among the Fathers of Monasticism and its founders. He is the one who established his famous monastery known as the White Monastery in the wilderness of Sohag, whose remains still stand today, and the Church commemorates him on the 7th of Abib (14 July) of every year. A great feast is held for him in his ancient monastery, attended by very large numbers of people.
His Holiness the Pope paid attention to this monastery and worked on restoring it, and sent monastic fathers to supervise it and the nearby Red Monastery. And in this year he sent a committee to supervise this feast, from among the bishops: Anba Sawiris, Anba Kyrillos, Anba Andraous, Anba Marcos, and Anba Botrous.
As for Saint Anba Shenouda, he was born in one of the villages of Akhmim, and lived a holy life in prayers and fasting from his early childhood. His uncle was an abbot, so he took him with him, cared for him, and made him a monk. When he grew older he became the head of the monastery, and many became monks through him, and he received the title of Archimandrite “Head of the Anchorites,” and his disciple Anba Wissa succeeded him in leading the monastery.
Saint Anba Shenouda used to open his monastery to the people, who would come by the thousands to hear his sermons and the word of God from his mouth. He became known by the title “Leader of Coptic Literature.”
In his speech he cared for the Coptic language and purified it from the mixing of Greek within it. His sermons in Coptic were collected into many works in the Sahidic Coptic dialect that need someone to translate and publish them. Pope Cyril the Great loved him, and took him with him when he went to the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 A.D., and he rebuked Nestorius the Patriarch of Constantinople for his heresy.
In the monastery of Anba Shenouda there were two schools for teaching the monks, who reached a high degree of knowledge in his time.
Saint Anba Shenouda contributed to the elimination of paganism in his era, to the extent that many pagan temples were transformed into churches in his days and the days of Pope Theophilus, the 23rd Patriarch.
Saint Anba Shenouda was an ascetic monk, and he was also a scholar and preacher. He founded two monasteries, one with 1800 monks and the other with 2200, meaning that the number of his monks was about four thousand. God prolonged his life, and he lived 118 or 120 years, and he witnessed the era of a large group of patriarchs. He departed in a good old age. May the blessing of his prayers be with us all.
For better translation support, please contact the center.
