Saint Anasimon
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III recounts the story of Saint Ansibos, who was a princess from childhood and was raised in piety after a teacher told her the lives of the saints; she longed for monastic life secretly for fear of her parents.
🔹 Asceticism and Secrecy
Despite living in a royal palace and receiving luxurious food and clothing, she hid her prayers and asceticism, distributed her wealth to the poor and hospitals, wore coarse clothes beneath her fine garments, and practiced ascetic deeds in secret.
🔹 Endurance after Inheritance
When her parents died she ascended the throne as heir and distributed her possessions to the poor and the monasteries, yet she felt that her old desire for monasticism had not been fulfilled and wished to continue a life of austerity.
🔹 Flight and Deliberate Humility
She disguised herself as a poor woman and fled to a convent of nuns, showing great humility and lowliness so that the nuns set her to the simplest tasks (cleaning the facilities), hiding her knowledge and royal origin.
🔹 Revelation and Spiritual Recognition
A visiting elder with the gift of spiritual discernment recognized her and informed the nuns that she was the queen who had left her throne to live a life of humiliation and asceticism; they then cared for and honored her for her hidden virtues.
🔹 Significance of the Story and Its Spirituality
The story shows that true humility, concealing virtues, and renouncing worldly glory for God are secret paths to sanctity; the saint preferred heavenly reward and testimony of piety over every earthly honor.
🔹 The Coptic Orthodox Dimension
From the perspective of our Coptic Orthodox faith, the story embodies the value of consecration, asceticism, and withdrawal from the world as a way to draw near to God, and that the spiritual marriage to Christ is higher than any worldly cause.
🔹 Practical Message
The lecture calls believers to humility and hidden service, and to see renunciation of pleasures and honors as sometimes a spiritual choice that leads to great blessings and holy testimony.
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