An important writer of the History of the Coptic Patriarchs (HCP) is a monk by the name of Yoaannis (John) II. He was the personal clerk of Patriarch Shenouti (Sanutius or Shenouda) I (858 – ?880). He wrote the fourth part of the HCP that extended from Patriarch Mina (766 – 774) to Shenouda I, nearly one hundred years of Coptic history.
He writes as a witness and close associate to the patriarchate of Shenouti, and his story of the Life of Shenouti contains valuable information. The patriarchate of Shenouti, at least its beginning, occurred in the period of the Abbasid Dynasty known as the Anarchy of Samarra (861 – 870) which witnessed bitter infighting between the sons and nephews of the Caliph al-Mutawakil (d. 861) which destabilised the Caliphate, including Egypt. And the Arab Bedouins, wo have always been a menace in Egypt, particularly when the central government is weakened, found their chance. As usual, it was the Copts who bore the brunt of the chaos and anarchy. The reader must bear in mind that at that age the Copts formed the majority of Egypt’s population.
| Caliph | Period |
| Al-Mutawakil | 847 – 861 |
| Al-Muntasir (son of al-Mutawakil and his murderer) | 861 – 862 |
| Al-Musta’een (nephew of al-Mutawakil) | 862 – 17 January 866 |
| Al-Mu’taz (brother of al-Muntasir) | 25 January 866 – 869 Yoannis II wrote his book in April 866 |
| Al-Mu’htadi (nephew of al-Mutawakil) | 869 – 870 |
Youannis II wrote his book in the year 582 AM (starts on 29 August 865 AD) and 252 AH (starts on 22 January 866 AD). We can therefore conclude that he wrote it in AD 866 in the early months of the caliphate of al-Mu’taz, when Egypt was still lurking in its Abbasid anarchy.
One of the incidents told by Yoannis II is what happened as he says in the eighth year of the patriarchate of Shenouti I, that is in 866. The writer does not give the year of the incident, but simply says that it happened in the Patriarch’s eighth year. Since we know for sure the beginning of Shenouti’s patriarchate, we can be sure that the incident happened in 582 AM. This incident is commemorated in the Coptic Synaxarium on 9th of Bermouda, and described as “great miracle that occurred at the hand of our father, St. Sanutius, the Patriarch”. The incident is also mentioned in the Synaxarium under the 24th of Barmouda, the day on which the death of the same patriarch is commemorated.
Below is how Yoannis II tells us the story.[1] I will divide it in sections and make comments as I go. I have provided the footnotes that the translators Yassa abd al-Masih and O. H. Burmester added, and I make my own notes too.
The chronology of these events is as follows:
Clik here to view.
Another story. It was in the eighth year of the patriarchate of this father,[2] and the days of the Holy Fast[3] drew near, and he desired to journey to the Holy Desert in the Wadi Habib[4] to accomplish there the Fast[5] and the Holy Feast of Easter. Some of the faithful counselled him not to go for fear of the marauding Arabs, for it was the time when they came down from the land of Upper Egypt[6] to the land of Lower Egypt,[7] after putting their beasts out to grass,[8] lest something should befall him through them. The saintly father said in his heart: “If I do this, I shall cause joy to Satan. If I refrain from going to the holy places, then the people will remain back because of me, and they will be deprived of the blessings of the Saints”. Then he besought the aid of God and made his way to the Wadi.
Now the Arabs knew the time when the strangers assembled there, and they arrived in secret from Upper Egypt, and they took possession of the church of the father Macarius and of the fortifications[9] and carried off all the furniture and the food and other things which were in them.
On the first day of Baramudah[10] they made the round of all the monasteries[11] and robbed all those who were in them and the people who came to them, and they drove most of them out at the point of the sword. When the father saw this affair, he was afflicted on account of it.
Then the fathers, the bishops, and the monks came together to him weeping and saying: “It was for your sake that we remained here. We desire of you that you prevent us not from departing, lest we die by the hands of this miscreant people”. This happened on the Friday of the Week of the Pascha,[12] and when our father Anba Shenouti heard of it, he knew that it was a ruse and a snare of Satan which Satan had set for him, on account of that which was in him from the Holy Spirit. He knew that he [Satan] who had assembled the people and harassed them desired thereby to devastate the desert, so that there should be none in it of them who remember the Name of God the Exalted. There upon, he said in the strength of his heart: “May the Lord strike you, O Satan and bring to nothing your conspiracy which you have formed”. The fathers, the bishops, besought him to depart, so that they might accompany him. But he said to them: “Pardon me, O my holy fathers, we will not quit this place, until we have accomplished the Feast of Easter, even if my blood is to be shed”. When the monks saw his courage and his strength of heart, they envied him for his courage, and they became strengthened and did not allow Satan to vanquish them.
The Arabs had begun[13] to harass the congregation of the monks, so that they should not accomplish the Feast of Easter, but perform the will of their father Satan. They drew their swords and stood on the rock east of the church[14] and took the clothing that they found on the people, and whosoever resisted, they wounded him with the sword. This happened on the Thursday of the Week of the Pascha,[15] the ninth of Baramudah.[16] Those of the people who escaped entered the church, crying, weeping and saying: “O our father, help us, for these Beduins have prevailed over us”.
When this saint saw the distress of the people, he rose up and took in his hand his staff on which there was the emblem of the Cross,[17] and he went out to the Arabs, saying: “It is good for me that I should die with the people of God, or, perchance, when they see me, they will refrain from their wickedness, and this weakened people will be saved”.[18]
When the bishops beheld the excellence of the intention of the father and how he delivered himself to death for his people, they took hold of him and prevented him from going out to the Arabs, and they said: “We will not let you deliver yourself into the hands of these foul murderers”. When he heard them, he said to them with humility, lowliness and strength of soul, as says Paul: “For I make known to you that this will happen to me to salvation, through your prayers and the supply of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my confidence and my hope… whether by life or by death. For my life is Christ and death is gain to me”.
He became strong in Christ, and he went out to the miscreant Arabs, but by the clemency of God they had gone back and they did not appear on that day, but they [Shenouti and those with him] returned by the help of God and the intention and constancy of this father Anba Shenouti, and Satan the hater of good, was put to shame.
When the faithful archon Iṣṭafan (Stephen) son of Severus whose work was good with the Lord, for he had trust in the patriarch and a love for the holy monasteries, heard this, he arose in haste and came to the monasteries and met the father and the monks and the bishops, and he strengthened their souls and put himself at their disposal, and said to the father: “I will deliver myself for you and for the people, until they have gone out from among these rebels”.
The father saw the timidity of the hearts of the people and that they were determined to go out, being terrified of the Arabs who surrounded them and desired to take them and to kill them with the edge of the sword: he strengthened them and comforted them through the grace of the Holy Spirit, and he said, as Paul said to those who were with him in the ship: “For one soul from among you shall not perish”.[19] He said to them: “God has delivered you out of the hands of these oppressors and He will fight for you”.
He perceived that some among them had little faith in what he said to them and that their hearts were timorous, so he bade them assemble all the people in the church on Sunday[20] that he might communicate them from the Holy Mysteries by night before dawn, and that he might go with them till he had brought them to Lower Egypt. Thus, their souls were strengthened. Then he arose at midnight, and the bishops and the monks and the people came together to him, and he began the Liturgy, and while he went round the sanctuary with incense, his eyes shed bitter tears, even as says Obadiah the prophet: “Let the priests that minister about the altar of the Lord weep”.[21] He wept and said as the prophet says: “Spare, O Lord, Your people, and give not Your inheritance to this reproach, that the heathen should rule over it, lest the heathen should say, Where is their God?”[22] The fathers, the monks, wept bitterly and their tears mingled with their thoughts, on account of what would befall them through the marauding Arabs, and they communicated of the Mysteries before dawn, while the Father wept over the desertion of the desert by the monks.
Then he dismissed the people, and he went out and comforted them. They blessed God and they marvelled at the strength and boldness of the father, for they saw him as Moses the prophet before the Children of Israel. Thus, by his prayers and his purity God delivered the people from the hands of the Arabs that day. But he ceased not to weep on seeing how the monks were passing over to the land of Lower Egypt for fear of the marauder, so that only a few people remained in the monasteries.
Satan did not cease to raise up trials for the churches in the land of Egypt.
This story shows the courage and strength of character of Patriarch Shenouti I. Indeed, he was called “Shephard of the Nation” by the writer. The text says, “When this saint saw the distress of the people, he rose up and took in his hand his staff on which there was the emblem of the Cross”. This is what gives this miracle a special importance. The staff on which there was the emblem of the cross cannot be but the staff of the “Bass Snakes”, the crusier (or cruzier), which symbolises Christ. It shows us that Patriarchs used to take their crusier with them wherever they went. This crusier was inherited from one patriarch to the other, and the new patriarch takes it from the altar as a sign of him getting his authority direct from Christ. The reader can read more about it here.
Was it a miracle that happened on Good Friday the 10 Barmoudah 582 AM (5 April 866 AD)? Both the History of the Patriarchs and the Coptic Synaxarium portray it as such. In the History of the Patriarch, we see in it a work of Providence: “He became strong in Christ, and he went out to the miscreant Arabs, but by the clemency of God they had gone back and they did not appear on that day”. The Arabs simply vanished or moved somewhere else following their despoiling of the Copts on Maundy Thursday. There was no actual confrontation. The Synaxarium however, which gives the date, erroneously as I think, as 9 Barmoudah (i.e., Maunday Thursday) makes it more dramatic: “And he went out to the Arabs, and the staff in his hand. And when the Arabs saw him, they retreated back, escaping, as if a great army has approached them. And they did not return from that day to do harm to the holy sites.”
The miracle is most probably as in the History of the Patriarchs: there was no confrontation, but Providence saved the Copts, and the Arabs left somewhere else. Miracle or not, I think there is another miracle in the story: the courage and strength of character of Patriarch Shenouti. Patriarch Shenouti is one of our greatest patriarchs. Patriarchs can learn a lot from his example.
[1] The story is to be found in History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, Known as the History of the Holy Church, by Sawirus ibn al-Mukaffa’, Bishop of al-Ashmunin. Volume II, Part I: Khael II – Shenouti I. Translated and annotated by Yassa abd al-Masih and O. H. Burmester (Cairo, 1943), pp. 52-56 (English translation); pp. 36-39 (Arabic section).
[2] 582 AM, equivalent to 866 AD.
[3] Lent.
[4] Scetis.
[5] Lent.
[6] The Arabs called it, Sa’id.
[7] The Arabs called Lower Egypt, Rif or Reef.
[8] Arabs used to move between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt according to season to feed their camels and horses. They usually returned to the northern parts of Egypt in Lent months.
[9] The keeps. This occurred before the building of a wall around the Monastery of St. Macarius, an accomplishment by Shenouti I. Before the walls, the monastery was composed of scattered cells round the church, and there were keeps to which the monks hurried at events of attacks by the Berbers or Arabs.
[10] The 27th of March 866.
[11] Wadi al-Natrun had several monasteries scattered throughout it.
[12] The Passion Week that starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Sunday. In that year, from 31March to 7 April 866 AD (5-12 Bermoudah 852 AM).
[13] The translators use “The Arabs began”. I changed it to “The Arabs had begun”, as it is clearly and event before Good Friday, when Patriarch Shenouti went out to challenge the Arabs.
[14] This rock is famous in Coptic history.
[15] Maundy Thursday.
[16] The 4th of April 866.
[17] This must be the crusier (or cruzier) which is also called the “Brass Serpent”.
[18] Philip. 1: 19-21.
[19] Acts 28: 22.
[20] Easter Sunday, 7th April 866.
[21] Joel 1: 9.
[22] Joel 2: 17.