Saint
Shenoute The Archmandrite
Sunday,
November 19, 2006
Saint Shenoute
The Archmandrite
7 Abib / 14 July
Saint Shenoute
was born in Shenlala, a village near Akhmim in Upper Egypt, and was an Abbot of the famous White
Monastery of Atripe, in the desert of Thebes. For
more than sixty-five years he ruled over 2200 monks and 1800 nuns, as Saint Besa, his disciple and his successor, informs us. He bears
the title of ‘Archimandrite’, or ‘chief of anchorites’.
Before he
was ten years old, his righteous parents asked shepherds to teach him how to
care for the sheep, and send him back home before nightfall. Even at young age,
the boy would give his food to the other Shepard’s
and spend it all his days in fasting.
His
father then discovered that he left with the shepherd’s early everyday but he retuned late at night, he followed him secretly, and was
startled when he was him standing near a well in the road praying for a long
time. On the following day he accompanied his son, not to the shepherds, but to
his uncle, Pigol, the founder of the White Monastery.
In the
White Monastery, Shenoute’s father asked Abbot Pigol to bless the boy, but the Abbot held the boy’s hand,
put it on his head, saying ‘I am in need of this boy’s blessing for he is a
chosen vessel of Christ, who will serve Him faithfully all his life’. The
remarkable progress of this boy, attracted Abbot Pigol and all the monks. On one occasion, one of the elders
saw his fingers alight like candles when he stretched out his hands in prayer.
In 383 A.D., Saint Shenoute succeeded his uncle Pigol as Abbot of the White Monastery, setting out a strict
order of monasticism.
Saint Shenoute lived in one of the most critical period of
Egyptian history, and created Egyptian nationalism or Coptism.
For this reason, he only used the Coptic language in his preaching, and not
Greek.
According
to Saint Shenoute, worship id correlated to social
life, and religion is practical love and piety. Saint Shenoute
and his thousands of monks were not isolated from the Egyptian community. Saint
Shenoute also opened his monasteries to the people on
Saturdays and Sundays, during which he explained to them the Holy Scriptures,
giving special interest to uprooting heathen custom. His eloquence helped him
in overcoming the pagans of Akhmim.
Saint Shenoute had strict ascetic practices, as Saint Besa his disciple tell us. Because of his devoutness, Saint
Shenoute underwent many demonic temptations, but
through his faith and righteousness, he was victorious. On one occasion, a
devil appeared to him in the shape of an angel, saying to him, ‘Hail, oh
struggling saint. The Lord has sent me, for you are righteous and have
struggled much. You have experienced enough toil and ascetic practices in the
wilderness, now go to the cities and guide men’. Saint Shenoute
modestly replied, ‘If you have been sent by the Lord, stretch out your hands
in a shape of the Cross, the sign of your Lord Jesus’. On hearing these
words, the devil fled away, as he could not bear the name of the Saviour and
His Cross.
On
another occasion, while all the monks were assembled together at night in the
winter, three revered men, who looked like angels, entered and participated in
the worshipping, then departed. When the monks asked their abbot, Saint Shenoute, about those three whom he accompanied to the
outer door, he replied ‘They are John the Baptist, Elijah the Prophet and
his, Disciple Elisha; they came to comfort us and strengthen us, for they also
lived in the wilderness like us’.
It is
also related that on the return to Egypt from Ephesus, after attending the
Ecumenical Council, the sailors who did not know him refused to accept him on
the ship, because Saint Cyril of Alexandria was on board. While the ship was
sailing out, Saint Cyril saw Saint Shenoute and his
disciple Saint Besa borne on a cloud. He cried ‘Bless
us, our father, O Saint, the new Elijah’.
Saint Shenoute was also the most outstanding Christian writer in
Coptic. According to Saint Besa, he left a great
number of letters and sermons, most of the former, addressed to monks and nuns, deal with monastic questions, and others combat the
practices of pagans and heretics. His sermons are spirited and predominantly
eschatological in character.
