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Anthony the Great, was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony, such as Anthony of Padua, by various epithets: Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Anthony the Hermit, and Anthony of Thebes. For his importance among the Desert Fathers and to all later Christian monasticism, he is also known as the Father of All Monks. His feast day is celebrated on 17 January among the Orthodox and Catholic churches and on Tobi 22 in the Coptic calendar.
Moses the Black, also known as Abba Moses the Robber, the Ethiopian, and the Strong, was an ascetic monk and priest in Egypt in the fourth century AD, and a notable Desert Father. He is highly venerated in both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church, making him amongst the most notable Desert Fathers. According to stories about him, he converted from a life of crime to one of asceticism. He is mentioned in Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, written about 70 years after Moses's death.
A lavra or laura is a type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. It is erected within the Orthodox and other Eastern Christian traditions. The term is also used by some Roman Catholic communities. The term in Greek initially meant a narrow lane or an alley in a city.
Macarius of Egypt was a Coptic Christian monk and hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder or Macarius the Great.
The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes, and the most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in AD 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example, leading his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
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A skete ( ) is a monastic community in Eastern Christianity that allows relative isolation for monks, but also allows for communal services and the safety of shared resources and protection. It is one of four types of early monastic orders, along with the eremitic, lavritic and coenobitic, that became popular during the early formation of the Christian Church.
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Desert Mothers is a neologism, coined in feminist theology in analogy to Desert Fathers, for the ammas or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers.
Nitria is one of the earliest Christian monastic sites in Egypt and is located in the Nitrian Desert. It was the first of the three major centers of Christian monastic activity in the Lower Egypt, the other two being Kellia and Scetis.
Isaiah the Solitary, also known as Isaiah of Gaza, Isaias or Isaiah the Solitary, Abba Isaiah, or possibly also Isaiah of Scetis, was a Christian ascetic and monastic writer known from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and various Palestinian Miaphysite sources. He is canonized as a saint by the Coptic Orthodox Church, with his feast day on the 11th day of the month Abib (Epip) in the Coptic calendar.
AbbaAnoub, also known as Anoub of Scetis or Anoubius, was an Egyptian Eastern Orthodox Christian Saint, ascetic and anchorite who lived during the 4th and 5th centuries in Scetis, Lower Egypt. Abba Anoub is mentioned in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, also called the Apophthegmata or the Gerontikon. Saint Nikolaj Velimirović says, "Anoubius was one of the great Egyptian monks." Abba Anoub was one of the Desert Fathers.
Christian monasticism first appeared in Egypt and Syria. This is a partial chronology of early Christian monasticism with its notable events listed. It covers 343 years.
Mount Colzim, also known as the Inner Mountain of Saint Anthony, is a mountain in Red Sea Governorate, Egypt. It was the final residency of Anthony the Great from about AD 311, when he was 62 years of age, to his death in 356.
References
- ↑ "Nitrian Desert", in F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd rev. ed. (Oxford University Press, 2005, online 2009).
- ↑ Janet Timbie, "Egypt", in William M. Johnston and Christopher Kleinhenz, eds., Encyclopedia of Monasticism (Routledge, 2015), pp. 432–435.
- ↑ Roger S. Bagnall and Dominic W. Rathbone, eds., Egypt from Alexander to the Early Christians: An Archaeological and Historical Guide (Getty Publications, 2004), pg. 108–115 (map on p. 109).