Feast of Macarius of Egypt

Macarius of Egypt

January 15, 2014 By James Ford 

In the Roman calendar today is the feast of Macarius of Egypt. In the Eastern churches his feast is a couple of days later on the 19th. While a Copt, he is celebrated as a saint throughout the various branches of the Christian Church.

Macarius is a significant figure in the establishment of the monastic tradition within Christianity and a signal figure among the Desert Fathers. He was famed for his kindness and generosity to others, including non-believers (although he was a formidable opponent of Arianism, for which he suffered banishment for a while), combined with a fierce rigor in his own interior life that was enormously attractive to those who met him.
The article on him in the Encyclopedia Britannica notes, “His spiritual doctrine is not the cultivated speculative thought circulated by the eminent 3rd-century theologian Origen of Alexandria, but, as with the doctrine of the monk Anthony, it is a learning derived from primitive monasticism’s “book of nature.” The essence of his spiritual theology is the doctrine (with Neoplatonic traces) of the mystical development of the soul that has been formed in the image of God. By physical and intellectual labour, bodily discipline, and meditation, the spirit can serve God and find tranquillity through an inner experience of the divine presence in the form of a vision of light.”

While the only writing attributed to him that seems unchallenged was a letter, “To the Friends of God,” he is the putative author of “Fifty Spiritual Homilies,” that have had wide ranging influence within the Christian world.

The Light of the Desert (Documentary on St Macarius Monastery, Egypt) (ENG SUBS)

The monastery was founded in approximately 360 AD by Saint Macarius of Egypt, who was the spiritual father to more than four thousand monks of different nationalities. From its foundation in the 4th century up to the present day, the monastery has been continuously inhabited by monks. Several Christian saints and fathers of the early Church were monks at the Monastery of Saint Macarius, such as Saint Macarius of Alexandria, Saint John the Dwarf, Saint Paphnutius the Ascetic, Saint Isidore, Saint Arsenius, Saint Moses the Black, Saint Poemen, Saint Serapion and many others..

In 1969, the monastery entered an era of restoration, both spiritually and architecturally, with the arrival of twelve monks under the spiritual leadership of Father Matta El Meskeen. These monks had spent the previous ten years living together entirely isolated from the world, in the desert caves of Wadi El Rayyan, about 50 kilometres south of Fayoum.

It was the late Pope Cyril VI who ordered this group of monks to leave Wadi El Rayyan and go to the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great to restore it. The Pope received them, blessed them, assured them of his prayers and asked God to grant their spiritual father grace that the desert might bloom again and become the home of thousands of hermits. At that time only six aged monks were living in the monastery and its historic buildings were on the verge of collapsing. The new monks were warmly received by the abbot of the monastery, Bishop Michael, Metropolitan of Assiut, who through his wisdom and humility was able to create an atmosphere favourable to the renewal they hoped for.

Today, under Pope Shenouda III, who is himself busily engaged in restoring the Monastery of Saint Pishoy and the Paromeos Monastery, and after fourteen years of constant activity both in reconstruction and spiritual renewal, the monastic community in the Monastery of Saint Macarius numbers about one hundred monks. The monks live in strong spiritual unity, according to the spirit of the Gospel, practising brotherly humility and the unceasing prayer of the heart. They are all directed by the same spiritual father who watches over the unity of the spirit of the monastery. The renewal is also revealed in the diligent prayer of the daily office and other liturgical services, for it is the aim of the monks to revive in the Church the spirit of the first centuries of Christianity, both by their rule of life and by conscientious study.

The Monastery of Saint Macarius maintains spiritual, academic and fraternal links with several monasteries abroad, including the monastery of Chevtogne in Belgium, Solesmes Abbey and the Monastery of the Transfiguration in France, Deir El Harf in Lebanon and the Convent of the Incarnation in England.

The Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great contains the relics of many saints, such as the Forty Nine Elder Martyrs of Scetes.

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