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Current Saint: Fr. Armanios El Sourany
His early life:
At the young age his father died, he became responsible for his family, worked, and struggled a lot for his family and the Lord blessed all his work.
At the age of twenty-one he went to El Sourian Monastery known as the Virgin Mary and was admitted to test his desires to becoming a monk in what is called a probationary period. The late Bishop Theophilus, the head of the Monastery at that time, was very selective and picky to all youth seeking to become a monk. After the trial period and on November 4, 1948 he became a monk and was given the name Fr. Armanios El Sourany.
Owing to his expertise in the art of printing among the monks, the head of the monastery appointed Father Armanios responsible for all publications issued and promoted him by a priest.
His spiritual battle:
Fr Armanios order in worship and spiritual battle were simple and humble.
* At first he was moving from one place to another in the monastery without any rest for his body.. And most of his time at night he was standing upright praying.
* He ate very little and was giving the illusion to all monks that he eats meat and vegetables, which distributed by the monastery when in fact he was feeding the cats of the monastery. .. As often he was found sleeping on a bench next to the tree of St. Abraham El Sourany without any brushing to his body, so much so that once the Anba Theophilus passes by accompanied by another monk and saw Father Armanios asleep, the monk said, what is with him? Anba Theophilus replied: Father Armanios is a mystery to me, his actions puzzle me, I can’t understand.
* When one of the monks was speaking to him and demanded him to wear heavy clothes in order to avoid extreme cold, he said: this is a system I have to folloA monk once said, he was often slept on his side and his head held high from the ground, and he had been watching him for a long time in a very distressed way and did not change his position and his head hanging in the air!!
He was a Hermit:
* One day, His Holiness Pope was traveling abroad, on the day scheduled for his return, some of the monks said to Father Armanios, the Pope will arrive today, he replied: "But the plane will be delayed two hours. Later the monks learned that the plane of Pope had been delayed two hours already.
* One time he was seen at of St. Paula monastery in the Red sea. In this monastery there is a machine for generating electricity, an engineer used to come for maintenance and went to a room located by the machine and when he opened the door found a monk in the room praying so he closed the door, but strangely after a period came again, opened the door and found the same monk and repeated this many times. In the end, he asked who are you? He replied: I am Fr. Armanios .. He went to tell the father in charge of the machine about father Armanios so the father in charge told the engineer once you find him again closed the door and tell me right away .. On the following day when the engineer opened room, he was surprised by this strange monk so he went to call the monk in charge, strangely they did not find anyone when they opened the door. After departure of Father Armanios, his picture was distributed to many monasteries, and his image delivered to the monks the monastery of St. Paula when the engineer confirmed it was him and told the monks of the monastery then they searched in all monasteries, if there is another a monk named Armanios, they couldn’t find anyone else with this name in any another monastery just to be sure that this was Fr Armanios
* One of the brothers wanted to engage in the priesthood so he went to Fr Armanios to enjoy his blessing and advice then Fr. Armanios asked him: Where are you from? Replied the monk accompanying him who was in charge of his service: Brother of Cairo, O Father, Father, said Fr. Armanios: No, of Alexandria, the priest replied: Father Armanios how did you know I am from Alexandria? In fact, I live in the city of Cairo, but I already live in Alexandria.
Departure:
When the disease obliged him to go to Cairo for treatment, he stayed at a house of a loved one; he chooses to sleep in a small room in the loft.
On 13 March, 1995 when God wanted to relieve him of our fatigued and transmit world to eternal rest, Father Armanios went into a deep coma as a result of illness, during which the monks of the monastery saw St. Mary and Anba Theophilus had come to carry his pure spirit.. Gathered monks took him with hymns to the church headed by Bishop Mattheos and some Bishops and after the prayer, they carried him to El Altafos (burial monks) and there buried him with honor and reverence.
His blessings and prayers be with us all
Comments
Is he the same as St. Ibrahim the Simple.
He was a contemporary ascetic saint monk from Deir el Sourian monastery.
flexmd posted details of Fr Armanious life events.
There is an ebook about Fr Armanious el Souriany, in Arabic:
http://www.st-mary-alsourian.com/Library/Books/Armanios.pdf
May we get the blessing of his prayers for us.
anba bola thank you all who prepared the nice google ebook site. Why not extend it with a PDF file with a comprehensive database link list of all other online COC ebook sites (many other sites have books written in Arabic and other languages)? The link list (a PDF or a webpage) will ideally be used as a portal to a network of online libraries and users will click to go to the hosting sites to download and visit then back.
An idea: I have tried many times to find a database listing all original COC ebooks (in Arabic or other) listed as a table, with regularly revised info (through help by publishers' notifications) having besides type (ebook or print), author and date in columns, a column per major language putting a green check mark in cells to show whether the ebook in the row was translated into another language or not. In the case of an ebook considered important to translate to put a red square, a blue square for one with an ongoing translation, brown question mark for not sure, etc.
A database like this is a major but very important task - it can ask some help by putting at the bottom of the page a weekly moderated field enabling surfers to participate with notes and comments confirming they have read a translation for a book or are aware of its existence, its title, and so on - with time and hits it should build up adding to the known info.
This core reference will help organize and enhance the translation efforts.
GBU
Also I was talking about St. Abraham El Soriany who's tree is mentioned in flexmd's post, and is the one that Fr. Armanios slept next to. I was wondering if he is the same as St. Ibrahim the simple.
I don't think they are the same person.
I found some info. He is a contemporary saint.
Hegumen Fr Ibrahim el-Baseet (1885-1972) was the priest of St Mary's church(*) in Menahra then later at Beni Samet village (Minia), his birth place. (*same church as Abouna Abdel-Messih el-Menahry)
At his ordination he spent 4 months of prayers and seclusion in Anba Samuel monastery. He was almost illiterate but during the time of only these 4 months there he mastered reading and writing Arabic and Coptic and all the Liturgy in both languages. Amazing.
Later St Marc appeared to him and showed him where and how to build a church in St Marc's name in his home village, which he was blessed to achieve. Then HG the Metropolitan of Beni Suef sent him to be the serving priest of this church.
He had simple but strong sayings like: who won't come to church on foot will come on his back (carried) but with no benefit to him. Many miracles were recorded about him.
May this saint bless us all with his prayers.
Reference and some miracles (Arabic):
http://www.truth-way.net/vb/showthread.php?t=19381
GBU
But I have one question, who is St. Abraham El-Soriany.
But I have one question, who is St. Abraham El-Soriany.
Thank you Anba Bola. My apology, I meant St. Afriam El Souriany.