Saint Shenute

Shenoute of Atripe, also known as Shenoute the Great or Saint Shenoute the Archimandrite , was the abbot of the White Monastery in Egypt. He is considered a saint by the Oriental Orthodox Churches and is one of the most renowned saints of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Shenoute was born in the middle of the fourth century CE (the date 348 CE, often mentioned but not universally accepted, is based on an inscription in his monastery, dating from the 12th or 13th century). Around 385 CE, Shenoute became the father of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt. It has often been assumed that Shenoute was the immediate successor of the White Monastery's founder, Pacol. However, the reconstruction of Shenoute's literary corpus made it possible to realize that Pacol died in the 370s and was then succeeded not by Shenoute but by another father, Eboh and that a spiritual crisis during Eboh's tenure as head of the White Monastery, a crisis which seems to have involved carnal sin, enabled Shenoute to come to prominence and to become Eboh's immediate successor. Because of his popularity in Upper Egypt and his zeal, Shenoute was chosen by Cyril, the ecclesiarchal Patriarch of Alexandria, to accompany him in representing the Church of Alexandria at the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE. There he provided the moral support that Cyril needed to defeat the heresy of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople. The eventual exile of Nestorius to Akhmim, Shenoute's backyard, was a testimony to the impression Shenoute had made upon the council attendees. On 7 Epip (14 July) 466 CE, following a short illness possibly brought upon by advanced age, Shenoute died in the presence of his monks. From his uncle, Saint Pigol, Shenoute inherited a monastery based on the Pachomian system of cenobitic monasticism, though more austere and stringent. This made its followers few in number and probably promoted decline rather than growth.