Vol: 9 Issue: 3
Amshir 1731 / March 2014
Early Libyan Martyrs By: Thomas Oden Confessors prepared to die for their convictions can hardly be ignored, many have died, most of their names remain quite unfamiliar Listen: Januaria, Generosa, Vestia, Donata and Secunda Note that all these were women. These five were among the earliest African martyrs in AD 180. Other women who followed them are Perpetua, with a child in her arms in prison before she died, and Felicitas, who was eight months pregnant. We find them standing before an imperial judge in AD 203 in a lethal court trial whose proceedings have been shockingly recorded. Both chose faithful death in preference to a forced denial of the truth. There were many other martyrs, both men and women, whose names are largely unknown: Mina, Lucius, Theodorus, Cyrilla and Helladius. The last of these was burned to death in a furnace in Libya. These names do not spring quickly off the tongue, but their African blood was shed on their native continent. They are all African saints just as surely as those who are better known, such as Cyprian, Leonides and Peter of Alexandria. Then there is Wasilla. The tiny town in Alaska is named after the early Christian martyr who died in Libya. Wasilla is the Russian name for Basilides. Libyan tradition recalls that it was by a lake near Selena, Libya, near Al Bayda, that St George slew the dragon. There are the Vestiges of a huge monolithic church named for St George is remembered throughout Western history in the names of British kings and thousands of boys speaking a hundred languages, and hundreds of paintings of a knight on a horse with a spear through a monster But no one thinks of him as Libyan The dragon yet to be slain is a crushed memory: No one remembers the place of George’s victory. Traditional African religion cares deeply about ancestry But the
believer’s ancestry of Saints George and Wasilla has been forgotten. Why did Libyans spill blood for the One who was the way, the truth and the life? The short political answer is colonialism, even as early as the second century AD. The deeper religious answer is truth-telling in the context of endemic idolatry.
The Saint Forgotten: African young people need a more accessible way of understanding the part played by these early African Christians based on their faith, tenacity and in some cases their remarkable intellectual intensity. That is why this story awaits retelling. The real histories of Libyan saints are far more dramatic than anything rhetoric or romanticism might add to them. Christian scholars do well to leave it to the Muslim scholars to tell the story of early Islam in Libyan Africa. My modest task is to tell the story of Christianity in pre-Islamic Libya Since it is accessible to historical inquiry, it does not require a particular hue of skin to tell it. The story of Libyan Christianity provides a unique occasion to learn expressly about the faith once for all delivered to the saints of the Maghreb, and especially to the ancient saints of Libya. (From: Thomas C. Oden, “Early Libyan Christianity”)
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Fr Alexander’s First Liturgy 7 Frb 2015
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Monasticism in the Libyan Desert By: Thomas Oden After the period of martyrdom came the period of monasticism in Libya. There were remote monastic communities in the mountains and desert that survived beyond the Arab victories. They were following in the path of the crucified Lord and of the martyrs of the Roman persecution. Monasticism flourished in the Pentapolis and later in the northern parts of Latin Libya Palladius wrote of monks of the Libyan desert whom he had met personally. One of them, unnamed, was reputed to have been a monk since AD 291. If so, that was a very early date in the history of monasticism—he would have been a contemporary of St Anthony of the Desert and St Macarius of Scetis—among the earliest prototypes of the monastic life. Palladius mentions another Libyan monk named Stephen who was very old and who also had personally met Anthony. Bishop Synesius tells us that early Libyan bishops were largely chosen from among the holy monks of the diocese. To assess the extent of monasticism in the Libyan desert, it is necessary to define the Libyan desert, which itself presents a puzzle. The term “great Libyan desert,” as employed in late antiquity, was used variably to refer to the vast regions that now lie south of the coastal populations of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but it also encompasses some territories that would be politically identified today as the western desert of Egypt. This immense Libyan desert included the desolate tracts from Tripolitania on the border of present Tunisia all the way to the sparsely populated deserts of western Egypt. Vast areas of these Egyptian-Libyan desert regions were inaccessible to all but the hardiest of monks and desert nomads. (From: Thomas C. Oden, “Early Libyan Christianity”)
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Fr Paul First Liturgy
17 Jan 2015
Theodore of Cyrene By: Thomas Oden Another Libyan confessor who appears in the Russian Synaxary is Hieromartyr St Theodore (also known as Theuderius) Before his becoming bishop of Cyrene, he was known as a scribe or monk who quietly copied sacred Scriptures for public reading Theodore was ordained by the Patriarch Theonas of Alexandria (fl 282–300), as bishop in Libya. Many Libyans suffered as confessors during the Roman persecutions, especially if they were public readers of Scripture Theodore served the Pentapolis during the reigns of Theonas and Peter. Theodore was arrested in Libya, probably during the Diocletian persecution of A.D. 302–305, or as early as 292 by some accounts (SEC, Synaxarium for July 4). This was a hazardous time to be a bishop, charged with the care of the Holy Scriptures. Theodore was ordered to deliver up his copies of the sacred texts and to bring with him before the court all who read in public the testimony of the apostles The Dominican Martyrology (July 4) reports the outcome solemnly: “At Cyrene in Libya, St Theodore, [was] bishop In the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Dignian, he was beaten with leaden tipped whips, and his tongue was cut out” (Dominican Martyrology, July 4) Though he survived, he was a confessor without a tongue On this same day the Libyan church remembers the deacon who served under Theodore, whose name was Irenaeus, and two lectors, or public readers, named Serapion and Ammonius. They also had their tongues cut out for reading Scripture in common worship. Also executed at this time were the holy women of Libya: Cyprilla, Lucia and Aroa (Russian Feast Day July 3 or 4). The Antiochene Orthodox Synaxary recounts that those killed with Theodore in Libya were all who were known to have been baptized by the holy bishop. (Synaxary, Antiochene Orthodox Church of America) So the torture and death of the coworkers of St Theodore has been solemnly recalled annually in the Coptic calendar. They died defending the Christian Scriptures On this evidence it is reasonable to speak of a steady Christian witness (martyria) in the city of Cyrene from an early date no later than the 250s AD to about 303 This indicates that many in Libya were willing to die rather than yield the sacred Scriptures to the persecuting authorities. The documented time frame of substantial Christian presence in Libya is no later than the 250s and continuing to the 650s But the actual time frame could have begun much earlier, if we take into account the stories of the saints of Libya from Mark to Theodore of Cyrene. The celebrated city of Cyrene was not just an ancillary footnote to early African intellectual history It bears evidences of a vital spiritual presence that extends over a half millennium. Christians were participants in this tradition This willingness to die for the faith among Libyan Christians may have reached back to the Cyrenians at Pentecost and the life of Mark all the way to the holy women Cyprilla, Lucia and Aroa. (From: Thomas C. Oden, “Early Libyan Christianity”)
Thankful in Ordeals
By H.G. Late Bishop Makary
Bishop Makary presents us with the spiritual concept of being thankful in ordeals or tests. It is a guide to whoever is suffering and to whoever is walking in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ: the way of the Cross, the way of the saints and ultimately the way leading to the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed is the soul who accepts the test with joy and thanks giving. They will be crowned and seated at the right of the throne of the Lord of Glory, our Lord Jesus Christ.
St Abanoub Youth During a Retreat
H.G. Bp Elia with some youth who were at the monastery Page 7
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Further Reading Thomas c. Oden, “Early Libyan Christianity” This book, Early Libyan Christianity, is the third volume a series on early African Christianity It focuses on the most neglected arena of early Christian studies, a vast land where Christianity flourished unnoticed for five hundred years—in the sprawling reaches of ancient Libya. Today it is still seldom mentioned in the international literature, and least of all in the North American literature Early Libyan Christianity provides the occasion for retelling of the whole story of early African Christianity from a particular vantage point—Libya, its leading Christian characters and characteristics, its intellectual history, its rise and fall Of the thousands of books on early Christianity, not once to my knowledge has the subject focused on a book -length treatment of Libya. (Articles in this edition come from this book)