Coptic Synaxarium (Coptic Orthodox Calendar)

3 Toot
(The Third Day of the Blessed Month of Tute)

1. A Council held in the city of Alexandria.

2. A Great Earthquake took place in Cairo and Most of the Egyptian Cities.

1. On this day of the year 243 A.D., a holy synod convened in the city of Alexandria in the second year of the Papacy of St. Dionysius, the fourteenth Pope of Alexandria. This council was convened because certain people in the Arabian countries believed that the spirit dies with the body, and that on the day of the resurrection, it shall be raised up with it. They composed articles on this belief and sent them to certain people in Alexandria.

    When this reached Abba Dionysius he was exceedingly sorry, and he tried to return them from their erroneous opinion, but they would not hearken to him. Therefore, the council assembled, confronted them, and made manifest their perversion. They neither repented nor turned away from their false belief, the holy synod and the Pope excommunicated them.

    He wrote an article for them and said in it, "The love of God for mankind is exceedingly great, and the spirit neither dies nor perishes, but abideth as the angels and the devil for it is spiritual, immutable, and incorruptible. When the spirit goes forth from the body it will return to God Who gave it. (Ecc. 12:7) Where it remains in the places of waiting according to its deservedness. And on the day of the resurrection, when the trumpet sounds, the dead bodies shall rise by the Word of God. The spirits reunite with the body it belongs, some to everlasting joy, and some to everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

2. On this day also a great earthquake took place in Cairo and most of the Egyptian cities at 9:00 a.m. On this day, a church named after Michael the Archangel, at El-Gazyra in Cairo, was destroyed, among many other places. It was said that certain ungodly people had asked the Christians for a bribe, but they did not yield; and when it was evening these men came and destroyed the church completely. This was in the ninth year of the Papacy of Abba Macarius in the year 828 of the Holy Martyrs (1112 A. D.).

Their intercession be with us all, and Glory be to our God forever. Amen.