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.
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