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Day 4 of the Blessed Coptic Month of Tute, may God make it always received, year after year, with reassurance and tranquility, while our sins after forgiven by the tender mercies of our God my fathers and brothers.
Amen.
The Fourth Day of the Blessed Month of Tute
Departure of St.Macarius the Sixty-Ninth Pope of Alexandria
On this day the Church commemorates
the departure of Abba Macarius, the sixty-ninth pope of the great city
of Alexandria, in the year 1122 A.D. This father was an ascetic who practiced
strenous self-denial from his earliest years, and he cared for the garb
of monasticism. He went up to the desert of Scete and became a monk in
the monastery of St.Macarius. He trained his soul by reading the Holy Scriptures
and their explanations and by contemplating their significance. He excelled
in righteousness and so was ordained a priest. When Abba Mikhail the sixty-eight
Pope departed and his place became vacant, a group of bishops and priests
went to the monastery of St.Macarius and assembled in the church with the
senior monks of Scete. They sat there with them for many days, discussing
who would best fill the position. They agreed unanimously to choose Abba
Macarius because of his righteousness and devotion to ascetic life. They
took him and bound him against his will, and he cried out and begged them
to release him saying, "I am not qualified to be raised to the dignity
of the Papacy." Then they brought him bound to the city of Alexandria and
ordained him Patriarch. The deed of his appointment was read in the Church
of Mu'allakah (The Church of the holy Virgin) in the greek, Coptic, and
Arabic languages. During the whole time in which he sat, he added to his
works of righteousness and he daily taught the people and admonished them
in fear of God. He gave alms and did works of mercy for the poor and needy.
He never took anything from the Church, but rather, he used to give a large
portion of the contributions which were paid to him to be spent on different
righteous deeds. He sat as a Pope for twenty-seven years and departed in
peace.
May his prayers and blessings be with us all, and Glory be to God forever. Amen.