Fr Abd el Masih el Makary - A Holy Fool

By: Fr Anthony St Shenouda In the Orthodox Church we have a number of Category of saints, for example we have martyrs, military martyrs, bishops, monks, nuns, lay reformers. Yet a very obscure category of saints is that of the Holy Fools. The character of the holy fool in the Orthodox Tradition is not a new innovation. We read in Palladiuss Lausiac History (5th cent AD) of an unnamed nun who feigned madness and was ill treated by the nuns in the convent, until she left the monastery when her holiness was revealed. A similar story is told in the life of abba Daniel of skete of a nun who was know as the crazy one until abba Daniel found out about her holiness in a vision. Abba Daniels life also tells us of certain monk whos name is Mark, who used to walk around in the streets naked except for a loincloth and he used to seize things in the market and handed them out to the other fools. Which further shoes that there were other holy fools in the same village. After these stories there seem to be a shift in these unconventional saintly characters to the villages of Syria for example Symeon of Emesa. And during the middle ages this category of saints has gained popularity in Russia. What seems strange though is the presence of this category of saints in specific centuries and that there is virtually no mention of them before the 3rd century. Bishop Kallistos Ware speculates that: In the First three centuries of our era, when Christianity was oppressed and persecuted, there was no special need for the fools testimony: all Christians were at that time considered fools by the dominant class in society. But when, as in the christianised Empire of East Rome from the fourth century onwards or in the sacral autocracy of sixteenth century Moscow, people were in danger of confusing an earthly kingdom with the Kingdome of God, then there was an urgent need of the fools mockery. This is perfectly explained also in St Symeons reply to his friend John when he was called by God to leave the desert and go and help people; he said to his friend John I am going to mock the world. This also explains the disappearance of this category of saints from the Coptic Church from the 6th century onwards, since the Coptic Church has been under persecution since then and the Christians were considered by their Muslim torturers to be Fools for giving up their life for Christ. One of these contemporary fools for Christ lived in Upper Egypt in the beginning of the twentieth century (1892-1963 AD) by the name saint abd el Masih al Makary (Servant of Christ of St Macarius monastery). He became a monk at the age of 22. After he was known in his monastery for his saintly life, his spiritual father nominated him to witness for Christ by serving his flock in a village called el manahra. After some persuasion the saint went to the village and decided to take the advice of his spiritual father that if virtue is revealed it is snatched by the demon of vain glory. Since his arrival to the village he put on acts of madness to hide his sanctity. The most famous of all was his demanding to get married. He would walk around asking people if they have a suitor for him to marry. When pope John 19th the 113th Pope of Alexandria, heard of his virtues, he called him to ordain him a bishop when he found out about this during his conversation with the Pope he asked the Pope if he can marry his mother. Being offended the Pope kicked him out saying and they called you a saint. While the life of St abd el Masih has many humorous incidents it was only a way of hiding his virtuous life. For example he would gather around him the poor kids of the village and gives them money only if they sing, this is the stupid and foolish monk. Therefore he hid his act of mercy to the little kids by his insult. He also has numerous miracles of healing and child bearing with Christians and Muslims alike. Like the other fools of Christ Fr abd el Masih was known for his prophetic abilities; he prophesized the reign of Pope Kyrillos VI, the exile of King Farouk, and his own death. Each of the above mentioned category of saints serves a unique and a special function in the church. For example the martyrs give the church an example of courage and perseverance in faith or in keeping their virginity, as they were the two main reasons people were martyred for. Monks and Nuns give the church an example of full renunciation of possessions and civil and ecclesiastic positions. As for the holy fool as we have seen above his function is not only to mock the negative aspects of our Christian life but he also acts as a living witness -especially in a western society such as ours - to the living of a holy Christian life over and against the sometimes intellectual Christian life that lacks spirituality.

A Summary of The Saints Biography

By: Metropolitan Mina of Gerga
(A disciple and a biographer of the saint) The blessed father Abdel Messieh el Macarii was born in 1892 in the village of Abu Shehata, district of Mattai in the provience of El Minya. His father's name was Henain and his mother's was Estere. When he grew up he wanted to be a spiritual soldier in the army of celibates, so he gave his back to the world and headed for the monastery of St Samuel on the Qalmon mount, but his father went to the monastery and took him back home. This happened many times, and every time his father brought him back from the monastery a great number of his livestock died. At last his father left him alone after the saint promised him that God will give him another son at his old age to help him with the work, so he went and became a monk at the monastery of St Macarius thegreat in the wilderness of Sciete, in the Natron valley. He led an extremely ascetic life and became a highly regarded model of true monastic life. Later he went to the village of Manahra to serve as a priest of the village, as advised by his confession father, where The Lord honoured him with the gift of foreseeing the unknown. He was able to perform signs and miracles at the same magnitude as those of the apostles. He was keen to conceal those gifts with some unusual gestures. The Fool and Insane Saint: After he had advanced to a very high spiritual standard of holiness, our saintly father choose to hide his virtues following the saying of one of the saints, "If virtue becomes manifest, it would be stolen and plundered through vain glory." For this reason the saint pretended insanity and idiocy in his speech and in his actions, to stop people from gathering around him and from praising him. He sometimes used expressions quite peculiar to the monastic conduct e.g. "I want to get married." Some people started to have doubts about him, some even decided to test this request. They said, "We snared him in order to ascertain whether he was serious when talking about marriage, but at the same time we safe guarded the women we sent to him. We had to protect our honour." They concluded, "The purity and sanctity of the saint were proven beyond any doubt. He never yielded to the lady and was able to get rid of her with some mad actions." To mention an example I relate the following incidents: In 1956 I was visiting the saint at Manahra, he asked to marry an elderly woman named Mostafia who was quite familiar to the saint's actions. He asked me to go with him to the woman's house and asked Father Yohanna Soliman, the priest of Manhr's Church, to issue the marriage certificate. Father Yohanna was fearful that Met. Athanasuis, the late metropolitan of Beny Sewaif might expel him from the priesthood. Seeing Father Johanna's disbelief I asked him to bring a copy of an old marriage certificate just to get to the end of the play. Father Yohanna went to get the copy from the house of the Church's Rector. He came back after obtaining the certificate, but of an old marriage certificate. When they arrived at Fr Abdel Messiehs cell, accompanied by a deacon named Salib Wahba. Salib saw the saint's fingers emitting light while praying in his cell. It was about nine in the morning, he screamed saying to Father Yohanna, "Look! Father Abdel Messieh's fingers are luminous." Fr Yohanna looked, it was true. I saw him I was terrified, and in a state of sever panic he told us what he had seen.

The saint was still determined to carry on with the play of getting married, and in spite of what had happened we were inclined to believe the whole thing to be a dead serious matter. Moments later the spiritual son of the saint, Mr. Makram Hanna, joined us. I said to him, "Please Makram, you know very well the character of this man, do us a favour and help us get out of this predicament." I said that because I had only recently become acquainted with the saint. Makram addressed the saint saying, "Listen to me Father Abdel Messieh; according to the new regulations set by the government, a marriage contract can be executed only by a registrar authorized by the government and Father Yohanna does not have this capacity. The saint put on angry act and went out shouting, You just want to upset me. You love me to hinder my marriage, give me my money back for I have changed my mind, I am not going to get married." That was the end of the play. The Saints Charity: Almost all Manahra's population stated that the saint gave the poor and the needy everything he had received through the generosity of some kind people. Even in giving alms he had his own way which relied on the pretence of folly. For example he may gather some orphan children claiming that he wanted them to do a job for him. He may ask them to locate some abnormal persons, and after a few minutes in a vain search he would ask them to sing, "The black monk is a beggar". Being shy they would whisper these words, so he would dismiss them since they could not find any abnormal people. He would then pay them for their efforts. The late Mr Girgis, once said to me, "Whenever the saint knew, by the spirit, that I had been in financial strife he would call me requesting that I find the fictitious person around the water canal (which was one meter deep and two meters wide). I would cross the stream and come back saying that I couldn't find any fictitious persons. He would then say alright, you can go now, and here is your wage. It is quite obvious that the saint wanted to give alms in a masked way, under the pretence of folly and insanity and without boasting in compliance with Lord Christ's teaching, " ... but when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly" (Matt 6:3-4). Finally, he reposed in the Lord on the morning of Easter Sunday, the 14th April 1963 May the blessings of his prayers be with us all. Glory be to our Lord forever and ever Amen. (a small excerpt from: Life and Miracles of Saint Abdel Messieh El-Manahrii)