Venerables Theonas, Symeon and Ferbinus

Verses

Receive the three souls without blemish,
In that divine place of unblemished souls.

Venerables Theonas, Symeon and Ferbinus met their end in peace.

Oxyrhynchus, the Egyptan City Once Full of Saints

Rufinus visited Oxyrhynchus in the 370's, and was the first to describe in the Latin language an Egyptian city so thoroughly Christian, it can be adequately described as a city of God on earth. The city had a population of male and female monastics which were more in number than regular inhabitants, with twelve churches and numerous monasteries. Some believe Rufinus was exaggerating his account to rouse the imaginations of Christians in the West, but we know that the twelve churches he describes in the city of his time had increased to forty or more by 535 A.D. No doubt it was an important Christian center in its time, and the disappearance of its numerous churches and monasteries especially due to the Islamic conquest is much to be regretted. Today relics of its Christian past can still be seen in some pillars in the chief mosque of Behnesa, and a single Corinthian column in the modern Coptic cemetery in the desert to the southwest of the town ruins.