Story
Lives of the saints and martyrs in the Coptic Orthodox Church
Saint Anba Reweiss | Anba Farag | Ava Tegy
In the English language: Saint Roweiss. In the Coptic language: abba Teji.
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III says of this saint that he attained no priestly rank, nor did he follow the monastic life as a monk, yet he surpassed many who held ecclesiastical ranks and degrees, so that the popes themselves would ask for his prayers on their behalf.
His early life:
He was born in the hamlet of Minyat Yamin in the district of Gharbia, to a poor family. His father was a farmer named Isaac, and his mother's name was Sarah, and they named him Farag. The precise date of his birth is not known, but he lived in the fourteenth century A.D. and reposed on the 18th of October in the year 1405 A.D.
He used to help his father in farm work, and when he had finished the labor of the field he would sell salt upon a small young camel. He named his camel "Reweiss" (a diminutive of the word "head," ras) because it would nuzzle its master with its little head. This camel was so tame that, if he called it by its name, it would answer his call; and it is said that the camel was of such intelligence and devotion to its master that it would cover him if he slept without a covering, and would wake him at the times of prayer. Perhaps the most distinctive trait of Farag was his humility and his love, by which he won the affection of the whole village.
His departure from his town:
He remained in his father's house until the age of twenty, when a severe persecution fell upon the Christians, so grievous that the saint's own father abandoned the faith under the crushing weight of that persecution. The saint hid himself in the wilderness of al-Sheikh nearby, and then set out for Cairo. Out of the severity of his weariness and hunger he fell asleep on the road, and he saw in his sleep two men shining like lightning who snatched him up and bore him into heaven, and then brought him into a heavenly church. There he saw a great throng of worshippers, and he heard a voice from within calling him to come forward and partake of the Mysteries. Then the two shining men presented him at the holy table, and he partook of the Mysteries, and afterward they returned him to the place from which they had taken him.
After this dream he arose and crossed Cairo, and from there went up to Upper Egypt; and in those parts he changed his name to "Reweiss" in self-denial. He began to travel through the land from Qus in the Sa'id to Alexandria, and he would speak to everyone he met about the salvation of his soul, with abundant tears. This saint lived as a stranger, wandering upon the face of the earth in imitation of his Master, who had nowhere to lay His head; and his longing for heaven was so intense that he would often chant the words of the psalmist: "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" (Psalm 120:5).
His asceticism:
He practiced a life of utter harshness and severity and mortification of the body. He was a faster, eating only a little and the meanest of foods; he wore only what covered his nakedness, leaving the rest of his body bare, exposed to the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and in this he resembled John the Baptist.
He traveled through the lands of Egypt, and whenever he entered a town he would work with his hands to obtain what he needed for sustenance, and would give the rest away as alms. Often those who loved him offered him fine garments and money and gifts, but he would refuse them.
He was not content with a life of deprivation alone, but spent his life fasting and praying. It is said of him that he would fast two and three days without breaking, and once he fasted eleven consecutive days. He was constant in holy Communion, and would partake of the holy Mysteries in fear and trembling; and often he would show hesitation when communing, out of a sense of his own unworthiness. When he was asked about this hesitation, he answered: "None is worthy to partake of these holy Mysteries except one whose inward parts are pure and clean as the womb of our Lady the pure Mary, who was counted worthy to bear Christ in her womb." Perhaps this was because God had opened his inner sight, so that he would behold the glory of God resting upon the holy Mysteries at the time of consecration in the sanctuary, shining with an indescribable brightness.
He was granted by God many spiritual revelations, and he also worked miracles, and was the cause of the repentance of many. Once he declared that he had seen the Cherubim and the Seraphim standing about the baptismal font, hovering about the child with joy.
He used to work at sifting wheat in order to give alms to the poor. He shut himself up in seclusion in the house of a lady called "Umm Yaqub" (the mother of Jacob) in Cairo, and when he grew hungry she offered him bread. But he took some moistened bran and ate it, and the lady was grieved. He said to her: "Why does your heart grieve over my eating bran instead of bread, while you do not grieve over the sins of men? Do you not know that sin puts the soul to death, whereas bran sustains the body in any case? And if the body suffers a little, it is so that it may cease from sin."
His spiritual travels:
He attained the lofty degree of "flight" (translocation), so that he would pass across great distances in a very short time, and enter places whose doors were shut. Once he was carried to Asyut and returned within an hour, in which he had completed an errand of mercy; and another time he was carried to Syria to relieve someone in distress. God also granted him knowledge of hidden mysteries. He was a man of self-denial, denying even his own name and calling himself by the name of his camel. When some pressed him to learn his true name, he told them "Teji aflillu," that is, "Teji the madman";
and the wonder is that the Church in her prayers gives him this very name, "Teji." He desired to go yet further in self-denial, so he would walk in the streets with his body bare and his head uncovered, and would dwell in a hut of palm-leaves or sleep on the side of the road. Often this strange manner of life brought upon him the mockery of the people and their assaults against him, beating, cursing, spitting upon him, and stoning him with stones.
And when his soul rose up against these insults, he would address it, saying: "Where am I in comparison with the martyr Saint George and all that he endured, or with John the Baptist, whose head Herod cut off? Where is what has befallen me beside the torments that befell the martyrs?" And from the multitude of torments to which he was exposed, he would shut himself up in remote places and withdraw from people for many months, which he spent in fervent prayers and uninterrupted fasts.
And God looked upon the contrition of his heart, his love, and the strength of his faith: so the Lord Christ appeared to him five times in glory unspeakable, and in one of them spoke to him mouth to ear. By such visions he would take courage and stand firm against every kind of suffering, and keep silence from speech.
God's consolations amid the sufferings:
Sultan Barquq heard of him and longed to see him.
And when the Emir Sudun oppressed Pope Matthew, he summoned Anba Reweiss and began to question him about his life and his deeds, but he answered him not a word. He ordered him to be beaten with four hundred strokes of the rod until his blood flowed, while he kept silent. The soldiers paraded him through the streets, beating him and spitting upon him and pulling the hair of his head and beard, and he remained silent; then they cast him with his disciple into prison. The Lord of glory appeared to them both and healed them; and when the imprisoned Copts, eight in number, asked him to pray for them, the Pope came to them that very day bearing the order for their release.
He would often visit the homes of the believers and tell them of things that would come to pass in the future, and warn them of harms and calamities that would befall them. The saint was a contemporary of the great Pope Anba Matthew the First, the 87th, and was closely connected with him. On one occasion the Emir Yalbugha arrested the Pope together with a group of Christians, and when his disciple came to Anba Reweiss and told him what had happened to the Pope, he prophesied to him that the Lady the Virgin would deliver him. And so indeed it came to pass, for one of the emirs who were enemies of that emir attacked and broke down the doors of the prison and brought out the Patriarch and those with him, and seized the Emir Yalbugha and imprisoned him and beat him until he died.
His illness and repose:
Anba Reweiss sealed his struggle by enduring a severe illness with patience, so that he was called the new Job. For he was sick nine years without cease, and he remained throughout all this time bedridden, silent, speaking to no one, enduring with wondrous patience. He spent these years in sighing and weeping and prayer for the sinners who used to come to him, and he would heal the sick who visited him while he himself was suffering from illness.
And when he knew that his end was near, he blessed his disciples one by one, and anointed his body with water, signing all his members with the sign of the Cross from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
He asked for our Lady the Virgin Mary in the hour of his repose, and she granted his request, as one of his disciples testified, who said: "In that hour I saw a woman shining like the sun, seated beside this father, and she took his blessed soul according to his request." His departure was on the 21st of Baba, the commemoration of the Lady the Virgin, and he was buried beside her church at Deir al-Khandaq (the present-day area of Anba Reweiss).
God's working with him after his repose:
On the eighth day after his burial his body was stolen, so he appeared to his disciples and informed them of the true state of affairs, and they returned it to his tomb a second time. Many wonders used to flow from his body, and this enticed a group of believers to move his body to Deir Shahran in al-Ma'sara, so they carried it in a boat on the Nile. But on their way to the said monastery violent winds and raging storms rose against them that nearly drowned them, so they were compelled to return the body once again to its tomb.
And in this generation (the twentieth century) a man named Armanius Bey Hanna, the overseer of the Patriarchate, attempted to restore the saint's tomb, and ordered it to be demolished so that he might rebuild it in a modern style. But scarcely had the workman swung his pickaxe down upon the tomb when his right hand was paralyzed, and he cried out for help; so the priest of the church came and prayed over him until his hand returned to motion. From that time the tomb was left as it was, and all they did was to build over it a tomb of marble, without moving the body.
See also: names of churches dedicated to the saint Anba Reweiss | Ava Tegy in Egypt, and Saint Solomon the disciple of Anba Reweiss