- Aug 27, 2014
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I was looking for something completely different when I found YouTube a tamgeed (a kind of paraliturgical hymn sung in the Coptic Orthodox Church; I think the English translation would be "Glorification", but I learned the Arabic word first, sooo...) for Anba Wanas of Luxor. I thought there were a few saints named "Wanas" in the Coptic tradition, but keep finding web results that conflate Anba Wanas of Luxor and the 4th century child martyr St. Wanas, so maybe they're the same or otherwise being conflated in some details of their biographies. From the Coptic website "Tinahti.net" (Tinahti = "we believe" in Coptic), we find the following short biography (I'm assuming from the synaxarium, but I don't know the date of his commemoration, so I can't cross-check it):
Anyway, so it made me wonder: in the Coptic Orthodox tradition, we have St. Wanas as the saint of lost things; in the Roman Catholic Church, you have St. Anthony of Padua as the same...what about others? Do the Eastern Orthodox also have saints for lost things? The Anglicans or Lutherans too, maybe? It's interesting that we would share such a specific thing, albeit with different saints to call upon, though I guess the experience of misplacing things is universal.
And if you are lucky enough to be educated, so is testing/thesis-writing!
Anba Wanas was a martyr of the city of El-Luxor Upper Egypt. He was the only son of a poor christian family. Anba Wanas was ordained a deacon and named Youanis, so he was brought up in the fear of God, reading the Holy bible, fasting, praying, regularly attending the holy mass, reading the saints stories, and living in a pure and holy way. Our saint loved the poor people and used to help them regularly, he also used to make the holy bread for the raising of incense at church, and he would live on the church bread during the week. He also witnessed the tortures of the Christians who had been martyred, then he saw in a vision that he would receive the crown of martyrdom, for his love to the King Christ so he traveled to the city of El-Luxor and asked the bishop about the vision he had seen, and also told the Bishop to take his body and bury it at El-Luxor. Soon afterwards a roman governor came to the city to torture the Christians, and he also heard of Anba Wanas encouraging the Christians so he arrested him and tortured him but our saint remained firm and confessed his Christianity, so they increased the tortures but our saint was thankful to the Lord for being worthy to suffer for the King Jesus. So they beheaded him on Saturday the 16th of the Coptic month of Hatur, in the beginning of the 4th Century. After his martyrdom a group of faithful Christians found his body and brought it to the bishop later on they returned and found his head under a date tree, and he was finally buried in the city El-Luxor. His burial place has become a shrine to many Christians who travel on Pilgrimage in hope of receiving his blessings. He has appeared to many Christians in their sleep as a small boy dressed as a deacon for he was martyred at 12 years of age. Many miracles have occurred through the prayers and intercessions of this great saint and martyr till this day.
The wikipedia page for St. Wanas, which separates Anba Wanas of Luxor from the child martyr of the fourth century but provides no such information on the former, mentions St. Wanas as "the patron saint of lost things". That reminded me of when I was Catholic and people would tell me to pray for St. Anthony of Padua if I lost something. As far as I have personally experienced, the idea of "patronage" of saints is a bit different in the Coptic tradition than in the Roman Catholic, in that it's kind of informal. I've been told students pray to Abba Karas (I'm assuming they mean the fifth-sixth century anchorite, not the bishop who died in 2002) before exams, so he'd be like a "patron saint of students", but as far as I know that's not explicitly written anywhere, and I have no idea when or even why that association started. (But I still did it, and yeah...thesis accepted with distinction! Thank you, God, for accepting the powerful intercession of Your saints on my behalf!)
Anyway, so it made me wonder: in the Coptic Orthodox tradition, we have St. Wanas as the saint of lost things; in the Roman Catholic Church, you have St. Anthony of Padua as the same...what about others? Do the Eastern Orthodox also have saints for lost things? The Anglicans or Lutherans too, maybe? It's interesting that we would share such a specific thing, albeit with different saints to call upon, though I guess the experience of misplacing things is universal.
And if you are lucky enough to be educated, so is testing/thesis-writing!
