Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/January 17
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Saint Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), also known as Anthony Abbot, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Abba Antonius and The Father of All Monks.
Anthony the Great was an Egyptian Christian saint and the prominent leader among the Desert Fathers, Christian monks in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Anthony lived in Alexandria, Egypt for much of his notable career.
Anthony was born near Herakleopolis Magna in Lower Egypt in 251 to wealthy landowner parents. When he was about eighteen years old, his parents died. In 285 Anthony gave away the family estate and became the disciple of a local hermit.
Anthony is notable for being one of the first ascetics to attempt living in the desert proper, completely cut off from civilization. Saint Anthony headed out into the alkaline desert region called the Nitra, about 95 km west of Alexandria, some of the most rugged terrain of the Western Desert. Here he remained for some thirteen years. He moved to a tomb, depending on some local villagers who brought him food. Later, he went further out, to a mountain by the Nile, called Pispir. There he lived strictly enclosed in an old abandoned Roman fort for some twenty years.
Then one day he emerged from the fort with the help of villagers to break down the door. Anthony went to the Fayyum and confirmed the brethren there in the Christian faith, then returned to his old Roman fort. In 311, Anthony wished to become a martyr and went to Alexandria.
He left Alexandria to return to the old Roman fort upon the end of the persecutions and even went further into the Eastern Desert of Egypt, where now stands the monastery of Saint Anthony the Great. There, he anticipated the rule of Benedict of Nurcia, "pray and work", by engaging himself and his disciple or disciples in manual labor.
In 338, he was summoned by Athanasius of Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius. Saint Anthony the Great lived for 105 years and departed on the year 356.
Attributes: bell; pig (in the West); book; crutch; hermit; Saint Anthony's cross; tau cross with a bell on the end
Patronage: against pestilence; amputees; animals; basket makers; basket weavers; brushmakers; Burgio, Sicily; butchers; Canas, Brazil; cemetery workers; domestic animals; eczema; epilepsy; epileptics; ergotism; erysipelas; gravediggers; graveyards; hermits; hogs; Hospitallers; monks; Mook, Nederlands; pigs; relief from pestilence; shingles (Saint Anthony's fire); skin diseases; skin rashes; swine; swineherds
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