Matta al-Maskin

Abuna Matta al-Maskin ( Arabic متى المسكين, DMG Mattā al-Maskīn  'Matthew the Arms'), bourgeois Yussuf Iskander (born November 1, 1919 in Banha ; † June 8, 2006 in Abu Maqar) was a Coptic Orthodox monk, monastery head and spiritual writer.

Yussuf Iskander comes from a Christian family. After studying pharmacy at Cairo University (graduating in 1943), he became a commercially successful pharmacist in Damanhur, northern Egypt. Deeply impressed by the encounter with the Ethiopian ascetic Abd al-Masih al-Habashi († 1973), he followed the call to monasticism in 1948. He entered the Deir (monastery) Anba Samuel in Middle Egypt and took the monk's name Matta (Matthew).

For health reasons, he moved to the so-called Syrian monastery (Deir al-Surian) in Wadi al-Natrun (ancient: Sketis ) in 1951 and was ordained a priest there on March 19, 1951. Ordained to Hegumenos , he worked as patriarchal vicar in Alexandria in 1954/56 . In 1956 he returned to Deir al-Surian, in 1959 to Deir Anba Samuel.

In 1960 he went with eleven young, academically trained monks to the solitude of Wadi al-Rayan, where they led a strictly ascetic life based on the model of late antique desert monks. Her relationship with the patriarchy has been strained for several years. In 1969 the Copt Pope sent Kirellos VI. Matta and his confreres to the historically significant Deir Abu Maqar ( Makarios monastery , named after Makarios the Egyptians ) , which is now only populated by a few monks . Matta, who now called himself al-Maskin (“the poor”), devoted himself to the reconstruction of the monastery complex and the revitalization of the monastic community. In the following years their number rises to around 130 monks (2006), all of them of academic origin, without exception, who lead a life of work and prayer, similar to modern Western monks. A developed agriculture provides the economic basis, and a modern printing press ensures the dissemination of the numerous spiritual writings of the monastery head.

Under the pontificate of the Coptic Pope Schenuda III. (from 1962) there was an obvious estrangement between Matta al-Maskin and the church leadership, which, however, avoided a formal break with the world-famous "living saint" until his death.

literature

• Gottfried Glassner : Renewal under the sign of the monks. The blossoming of the Coptic monasteries and the reform work of Matta al-Maskin . In: The Coptic Church. Introduction to Egyptian Christianity . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1994, p. 93 ff .
• Manfred Karl Böhm: Abuna Matta al-Maskin (1919 to 2006). Life and Legacy , In: The Christian East LXI. Würzburg 2006 / 4–5, pp. 268–274

Web links

Wikivoyage: Wadi ar Raiyan Monastery  - travel guide