Saint OkeenAbba Evkin · Mar Awgin
العربية

His Life

Saint Mar Okeen: History and Tradition

Saint Mar Okeen, known in Syriac as Mar Awgin (also Awgen, Eugene or Eugenius) and in the Coptic Commemoration of the Saints as Abba Evkin, is honoured as the father of monasticism in Mesopotamia and as the founder of the monastery on Mount Izla. This page separates three things: what the surviving sources are, what historians conclude from them, and what is held by the Church’s tradition. Both deserve respect, and neither should be mistaken for the other.

The Sources

  • Manuscript The Syriac Life of Mar Awgin, published by Paul Bedjan in Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, vol. III (1892).
  • Manuscript The Arabic Life in Manuscript 297 (Mayamer) in the library of the Monastery of the Syrians in Wadi El Natrun, the source of the Life on this site and of Anba Matthaeus’s 2006 edition. The Life states that it was written by Mar Michael, one of the saint’s disciples, at a king’s request.
  • Scholarship The Book of Governors by Thomas of Marga (A.D. 840), a history of the monks of northern Mesopotamia that refers to Mar Awgin.
  • Scholarship Syriaca.org, the reference database of Syriac literature and history, which records him as the traditional founder of monasticism in Mesopotamia.
  • Photograph The monastery itself, photographed by Gertrude Bell in 1909, by Okeen.net in 2010, and restored in 2019, and surveyed by Columbia University’s Mapping Mesopotamian Monuments project.

What Historians Conclude

Scholarship Modern scholars treat the story of Mar Awgin with caution:

  • The historicity of Mar Awgin is uncertain. The earliest written accounts of his life come from about three centuries after the time in which the Life places him (Mathews, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage).
  • Scholars generally regard monasticism in the Syriac world as having its own native roots, rather than as having been brought from Egypt by a single founder. The Awgin tradition is often read as a way of linking Mesopotamian monasticism to the Egyptian desert fathers.
  • Florence Jullien has studied how the legend of Mar Awgin developed in connection with Abraham of Kashkar, the sixth-century reformer of monastic life on Mount Izla (Revue de l’histoire des religions, 2008).

These conclusions concern the written sources. They do not diminish the saint’s place in the prayer of the Church.

What the Church’s Tradition Holds

Tradition According to the Life and the Church’s tradition, presented on the pages of His Life:

  • He was born at Clysma (al-Qulzum) on the Red Sea, and worked as a pearl diver.
  • He became a monk in a monastery of Saint Pachomius, then lived in the desert of Nitria.
  • He went with his disciples, traditionally seventy, to Nisibis and Mount Izla, where he founded his monastery.
  • He departed in 363.
  • His Life was written by his disciple Mar Michael, at the request of a king.

Manuscript 297: What Is and Is Not Known

Known

  • Its number, 297, and its collection title, Mayamer (Homilies).
  • That it is preserved in the ancient library of the Monastery of the Syrians.
  • That it contains the Life of Saint Mar Okeen.

Not yet known

  • The date at which this copy was written.
  • Its scribe.
  • The exact description of its language and script.
  • Whether it has been described in a published catalogue. We have not found one. If the manuscript is in Syriac, the published catalogue of the monastery’s Syriac manuscripts (Van Rompay and Brock, 2014) is the first place to look.

What the attribution means

The statement that Mar Michael wrote the Life belongs to the text and its tradition. It is not a claim that the surviving copy was written by his hand. Further study of the manuscript itself is needed, and this page will be updated when it is available.

Sources

  • Syriaca.org, person records 356 and 1145: Awgin syriaca.org
  • Edward G. Mathews Jr., "Awgen, Mar", in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Gorgias Press, 2011; electronic edition, Beth Mardutho, 2018)
  • Florence Jullien, "Aux sources du monachisme oriental: Abraham de Kashkar et le développement de la légende de Mar Awgin", Revue de l'histoire des religions 225 (2008)
  • Paul Bedjan (ed.), Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, vol. III (Paris, 1892), pp. 376–480: the Syriac Life of Mar Awgin
  • E. A. Wallis Budge (ed.), The Book of Governors: The Historia Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Marga, A.D. 840 (London, 1893)
  • Columbia University, Mapping Mesopotamian Monuments: Monastery of Mar Awgin mcid.mcah.columbia.edu
  • Manuscript no. 297 (Mayamer), Library of the Monastery of the Syrians; H.G. Anba Matthaeus, The Life of Saint Mar Okeen (El-Sourian, 2006)