Emperor Theodosius the Less, the son of Emperor Arcadius, did not have a son, so he wrote to the elders of the Sheheet Wilderness, asking them to pray to God to grant him one. Saint Isidore, ‘the priest of the Wilderness,’ subsequently wrote back to him saying that God did not’ will for him to have a son who would participate with the heretics who would come after him, and when the emperor read this message, he offered thanks to God.

Later on, certain people advised him to marry another wife and have offspring from her, that his child may inherit the empire after him. He said to them, “I cannot do anything except what the elders of Sheheet demanded.” He sent an envoy whose name was Martinos to consult with them about that, and Martinos had a son named Zius who accompanied him on his visit to the elders in order to receive their blessings. When they arrived and the elders read the message, they took the messenger to the body of Saint Isidore, for he had departed. They called on him saying. “Our father, we have received a letter from the emperor, what shall we say to him?” A voice came from the pure body saying, “What I had said before, 1 also say now, that the Lord will never give him a son to participate with the heretics, even if he marries ten women.” The elders wrote back to the emperor recounting what they heard.

When the messenger was about to return, the pagan Berbers attacked the monastery. Anba Youannes, one of the elders of the monastery, called upon the brethren and said, ‘The Berbers have come to kill us. Whoever amongst you would like to become a martyr, let him stand, and whoever is afraid, let him hide in the fortress.’ Some of them hid in the fortress, but he remained with forty-eight elders, and the Berbers slaughtered them all. Martinos and his son were in hiding, and the boy looked up and saw the angels placing the crowns of glory on the elders who were killed. The boy said to his father, “I see spiritual beings putting crowns on the heads of the elders. I shall go to receive a crown like that,” and his father replied, “I also shall go with you my son.” Both revealed themselves to the Berbers. They were also killed and received the crowns of martyrdom.

After the Berbers had gone, the monks who were hiding in the fortress came down, took the bodies, and placed them in a cave, where they chanted and said praises before the bodies all night.

Some people form the city of Batanoon came and took the body of Anba Youannes and returned to their city, but the elders of the monastery returned his body after a while. Some people from Fayoum also came and stole the body of Zius, the son of Martinos. When they had arrived at the Fayoum lake, the angel of the Lord returned him to the place where the body of his father was; the elders also tried to separate their bodies several times, but they could not. Every time they moved the boy, the angel of the Lord would return him to his place. During one night, one of the fathers had a vision, and heard someone saying, “Praise God, we were not separated in the flesh, nor are we separated when we are with Christ, why do you want to separate our bodies?”

When persecution became rampant and the attacks on the monastery continued, the fathers relocated the bodies, and placed them in a cave which they built beside the church of Saint Macarius. At the time of Anba Theodosius, the thirty-third Pope of Alexandria, they built a church for them. When Anba Benjamin, the thirty-eighth pope, came to the wilderness, he established a feast day on the fifth of Amshir, which was the day of the relocation of their bodies to this church. After a long time had passed, the church building deteriorated, and they moved them to one of the cells until the time of Ibrahim EI-Gohary, who built a church for them around the end of the eighteenth century, where they placed the bodies of the saints. The church is still in existence today in the monastery of Saint Macarius.

May their prayers be with us all. Amen