Serapion of Thmuis

• He was an abbot of a colony of monks, afterwards he was ordained bishop of Thmuis, a town in Lower Egypt.
• He was distinguished by the wonderful sanctity of his life and the power of his eloquence.
• He was called Scholasticus on account of his great learning and writings.
• He was an intimate friend of St. Anthony the great and made him the confidant of his visions and bequeathed to him one of his two sheepskins; St. Athanasius received the other.
• He was the recipient of a number of important epistles from St. Athanasius.

• As early as 339 St. Athanasius sent one of his Festal Letters ‘to the beloved brother and fellow minister,’ which indicates that Serapion must have been consecrated before this date.
• But, most important of all, St. Athanasius addressed to him four letters concerning the Holy Spirit, which present the first formal treatise ever written upon this subject and bear witness to their mutual regard and frequent intercourse.
• Moreover, in 356 St. Athanasius sent Serapion with four other Egyptian bishops and three presbyters to the court of Constantius in order to refute the calumnies of the Arian party and conciliate the ruler.

1. Against the Manichaeans

• St. Jerome tells us that Serapion wrote an excellent treatise against the Manichaeans, another on the titles of the Psalms and useful epistles to various persons.
• The work on the Psalms is lost, but that against the Manichaeans has only recently been recovered entire.
• St. Jerome calls it an egregious liber. There is sufficient evidence of his rhetorical, philosophical and theological learning. 2. The Euchologion
• A unique 11th century manuscript of the Laura Monastery of Mount Athos contains an euchologion or sacramentary, which is ascribed to Serapion of Thmuis.

• Consisting of 30 prayers, the collection is certainly Egyptian and dates in its present form to the 4th century.
• 18 of these are connected with the Eucharistic liturgy, seven with baptism and confirmation, three with ordination, two with the blessing of the oils and funerals.
• It is true that certain sentences in the preface agree word for word with the Liturgy of St. Mark (also known as the Liturgy of St. Cyril).
• However, the anaphora is explicitly attributed to him and the epiklesis of the Logos seems to be Serapion’s own contribution.
• Sts. Peter and Theophilus, the patriarchs of Alexandria, testify that St. Athanasius and the Liturgies of Alexandria never knew of any invocation asking for the coming of the Logos upon the bread and the cup. 3. Letters
• Of the ‘useful epistles to various persons’, which Serapion wrote according to St. Jerome,onlya few are extant.