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The Last Dialogue of St. Macarius the Great is published in Russian for the first time
Discovered this year, the earlier unknown text belonging to the legacy of one of the founders of Egyptian monasticism St. Macarius the Great is now available to the Russian reader.
The inhabitants of the Monastery of St. Macarius the Great in the Nitrian Desert (the Coptic Church, Egypt) have recently made an outstanding discovery: in the course of studying and digitizing the manuscripts stored in the monastery library they found two ancient manuscripts in the Coptic language. These manuscripts are two parts of one piece of work, written about 1630 years ago, that is in 391 – the year, which according to legend dates the demise of the first abbot of the monastery.
Now they [the two manuscripts] are officially catalogued as “Manuscript No.383” and “Manuscript No.384.”
Textual analysis made with the participation of specialists from the Institute of Coptic Studies in Cairo has shown that these manuscripts are none other than the last lifetime spiritual guidance by St. Macarius written down by his followers. For this reason, the text was entitled as “The Last Dialogue of St. Macarius the Great,” which in this context means a talk addressed by the saint to his followers. This work, offering a summary of the basics of Christian pious life, amazes by the simplicity and at the same time by the depth of thought.
With the blessing of Pope Tawadros II of the Coptic Church, the discovered monument was translated into Russian with subsequent literary editing within the framework of the Commission for Dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church. This is the first edition of this work. The copies of the first and limited print-run of the book were brought to Russia by the delegation of the abbots and monks of the monasteries of the Coptic Church, who were in Russia on a pilgrimage visit from August 23 to September 1, 2021.
The electronic version of the Russian translation of this, earlier unknown guidance by St. Macarius the Great, is published on portal Mospat.ru. The text is available at https://mospat.ru/ru/authors-analytics/88006
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