Saint Serapion of Thmuis

Saint Serapion
Bishop of Thmuis
Born	4th century Egypt
Died	4th century Egypt
Venerated in	Coptic Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodox Churches

The Sacramentary of Serapion of Thmuis (Greek: Εὐχολόγιον τοῦ Σεραπίωνος Θμούεως) is a work of Saint Serapion, or Sarapion (fl. ca. 330 to 360, feast day: March 21), bishop of Thmuis (Modern: Tell el-Timai) in the Nile Delta and a prominent supporter of Athanasius in the struggle against Arianism (sometimes called, for his learning, Serapion the Scholastic). He is best known in connection with this prayer-book or sacramentary intended for the use of bishops.

The Sacramentary (Euchologion) includes the earliest recorded use of the Sanctus.

Serapion was Bishop of Thmuis in the Nile delta from ca. 339 and died after 360 AD. A close friend and protégé of St Athanasius, he was in his early life a monk and had been a companion of St Antony who had bequeathed one of his two sheepskin cloaks to him. He was sent by Athanasius on a difficult mission to the Emperor Constantius II and had addressed to him a series of letters on the divinity of the Holy Ghost. Serapion composed some literary works (including a treatise against the Manichees) and was probably responsible for compiling the sacramentary which bears his name.

This sacramentary, contained in a collection of Egyptian documents in an 11th-century manuscript at the Laura on Mount Athos, was published by A. Dmitrijewskij in 1894, but attracted little attention until independently discovered and published by G. Wobbermin in 1899. It is a celebrant's book, containing thirty prayers belonging to the Divine Liturgy or Mass (19-30, 1-6), baptism (7-11, 15, 16), ordination (12-14), benediction of oil, bread and water (17), and burial (18), omitting the fixed structural formulae of the rites, the parts of the other ministers, and almost all rubrication, except what is implied in the titles of the prayers.

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