Mar Awgin

<h2 id="biography">Biography</h2>
<h3>In Egypt</h3>
<p>Originally, Saint Eugenios was a pearl-fisher from the island Clysma or <a href="/facts/El_Kulzom/MSQFSpGJ">Kolzum</a> near <a href="/facts/Suez/0GflHFFL">Suez</a> in <a href="/facts/Egypt/8Ttg0JwB">Egypt</a>. After having worked for 25 years, he joined the monastery of <a href="/facts/Pachomius/V3EWpxld">Pachomius</a> in Upper Egypt, where he worked as a baker. He is reported to have possessed spiritual gifts and to have worked miracles, and he drew some following from among the <a href="/facts/Monk/mDhTrNcB">monks</a>.
</p>
<h3>In Mesopotamia</h3>
<p>About 70 monks accompanied him when he left Egypt for <a href="/facts/Mesopotamia/f0mmbhTK">Mesopotamia</a>, where he founded a monastery on <a href="/facts/Mt._Izla/sQjc19XJ">Mt. Izla</a> above the city of <a href="/facts/Nisibis/Cq58XcG8">Nisibis</a>.
</p><p>The location was well chosen, for Nisibis lay on the eastern edge of the <a href="/facts/Roman_Empire/l4E1aUuV">Roman Empire</a>, which had just embraced <a href="/facts/Christianity/nKyJHlqq">Christianity</a> as the official religion. The rest of Mesopotamia was under <a href="/facts/Sassanid/JvbRevkA">Sassanid</a> rule, which tried to revive the <a href="/facts/Zoroastrian/rM0QUMtg">Zoroastrian</a> religion and occasionally persecuted the <a href="/facts/Christians/15hE11VR">Christian</a> population.
</p><p>The community on Mt. Izla grew rapidly, and from here other monasteries were founded throughout Mesopotamia, <a href="/facts/Iran/24yukge8">Persia</a>, <a href="/facts/Armenia/t3GQx9sU">Armenia</a>, <a href="/facts/Georgia_(country)/ccBF8bBE">Georgia</a>, and even <a href="/facts/India/1kKHcnxM">India</a> and <a href="/facts/China/lTjIXY5p">China</a>.
</p><p>A crisis occurred during the 6th century: to please the <a href="/facts/Zoroastrian/rM0QUMtg">Zoroastrian</a> rulers, the <a href="/facts/Assyrian_Church_of_the_East/eekxn2Uv">Assyrian Church</a> decided all monks and <a href="/facts/Nun/3mQbmbHv">nuns</a> should marry. Many subsequently transferred into the <a href="/facts/Miaphysite/MwdRPaXL">Miaphysite</a> Church that followed <a href="/facts/West_Syriac_Rite/z1l98cAf">West Syriac Rite</a>, and spiritual life declined in the Assyrian Church as a result. But the reforms were soon reverted. <a href="/facts/Abraham_the_Great_of_Kashkar/GbWeD6cr">Abraham the Great of Kashkar</a> founded a new monastery on <a href="/facts/Mt._Izla/sQjc19XJ">Mt. Izla</a>, and he and his successor <a href="/facts/Babai_the_Great/csgwpSWW">Babai the Great</a> revived the strict monastic movement. Married monks were driven out, the teaching of the church was set on a firm orthodox basis, and Assyrian monasticism flourished for another thousand years.
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<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Abraham_the_Great_of_Kashkar/GbWeD6cr">Abraham the Great of Kashkar</a> (father of the Assyrian monastic revival in the 6th century)</li></ul>
<h2 id="notes">Notes</h2>

<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Bedjan/8pjQzMXf">Bedjan</a>. <i>Acta Martyrum</i>, Paris, 1892, tome iii, pp. 376–480</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Christine Chaillot states that Mar Awgin died in A.D. 370.[1] However based on the Syriac text, according to E. A. Wallis Budge, it states that Mar Awgin died on the 21st of Nisan in A.D. 363, as an old man (while noting that there is some doubt about the accuracy of this date).[2] <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Edward G. Mathews, Jr., "Awgen, Mar", in Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition (Gorgias Press, 2011; online ed. Beth Mardutho, 2018). <a href="https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Awgen-Mar" target="_blank">https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Awgen-Mar</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Edward G. Mathews, Jr., "Awgen, Mar", in Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition (Gorgias Press, 2011; online ed. Beth Mardutho, 2018). <a href="https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Awgen-Mar" target="_blank">https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Awgen-Mar</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>D. J. Wilmshurst, The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East (London, 2011), p. 41. <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Mar Awgin open-in-new

Mar Awgin