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Please tell us when did the church start the practice of reading the Synaxarium and who collected the information of the Synaxarium and how many updates took place till the version that we currently have?

There is no certainty on who took the first initiative to compile the Synaxarium nor when it was first compiled. However, we know that the lives of the martyrs, saints, and religious heroes of the Church were read as encomiums from the early centuries. They were read in Sahidic (Coptic of Upper Egypt) and Bohairic (Coptic of Lower Egypt) from the beginning of the middle ages and in Arabic after the Arab conquest of Egypt. Mostly these biographies were translated into Arabic from Greek and Coptic originals. Until the fourteenth century, the lives of these holy men and women were read separately, in independent eulogies on their martyrdom or departure dates. Ultimately, they were assembled in a single book mainly by the work of Bishop Butrus Al Jamil the bishop of Malij, Bishop Mikhail Bishop of Atrib and Bishop Youhanna, Bishop of Burullus and others.

The present Arabic Synaxarium has been compiled from a number of older manuscripts, of which some are directly ascribed to Bishop Butrus these are:

1. Three manuscripts in the patriarchal library, the oldest of which is dated 1114 A.M./1398 A.D.



2. Two copies in the Coptic Museum Library, one dated 1056 A.M./1340 A.D. and the other dated 1450 A.M./1734 A.D. and is supposed to have been translated into Arabic from the older Ethiopic translation by Christodoulos, the Coptic primate of Ethiopia at that time.



3. Two copies in the Baramus Monastery Library in Wadi El Natrun, one dated 1360 A.M./1644 A.D.and the other dated 1496 A.M./1780 A.D. The second copy is said to have been restored by Ibrahim El Gohary.