reaching it. Now, however, with better means of
communication, and the fact that it has been revived and
restored by the Church, it is a living monastery and can be
visited by special permission from the Coptic Papacy. Many
monks reside in this monastery.
- The magnetism of the life of St. Antoni continued to
have its effect through the centuries. In 1941, the Belgian
ambassador to Egypt-Le Chevalier Guy de Schouteete de
Tervarent-gave a lecture at the Higher Institute of Coptic
Studies in Cairo, entitled "La Gloire Posthume de St.
Antoine". He said that a French nobleman who had visited
the Holy Land in the eleventh century, and then passed by
Constantinople on his way back, was given permission by the
Emperor to carry what was thought to be the relics of St.
Antoni: It happened that in the year 1090, the plague raged
in Western Europe. During its fiercest, word went around
that the relics of Egypt's ascetic had the power to cure the
stricken. Many rushed to visit it and some were actually
cured. Shortly after that a church was built in the Saint's
name and the relics were placed in it. Then, a hospital was
annexed to it. Furthermore, a monastic order-called the
Antonian-was instituted in Vienne-en-Dauphine (France)
and, as a result, the influence of the Saint spread in ever-
widening circles: Over the years the centre of the Antonian
order in St: Antoine de Viennois-en-Dauphine won great
repute, and became a place of pilgrimage.l4
An American minister, in-a recently broadcast sermon,
made a remark that may be appropriately quoted here. He said,
"Who can count the apples in a seed? or who can measure the
effects of one good deed?"^15 In the same vein of thought, one
might also ask "Who can determine how many lives were
transformed through the example and teachings of the great
saints or how far and wide their influence has gone?"