Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

CHURCHES OF FANIW AND NAKALYFAH.

209

Cziurches of Fdnlz and Nakalzfah.
The district of Fanu and Nakalifah1. In these two districts there
are several churches. There are to be found here the church of the Fol. 73 a
glorious Saint George; a church of the Lady, the Pure Virgin Mary,
restored by the Shaikh Al-Muhadhdhab Abu Ishak Ibrahim ibn Abu
Sahl al-Musharif, who was known as Az-ZakrCuk; the church of the
glorious angel Michael; the monastery of the Cross in the district of
Fanu, in which the liturgy is celebrated once in the year, on the feast
of the Cross; and a church of the glorious Saint George.
Sailah.
In the district of Sailah 2 there is a monastery named after the Lady,
the Pure Virgin, the Virgin Mary; adjacent to which there is a keep,
which has been restored, but not finished, on the public road.
The monastery known as the monastery of the Brothers. In this
there is a church named after the glorious martyr Saint Mennas. In
this monastery lived the priest John of Samannud3, who was devout,
learned, and humble, and consoled by his learning all those that came
to him and heard his discourse; he afterwards became patriarch of
Alexandria.
t This passage is quoted in substance by Quatremere, Mem. i. p. 413.
Nakallfah is still existing, and is included in the district of Sanfras in the province
of the Fayyfm, with a population in 1885 of 2,664. See Rec. de l'Egypte, ii.
p. 258. In the fourteenth century revenue-lists both places are named; see
De Sacy, Relation de 1E gype par Abd-Allahif, p. 633.
2 Quoted in Quatremere, Mem. i. p. 413. Sailah was in the Fayyfm, to the
west of Nakalifah, but is not named in the Rec. de TEgypte. See Yakft, Geogr.
TWor. iii. p. rr.; Ibn Dukmak, v. p. 9.
3 He succeeded Agatho, and was the fortieth patriarch, occupying the see
from A.D. 677 to 686.

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[II. 7.]