Abib and Apollo

Abib and Apollo were two Christian ascetics of Akhmim in Egypt, commemorated as martyrs in the Egyptian synaxarion. They are commemorated on 4 November (22 October by the old calendar). Our sources know them from the Coptic Synaxarion, not from those of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

They are mentioned in the Synaxarion, that is, the calendar of saints of the Coptic Christians. Apollo was born at Akhmim and from childhood prepared to enter a monastery. Soon he met a companion, Abib (perhaps a native of the village of Felsea), and together they went to a monastery in Upper Egypt. Abib served as deacon and died before his friend, suffering for the faith. Apollo, grieved, withdrew deeper into the desert. He was a contemporary of Saint Macarius and visited Ammon, where he saw a woman who stood in fire and did not burn.

According to the testimony of the archdeacon Timothy of Alexandria, in the middle of the fourth century, in the time of Julian the Apostate, Saint Apollo lived in the Thebaid, near the monastery of Deir el-⁠Muharraq.