Abu Fanah

Venerable Abu Fanah, also called Apa Bane, was a Coptic hermit, born according to tradition around 354 and reposed around 395. He was born in Memphis to a Christian family. Moved to the ascetic life by the example of the hermits of the Western Desert, whom he had visited as a young man, he became an anchorite.

Sozomen, in his Church History, mentions a hermit called Benus or Banus, who is identified with him and who lived in the area where the monastery bearing his name was later built. He was known for his knowledge of the Psalms, his strict asceticism and his care for the poor, and tradition links miracles with him. He is said to have foretold the date of the death of the emperor Theodosius I, in 395. One tradition says he could go thirty-⁠seven days without food and spent the last eighteen years of his life standing in his cell. His body was found in 1992 during excavations at the monastery, by Austrian researchers led by Helmut Buschhausen, and the marks on the muscles seem to show that he stood for years.

The Monastery of Saint Fana, in the diocese of Mallawi in Upper Egypt, is one of the oldest in Egypt. The saint is venerated in the Coptic Church.