Forty-Nine Martyrs of Scetis

Arsenius the Great fled to Canopus at about this time owing to raids by the Berber Mazices, while Nestorius was released from his imprisonment during a Blemmyan attack on the Kharga Oasis.

Although Isidhurus had died, the monks placed the imperial letter on his grave and received a negative reply.

The monks then composed a response to the emperor and Artemios and Dios had begun their return journey when the raiders arrived.

The hegoumenos John, the head of the monasteries, reportedly refused to take refuge in the Tower of Piamoun and invited the brothers to share in his fate.

It allowed life at Scetis to return to normal immediately after the raiders had retired because there was no general dispersal of monks as in prior attacks.

Following the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642, Patriarch Benjamin I visited their shrine and established the 5th of the month of Meshir in the Coptic calendar as their feast day.

The relics were moved again when the chapel fell into ruin and a final time in 1773 when a wealthy patron, Ibrahim al-Jawhari, built a new church for them at Dayr Anba Maqar.

It is probable that Theodosios' consultation of the monks and the massacre were distinct events separated in time that became conflated in the hagiographical tradition.