St. Onuphrius: the Patron Saint of Weaving

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St. Onuphrius: the Patron Saint of Weaving

So much about Onuphrius is uncertain – even to when he lived, sometime during the 3-5th Centphuries, it’s estimated. A Hermit, he is thought to have lived in the Egyptian desert during the time when Christianity was becoming the main faith in the Roman Empire. Individuals felt they should go into the desert in order to suffer privation like John the Baptist.

The story, told by one Paphnutius, possibly an Abbot, goes that he was visiting the desert in order to decide if he should become and Hermit and he came across a man who looked wild enough for Paphnutius to be frightened by him and run away. Being called back by Onuphrius, they spent time together, talking in his cell. Paphnutius claims to have been told that the Hermit had spent his youth living as a Monk in the large,

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onuphrius)

strictly silent monastery of Eratus near the city of Hermopolis, situated near the boundary of Upper and Lower Egypt but then had spent 70 years living in the desert.

His feast day is 12th June. He is apparently associated with Weaving because he wore nothing but his abundant, bodily hair and a loincloth of leaves. He is not the only Patron Saint of Weaving but is considered so by a number of churches in the East and West including the Roman Catholic Church.

 

(Image of painting by Francisco Collantes, c 1645, in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.)