Saint Arsenius of Scetis and Turah was a Roman imperial tutor who became an anchorite in Egypt, one of the most highly regarded of the Desert Fathers, whose teachings were greatly influential on the development of asceticism and the contemplative life.
His contemporaries so admired him as to surname him "the Great". His feast day is celebrated on 8 May in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on 13 Pashons in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
St. Arsenios remained a popular Egyptian saint in the 14th century. His feast day was celebrated with a grand parade attended by a crowd of Alexandrians. Basil Argyros, while visiting Alexandria on business in 1309, wondered what the solitary hermit Arsenios would have made of a large, noisy parade to celebrate his memory.[1]
