Biography
Abanoub
About Abanoub
The Synaxarium remembers Abanoub distributing his inheritance and confessing his faith at Samanoud.
Bishop Ermia recounts the tradition of a boy who refused to surrender his faith despite imprisonment and torture. His account follows Abanoub from Samanoud to Atrib and then Alexandria, where he says the boy was beheaded at the age of twelve. The familiar age and sequence belong to the received martyrdom narrative. They should not be mistaken for details established by a contemporary trial record.
The Bollandist scholar Hippolyte Delehaye lists Noub, also called Abanoub, under 24 Epip in his study of Egyptian martyr traditions. His notice identifies Nahisa as the boy’s origin and Alexandria as the place of martyrdom. It also associates the saint’s burial with Sammanoud.
The Coptic Church continues to remember Abanoub of Nihisa on 24 Abib. Pope Tawadros II names that commemoration in a 2024 discussion of the Church’s calendar. This brief account preserves the child martyr’s received story and present commemoration without expanding its miraculous episodes into an asserted historical life.
Wondering how to weigh the stories and sources? Learn how to read a saint biography.