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Poemen
Egyptian monk and desert father
SaintResearchedEgyptPre-congregation
Feast: 27 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Born
340
Died
450
Beatified
—
not needed: before formal processes
Canonised
By tradition
recognised before formal processes began
Who they were
In the Thebaid in Egypt, Saint Poemen, abbot, an admired anchorite, of whom many sayings full of wisdom have been handed down.
The miracles
There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.
Why that counted as sanctity
The Roman Martyrology remembers him on 27 August as a desert abbot whose wise sayings have been handed down.
Sources
- Roman Martyrology, 27 August (Italian Bishops' Conference, Santo del giorno)
- Wikidata Q1255493 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Poemen (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.