Growing Number of Private Devotions to St. Kiromina Causes Controversy in Coptic Church

It all started with a discovery at a graveyard in Egypt, an inscription over the tomb said, “Irini Pasi Kiro [...] mina [...] martyrou.”

Remains of a body lay beneath this inscription bearing signs of torture.

Then came the dreams from Tante Battoota.

“Saint Kiromina came to me in a vision (which is the Arabic way of referring to dreams with clear spiritual content) and told me about how he became a martyr in the early 4th century in the days of Diocletian.  He also told me his story of how he was born into a Christian family in Alexandria, saw his parents martyred, and eventually became a martyr himself at the tender age of 16.”

Soon after, she began a speaking tour across Egypt to educate the churches on the story of this saint.

“It is not acceptable that such a martyr does not have a written life story from that time, so I have made it my mission to tell people about him.”

She wrote a book with her visions and sold 100,000 copies.  The church commented saying that there was nothing in her visions that was against the dogmas of the church.
A congregation primarily made up of doctors read her book and resolved to build the first Coptic Church named after St. Kiromina.

But archaeologists have a different opinion.

“We did an analysis on the Greek inscription over the tomb and using laser,” began the archaeologist. “We found a faint inscription in the areas that were indicated by [...].  The Greek should now read, ‘Irini Pasi Kiro kai Mina, uioi Martyrou’ that is ‘Peace be with you all [plural] Kiro and Mina, the sons of Martyros’ which was Christian name in that time period.”

The archaeologist continued.

“It all began when I wondered why Irini Pasi was in the plural if only one person was buried there.  This is odd.”

The archaeologists did an analysis on the body found in the tomb, and based on skeletal analysis, he said, “This person was at least 60 years old, and the remains of his body indicate heavy manual labor, not torture, indicating many accidents, indicating that this person was likely a builder or farmhand in a mill.”

“We do know,” continued the archaeologist.  “That tombs were in high demand in Egypt due to the lack of availability of burial ground, so bodies were later moved to ossuaries in churches.  I am conjecturing that this is what happened with the two brothers who were originally buried here.  Then this man was buried later in the same place.”

We asked him about the church’s stance on Tante Battoota’s visions.

“Listen, I am a faithful Coptic Orthodox Christian myself who is deeply moved by the historical saints such as St. Mena, St. Peter of Alexandria, and St. Theodore the General.  But it is one thing for Tante Battoota’s book to not be against the dogmas of the church, and another thing to be historically accurate.  Historically speaking, there is no Kiromina, but Kiro and Mina the sons of Martyros.”

We reached out to the bishop of that diocese for comment.