St. Ammon

Monastic founder, sometimes called Amon, Amun, or Amus. An Egyptian living in or near Alexandria, he was forced into a marriage at the age of twenty-two. He asked his wife to take a vow of chastity on their wedding night and they lived as brother and sister for eighteen years. His wife then formed a congregation of women religious, and Ammon went to the desert area south of Alexandria. There Ammon founded or aided in the development of a great religious community called "The City of God" by St. Jerome. By the end of the fourth century there were five thousand hermits in the community. St. Anthony came to visit Ammon, whose holiness attracted countless solitaries. When Ammon died at the age of sixty-two, St. Anthony, who was some thirteen miles distant, saw his soul ascend to heaven.