Saint Mina was born around 285 A.D. in Nikiu, near Memphis, to devout parents who had prayed for years for a child. After those long years of prayer, his mother heard an icon of Saint Mary say “Amen,” and that is where his name came from. He grew up in Phrygia while his father served as governor there, but after his parents’ deaths he left a promising military career, withdrew into the desert for prayer, and eventually stepped forward publicly during a pagan festival to declare his faith in Christ, knowing full well what it would cost him. He was tortured and beheaded under Diocletian.
After the persecutions ended, Pope Athanasius received a vision instructing him to place Saint Mina’s body on a camel and let the animal lead the way, unguided, to its resting place. The camel walked into the desert near Lake Mariout and stopped; nothing could move it further. It was there Saint Mina was buried, and it’s there that his shrine and monastery, Abu Mina, still stand. A shepherd later discovered the site’s healing properties when a sick sheep was cured by the sand near the tomb, and word of the miracles spread across the ancient world; small clay flasks stamped with Saint Mina’s image and filled with blessed water or oil from his shrine have been found scattered from Egypt to Western Europe.
Iconography
Saint Mina is shown standing in an orant (praying) pose, in military dress, flanked by two camels kneeling at his feet, the detail that ties directly back to the burial story and the later miracle in which the camels carrying his body a second time refused to go any farther than his chosen resting place.