Bishop Makarios was the saintly bishop of Qena. A man of austere asceticism, an anchorite of his own right, a lover of the people, a man of fervent prayer, one who had an ineffable adoration and devotion for the divine liturgy, a strict faster, a wise confessor, a comfort and solace of the distressed, a friend and converser of the saints especially the Theotokos, a lover of silence, a true God-bearing elder, a modern St Macarius of the wilderness of the Sheheet, a promoter of the psalms, a clairvoyant, one who forsook sermons and gave love instead, a friend of the poor and suffering, and a worker of a great deal of miracles - healing incurable and curable illnesses, granting babies to the infertile, solving marital issues, saving Copts from civil injustice and a helper in the time of the stress of exams.