Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, "The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt" (U California Press, 2025)

Beyond the Margins: The University of California Press Podcast · Feb 2, 2026 · 1h 17m

In the midst of profound political changes in late seventh-century Egypt, after the end of Roman hegemony and during Islamic rule, a bishop named John from the city of Nikiu sat down to pen a chronicle. It is a puzzling and fascinating work that reimagines the established Roman genre of Christian world history as a dialectic between a Roman state that often failed to maintain Christian orthodoxy and Roman citizens who attempted to nudge the state in the direction of correct theology. In The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt (U California Press, 2025)…