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The Coptic Christian Heritage
This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the heritage of Coptic Christians. The contributors combine academic expertise with intimate and practical knowledge of the Coptic Orthodox Church and Coptic heritage. The chapters explore historical, cultural, literary and material aspects, Students will find The Coptic Christian Heritage an invaluable introduction, whilst scholars will find its breadth provides a helpful context for specialised research.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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December 19, 2018
The Coptic Christian Heritage: History, Faith, and Culture. By Lois M. Farag. New York: Routledge, 2014. 297pp. Paperback, $44.00
In general, this book displays extensive information for the heritage of Coptic Christians. The contributors succeeded in combing the academic experience with practical knowledge of the Coptic Orthodox community. The parts of this book demonstrate the Coptic Christian History, the Coptic Religious Culture, Coptic Literature Culture, and Coptic Material Culture related to art like icons, mosaics, fresco, manuscript, woodwork, and textiles. The goal of this book is introducing Christianity in Egypt to the readers in a comprehensive and systematic way; the other goal is to provide the professors with educational materials to be used in classrooms.
The Coptic Christian Heritage book is edited by Lois M. Farag. She is associate professor of Early Church History at Luther Seminary in ST. Paul, Minnesota, USA. There are elven Contributors to this book John Paul Abdelsayed who is become a bishop in California for Coptic Orthodox church, Febe Armanios, Marian F. Ayad, Lois M.Farg, Gawdat Gabra was teaching at Claremont Graduate University and former director for Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt, Maged S. R. Hanna, Maged S. A. Mikhail, Samuel Moawad, Carolyn M. Ramzy, Saad Michael Saad and Hany N. Takla who is the president of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society and director of the St. Shenouda Center for Coptic Studies. These groups of wonderful authors made encouragement and motivated the readers to read the book and analysis it.
This book address some terms like Coptic and its meaning to be clear to the reader who is not from the Coptic culture. Coptic word came from “Keme” which means “the black land” where Egypt characterized by the rich dark land from the Nile river. While the name of Miser (Egypt) came from the Hebrew people they called the Egyptians “Misraim.” In the 4th century when Greeks arrived in Egypt, they called it Aigyptios related to the temple Het-Ka-Ptah. From the Greek Aigyptios came the English name Egypt. When Arab invaded Egypt in the 17th century, they called the land “Misr” the inhabitants of Keme they called Misriyyin “As the numbers increased, the Arabs began distinguishing between the two ethnic groups now living in the land, who were both now called Misriyyn. Thus the called the original inhabitants of the land “q-b-t,” which westernized to “Copt” (1,2).
The part I of this book is talking about the Coptic Christian History. It started from the Pre-Christian period, then the early Christian period (42-642), comes after the chapter which addresses the early Islamic Period (641- 1517) followed by the Ottoman period (1517- 1798), then the pre-modern period (1798- 1952) and at the end of the part came the modern period (1952-2011). The first chapter of the first part of the book, the author outlines and places ancient Egypt's religious beliefs and practices in historical context since Egyptians civilization were over 3000 years old when Christianity was preached in Alexandria. In the Pre-Christian period, the sun has a significant role in Egyptian life “The Egyptians recognition of the sun’s role in making vegetation grow is evident in the many solar deities that were included in the Egyptian Pantheon. Re came to represent the sun at its highest at moon time. At sunrise, the gentle morning sun was associated with dung beetles emerging from the ground with the first light” (17,18) Sun was portrayed as a beetle-headed god. In the case of sunset, the sun took the form of the aged god Atum or the “Complete One” at the night time the Egyptians called it Ram-headed Amun. Add to that, Egypt was the center of the world; It has its natural boundaries such as mountains in the east of Egypt, river Nile, Red Sea, and Mediterranean sea, this makes Egypt place has a certain geographic integrity in the ancient world. And because of the Egyptian people occupied the same plot of land for thousands of years, they become attached to the land and that has become a sort of national identity which helped in forming the Egyptian culture.
In The Early Christian Period, the author describes the political, economic and social context when Christianity began in Egypt by St. Mark the Evangelist who was preaching in Alexandria. St. Mark ordained Anianus as the first bishop of Alexandria with three presbyters and seven deacons. In this chapter also the author examined the Coptic Orthodox Church’s relation with the Roman state under both pagan and Christian emperors and this ended up with demise the Roman Empire and the appearance of Arab conquest in 641. In fact, the religious life in the Ottoman period was rich in spirituality; there was a lot of efforts from the church leaders to preserve the Christian religion in Egypt. Fellowship and spiritual desires motivated men and women to participate in services to the poor communities and assist in charity. Since under the Islamic rule, Copts was restricted to practice their religious rituals. They were prohibited from building new or repair churches. Also, there was a restriction on ringing the church bells “However, in Ottoman Egypt, as seen from Vansleb’s description of a wedding ceremony, the Coptic community continues to challenge these provisions” (63) under Ottoman period, the Muslim involved in numerous facets of Coptic religious life. Besides that, in the late eighteenth century, there was a connection between sacred writings and popular belief within clerical sermons.
The period that begins with the 1798 French occupation and ends with the July 1952 revolution is known as the era that launched Egypt into a modern renaissance and openness to the west. The modern period (1952-2011) was characterized by discrimination and persecution by both Christians and non-Christians governments. The popes of this era, for instance, Yousab II, Kyrillos VI, and Shenouda III played a significant role in recent Coptic history leading the Coptic people to the strong faith and supporting the Coptic who immigrant out of Egypt as Coptic diaspora.
Part II for the Coptic Religious Culture. This part describes theology (defending orthodoxy), Monasticism (Living Scripture and Theological Orthodoxy) and after that, this part included Spirituality (In God’s Presence), Liturgy and ended with the music section. The chapters of this part explain the theology specifically the trinity belief. Coptic believe in one God, the father, the son and the holy spirit “Cyril’s oft-quoted Trinitarian formula, “All things are from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” express the oneness of Trinity’s activity and the relationship between each person within the Trinity.” (108) Furthermore, the next chapter addresses the monasticism as a response to Christ’s call to follow him and be perfect like what Andrew and Peter did and followed Jesus and Samaritan women did and left her jar and followed Jesus. Those who followed Christ in monastic life, they loved God more than themselves. In this chapter, the author shows the beginning of monastic life and its development in Egypt to the present day and its role to support the faith in the church between Copts. Addition to that, the following chapter talks about spirituality and how Coptic people have their unceasing prayers which are central of Coptic spirituality. This spirituality is confirmed by liturgies, individual prayer, Agpeya, fasting, reading scripture and inspect one’s life to live a life of righteousness according to the Bible. For this reason, the liturgy has a great effect on Coptic society. The Coptic calendar is established on the ancient Egyptian lunar calendar which contains twelve months, each month thirty days and there is a little month five days. The liturgical calendar has seven major feasts and seven minor feasts of Christ. Most of the major feasts follow a certain period of fasting, for example, fifty-five days before the feast of resurrection and forty-three days before the feast of Nativity. Also, the Coptic celebrate seven commemorations for the blessed Virgin Mary through the Coptic calendar year.Add to that, the Coptic music played a significant role during the liturgical services at the church. Coptic music consists of three types like Alhan, Madah, and Taranim. All kinds of music helped believers to communicate spirituality with God. The Copts drew that from the Scripture Psalm 150 when David mentioned the musical instruments and dance as a form of praising God.
Part III contains Coptic Literary Culture like The Coptic Language (the link to ancient Egyptian) the Greek literature of the Copts (Innovative and formative Eart), Coptic Literature (Coptic writing in their own tongue) and finally for this part is Coptic Arabic literature ( when Arabic became the language of saints). The Coptic language is the last written stage of the Egyptian family of languages. The Coptic language is different from the traditional Egyptian scripts of Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic. It developed the alphabet system from the Greek and Demotic. The last version of Coptic language continued to develop over the line until dominate over the Greek language then Arab started to invade Egypt and they announced the Arabic language as the language of the administration, so the Copts had to learn Arabic to keep their jobs at the government. For this reason, the Coptic language gradually became neglected and only be used in the church.
The fourth chapter is talking about the Coptic Art which goes in depth about the multifaceted artistic heritage. All of these parts made this book unique and very useful for scholars in Coptic studies field. Coptic Art is the richest among the Christians art in the Middle East. Coptic Churches was decorated and still until now decorated with many kinds of art. Coptic art is an important part of Egyptian culture extending from generation to generation. Although that Coptic art appeared in the fourth century, some of its symbols were taken from ancient Egyptian like Virgin Mary is portrayed nursing child Jesus as goddess Isis nursing her son Horus.“The main difficulty in the study of Coptic art is the lack of precise dating of significant wall paintings and artifacts.” (240) Other symbols in Coptic art are Alpha and Omega which become more popular in Coptic art and widely used in the funerary, dolphin as a symbol of salvation and eagle as a symbol of power and victory. Most of the Coptic wall paintings belong to monasteries in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. Icons are considered the essential decorations of Coptic churches and monasteries which is made in tempera. The artists used the natural oxides mixed with egg yolk and vinegar which helped to keep the colors good until today. There was a movement by Emperor Leo III who issued the first edict against the use of the images. This movement is known as iconoclasm for the destruction of the icons, but Coptic Icons were not affected by Iconoclasm movements. From 731 to 843 Christians art were suffered within the Byzantine Empire. Also, Coptic icons suffered many persecutions in medieval times when Muslim mobs attacked the monasteries and churches. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, painters from Syria and Armenians had a significant influence on Medieval Coptic icons.
In the end, this book of multiple chapters hit the goals that were declared in the beginning, and it is very useful and handy for scholars and readers who would like to dig more in Coptic culture and the Middle East area. This book summarize a lot of the Christianity in Egypt and explore many things in Egyptian culture which is inherited from pharaohs. It covers a lot of sections and different topics which is needed for anyone who is interested in knowing about Egypt history and its culture, art, and religious aspects. Because it was written from more than one author, so it is very rich in information and in topics that were addressed. Every section of this book could be an idea for a large book later on. It is worth to read it and get valuable information. I recommend everyone to start to look at it, read and understand the chapters that seem interesting to you. This book is very precious. I would like to give five stars to this book and looking forward to seeing more books from these authors.
In general, this book displays extensive information for the heritage of Coptic Christians. The contributors succeeded in combing the academic experience with practical knowledge of the Coptic Orthodox community. The parts of this book demonstrate the Coptic Christian History, the Coptic Religious Culture, Coptic Literature Culture, and Coptic Material Culture related to art like icons, mosaics, fresco, manuscript, woodwork, and textiles. The goal of this book is introducing Christianity in Egypt to the readers in a comprehensive and systematic way; the other goal is to provide the professors with educational materials to be used in classrooms.
The Coptic Christian Heritage book is edited by Lois M. Farag. She is associate professor of Early Church History at Luther Seminary in ST. Paul, Minnesota, USA. There are elven Contributors to this book John Paul Abdelsayed who is become a bishop in California for Coptic Orthodox church, Febe Armanios, Marian F. Ayad, Lois M.Farg, Gawdat Gabra was teaching at Claremont Graduate University and former director for Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt, Maged S. R. Hanna, Maged S. A. Mikhail, Samuel Moawad, Carolyn M. Ramzy, Saad Michael Saad and Hany N. Takla who is the president of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society and director of the St. Shenouda Center for Coptic Studies. These groups of wonderful authors made encouragement and motivated the readers to read the book and analysis it.
This book address some terms like Coptic and its meaning to be clear to the reader who is not from the Coptic culture. Coptic word came from “Keme” which means “the black land” where Egypt characterized by the rich dark land from the Nile river. While the name of Miser (Egypt) came from the Hebrew people they called the Egyptians “Misraim.” In the 4th century when Greeks arrived in Egypt, they called it Aigyptios related to the temple Het-Ka-Ptah. From the Greek Aigyptios came the English name Egypt. When Arab invaded Egypt in the 17th century, they called the land “Misr” the inhabitants of Keme they called Misriyyin “As the numbers increased, the Arabs began distinguishing between the two ethnic groups now living in the land, who were both now called Misriyyn. Thus the called the original inhabitants of the land “q-b-t,” which westernized to “Copt” (1,2).
The part I of this book is talking about the Coptic Christian History. It started from the Pre-Christian period, then the early Christian period (42-642), comes after the chapter which addresses the early Islamic Period (641- 1517) followed by the Ottoman period (1517- 1798), then the pre-modern period (1798- 1952) and at the end of the part came the modern period (1952-2011). The first chapter of the first part of the book, the author outlines and places ancient Egypt's religious beliefs and practices in historical context since Egyptians civilization were over 3000 years old when Christianity was preached in Alexandria. In the Pre-Christian period, the sun has a significant role in Egyptian life “The Egyptians recognition of the sun’s role in making vegetation grow is evident in the many solar deities that were included in the Egyptian Pantheon. Re came to represent the sun at its highest at moon time. At sunrise, the gentle morning sun was associated with dung beetles emerging from the ground with the first light” (17,18) Sun was portrayed as a beetle-headed god. In the case of sunset, the sun took the form of the aged god Atum or the “Complete One” at the night time the Egyptians called it Ram-headed Amun. Add to that, Egypt was the center of the world; It has its natural boundaries such as mountains in the east of Egypt, river Nile, Red Sea, and Mediterranean sea, this makes Egypt place has a certain geographic integrity in the ancient world. And because of the Egyptian people occupied the same plot of land for thousands of years, they become attached to the land and that has become a sort of national identity which helped in forming the Egyptian culture.
In The Early Christian Period, the author describes the political, economic and social context when Christianity began in Egypt by St. Mark the Evangelist who was preaching in Alexandria. St. Mark ordained Anianus as the first bishop of Alexandria with three presbyters and seven deacons. In this chapter also the author examined the Coptic Orthodox Church’s relation with the Roman state under both pagan and Christian emperors and this ended up with demise the Roman Empire and the appearance of Arab conquest in 641. In fact, the religious life in the Ottoman period was rich in spirituality; there was a lot of efforts from the church leaders to preserve the Christian religion in Egypt. Fellowship and spiritual desires motivated men and women to participate in services to the poor communities and assist in charity. Since under the Islamic rule, Copts was restricted to practice their religious rituals. They were prohibited from building new or repair churches. Also, there was a restriction on ringing the church bells “However, in Ottoman Egypt, as seen from Vansleb’s description of a wedding ceremony, the Coptic community continues to challenge these provisions” (63) under Ottoman period, the Muslim involved in numerous facets of Coptic religious life. Besides that, in the late eighteenth century, there was a connection between sacred writings and popular belief within clerical sermons.
The period that begins with the 1798 French occupation and ends with the July 1952 revolution is known as the era that launched Egypt into a modern renaissance and openness to the west. The modern period (1952-2011) was characterized by discrimination and persecution by both Christians and non-Christians governments. The popes of this era, for instance, Yousab II, Kyrillos VI, and Shenouda III played a significant role in recent Coptic history leading the Coptic people to the strong faith and supporting the Coptic who immigrant out of Egypt as Coptic diaspora.
Part II for the Coptic Religious Culture. This part describes theology (defending orthodoxy), Monasticism (Living Scripture and Theological Orthodoxy) and after that, this part included Spirituality (In God’s Presence), Liturgy and ended with the music section. The chapters of this part explain the theology specifically the trinity belief. Coptic believe in one God, the father, the son and the holy spirit “Cyril’s oft-quoted Trinitarian formula, “All things are from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” express the oneness of Trinity’s activity and the relationship between each person within the Trinity.” (108) Furthermore, the next chapter addresses the monasticism as a response to Christ’s call to follow him and be perfect like what Andrew and Peter did and followed Jesus and Samaritan women did and left her jar and followed Jesus. Those who followed Christ in monastic life, they loved God more than themselves. In this chapter, the author shows the beginning of monastic life and its development in Egypt to the present day and its role to support the faith in the church between Copts. Addition to that, the following chapter talks about spirituality and how Coptic people have their unceasing prayers which are central of Coptic spirituality. This spirituality is confirmed by liturgies, individual prayer, Agpeya, fasting, reading scripture and inspect one’s life to live a life of righteousness according to the Bible. For this reason, the liturgy has a great effect on Coptic society. The Coptic calendar is established on the ancient Egyptian lunar calendar which contains twelve months, each month thirty days and there is a little month five days. The liturgical calendar has seven major feasts and seven minor feasts of Christ. Most of the major feasts follow a certain period of fasting, for example, fifty-five days before the feast of resurrection and forty-three days before the feast of Nativity. Also, the Coptic celebrate seven commemorations for the blessed Virgin Mary through the Coptic calendar year.Add to that, the Coptic music played a significant role during the liturgical services at the church. Coptic music consists of three types like Alhan, Madah, and Taranim. All kinds of music helped believers to communicate spirituality with God. The Copts drew that from the Scripture Psalm 150 when David mentioned the musical instruments and dance as a form of praising God.
Part III contains Coptic Literary Culture like The Coptic Language (the link to ancient Egyptian) the Greek literature of the Copts (Innovative and formative Eart), Coptic Literature (Coptic writing in their own tongue) and finally for this part is Coptic Arabic literature ( when Arabic became the language of saints). The Coptic language is the last written stage of the Egyptian family of languages. The Coptic language is different from the traditional Egyptian scripts of Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic. It developed the alphabet system from the Greek and Demotic. The last version of Coptic language continued to develop over the line until dominate over the Greek language then Arab started to invade Egypt and they announced the Arabic language as the language of the administration, so the Copts had to learn Arabic to keep their jobs at the government. For this reason, the Coptic language gradually became neglected and only be used in the church.
The fourth chapter is talking about the Coptic Art which goes in depth about the multifaceted artistic heritage. All of these parts made this book unique and very useful for scholars in Coptic studies field. Coptic Art is the richest among the Christians art in the Middle East. Coptic Churches was decorated and still until now decorated with many kinds of art. Coptic art is an important part of Egyptian culture extending from generation to generation. Although that Coptic art appeared in the fourth century, some of its symbols were taken from ancient Egyptian like Virgin Mary is portrayed nursing child Jesus as goddess Isis nursing her son Horus.“The main difficulty in the study of Coptic art is the lack of precise dating of significant wall paintings and artifacts.” (240) Other symbols in Coptic art are Alpha and Omega which become more popular in Coptic art and widely used in the funerary, dolphin as a symbol of salvation and eagle as a symbol of power and victory. Most of the Coptic wall paintings belong to monasteries in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. Icons are considered the essential decorations of Coptic churches and monasteries which is made in tempera. The artists used the natural oxides mixed with egg yolk and vinegar which helped to keep the colors good until today. There was a movement by Emperor Leo III who issued the first edict against the use of the images. This movement is known as iconoclasm for the destruction of the icons, but Coptic Icons were not affected by Iconoclasm movements. From 731 to 843 Christians art were suffered within the Byzantine Empire. Also, Coptic icons suffered many persecutions in medieval times when Muslim mobs attacked the monasteries and churches. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, painters from Syria and Armenians had a significant influence on Medieval Coptic icons.
In the end, this book of multiple chapters hit the goals that were declared in the beginning, and it is very useful and handy for scholars and readers who would like to dig more in Coptic culture and the Middle East area. This book summarize a lot of the Christianity in Egypt and explore many things in Egyptian culture which is inherited from pharaohs. It covers a lot of sections and different topics which is needed for anyone who is interested in knowing about Egypt history and its culture, art, and religious aspects. Because it was written from more than one author, so it is very rich in information and in topics that were addressed. Every section of this book could be an idea for a large book later on. It is worth to read it and get valuable information. I recommend everyone to start to look at it, read and understand the chapters that seem interesting to you. This book is very precious. I would like to give five stars to this book and looking forward to seeing more books from these authors.
January 26, 2025
I bought and read this book because I was embarrassingly ignorant of coptic Christianity. After reading I'm no expert, but far far more informed. The treatment of history, culture, language and theology was significant and nuanced. A gem of a book.
April 24, 2021
Great monograph on the Coptic world and covers the summary of each component such as history art culture theology spirituality and literature
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews