Christianity: Details about 'Coptic Orthodox Church'
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Home
|
Coptic Orthodox Christianity is the indigenous form of Christianity that, according to tradition, the apostle Mark established in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century AD (approximately 42). The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodoxy, and the see of Alexandria in Coptic Christianity has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Her leader is the Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of the Holy See of Saint Mark, currently Pope Shenouda III. More than 95% of Egypt's Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, but other "Patriarchates/Patriarchs of Alexandria" also exist (Coptic Catholic, Greek/Latin Catholic and Greek Orthodox - see 'Coptic Christianity Today' below). HistoryEgypt is often identified as the place of refuge that the Holy Family sought in its from Judea: "When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod the Great, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I called My Son" (Matthew 2:12-23). The Egyptian Church, which is now more than nineteen centuries old, was the subject of many prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says "In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border." The first Christians in Egypt were mainly Alexandrian Jews such as Theophilus, whom Saint Luke the Evangelist addresses in the introductory chapter of his gospel. When the church was founded by Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, a great multitude of native Egyptians (as opposed to Greeks or Jews) embraced the Christian faith. Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Mark's arrival in Alexandria as is clear from the New Testament writings found in Bahnasa, in Middle Egypt, which date around the year 200 AD, and a fragment of the Gospel of Saint John, written in Coptic, which was found in Upper Egypt and can be dated to the first half of the second century. In the second century Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, and scriptures were translated into the local language, namely Coptic. The Catechetical School of Alexandria, EgyptThe Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world. Founded around 190 by the scholar Pantanaeus, the school of Alexandria became an important institution of religious learning, where students were taught by scholars such as Athenagoras, Clement, Didymus, and the great Origen, who was considered the father of theology and who was also active in the field of commentary and comparative Biblical studies. Origen wrote over 6,000 commentaries of the Bible in addition to his famous Hexapla. Many scholars such as Jerome visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars. The scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects; science, mathematics and humanities were also taught there. The question and answer method of commentary began there, and 15 centuries before Braille, wood-carving techniques were in use there by blind scholars to read and write. The Theological college of the catechetical school of Alexandria was re-established in 1893. The new school currently has campuses in Alexandria, Cairo, New Jersey, and Los Angeles, where Coptic priests-to-be and other qualified men and women are taught among other subjects Christian theology, history, Coptic language and art - including chanting, music, iconography, and tapestry. Egyptian origin of the cross symbolFor over 2500 years the pagan symbol of the ankh cross was a ubiquitous symbol of spiritual life. Unlike most Egyptian sacred images, it was not a human-like god with the head of an animal, or even the disk of Sun, but a pure symbol of deity. It was not hard to see how that ageless symbol would somehow become connected to a faith, centered around a man who had been executed on another kind of cross. That man, Jesus, was believed by his followers to be the Son of the one and only God. Egypt had long associated the ankh cross with all that was unknowable and trandscendant in their poly-theistic faith. Everywhere else in the Roman influenced world, a cross was merely an implement of execution for slaves and enemies of the Roman state. It was very degrading to connect the memory of the Christian "Savior", to something that conotated an ignoble and lingering death. The ankh provided a means to bring the cross into the "pantheon" of Christian symbolism, after 250 years of rejection by the Jewish and Greek followers of Jesus.e="Saint Mina">St. Mina الشهيد مارمينا العجايبي
See also
Bibliography
Koptische Kirche Iglesia Copta קופטים Chiesa Copta Koptesch Kierch Koptisch Christendom Den koptiske kirke コプト正教会 Igreja Copta Коптская Православная Церковь Koptisk-ortodoxa kyrkan 科普特教派
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||