Coptic Orthodox Church

“ Coptic monks and nuns are renowned for their austerity of life, and their almost fierce zeal in fasting and in prayer, and in Coptic churches the services are sometimes so long that the worshippers, who are almost perpetually standing, use crutches for their support. In their churches there always seems to me to be a cold and austere atmosphere, far different from the atmosphere of the mosques or of any Roman Catholic church. ”

“ We want the communion of the Christians to whom St. Paul brought the faith at Ephesus and Corinth, the children of the men of Antioch who first were called by the name in which we all glory. And we need, too, the righter balance that would be restored by reunion with the Orthodox. In spite of our loyalty to our own rite, and in spite of our natural pride in being not only Catholics but Latins and members of the greatest Patriarchate, we have to realize that the Latin Church is not, has never been, the whole Body of Christ. ”

“ Though at the time of the Arab conquest the Copts were reckoned at six millions, in 1820 the Coptic Christians numbered only about one hundred thousand, and it is improbable that their number can have been much greater at the close of the middle ages. Only in Abyssinia the daughter church of the Coptic church succeeded in keeping the whole people in the Christian faith. This fact, however, is the sole outcome of the history of a thousand years; a poor result, if measured by the standard of the rich history of the Western world, yet large enough not to exclude the hope of a new development. ”

“ Is a real communion between these Churches possible? It is with no prejudice against either that one realizes that, unless the Orthodox fundamentally change their whole system, it is not. The first and greatest objection is that they answer the question: What is the true Church? from their standpoint just as we do from ours. The Orthodox Communion is the whole and only legitimate Church of Christ. To be outside that communion is schism, to disagree with her faith is heresy (p. 365) . ”

“ There are, besides the Orthodox Church, other Eastern Churches, which are no more in communion with her than they are with us. To the Orthodox Christian an Armenian, a Copt, a Jacobite is just as much a heretic and a schismatic as a Latin or a Protestant. Though no other Eastern Church can be compared to the Orthodox for size, nevertheless at least some of them (that of the Armenians, for instance) are large and important bodies. ”

“ In the German Pietist controversy the Cocceians were with the Pietists in their biblical orthodoxy joined with confessional indifferentism, but with the orthodox in their liberality and breadth on matters of life and conduct. The earnest, practical piety of the Voetians, again, made them sympathise with the Lutheran Pietists, and their zeal for pure doctrine and the Church confession brought them into relation with the orthodox Lutherans. ”

“ In the case of others, one sees so much that would have to be changed—false doctrine, reckless mutilation of the old faith, and rival conventicles. But the Eastern schism has still left us on both sides with the same faith in almost everything. Of course they would have to accept the whole of the Catholic faith. In that, no desire for reunion, no spirit of conciliation, can ever make the Holy See waive anything. There can be no compromise in matters of faith. But the Orthodox already have, and jealously keep, practically all that faith. ”

“ Of the two churches the Koptic had less learning, more bigotry, and opinions more removed from the teachings of the New Testament; but then the Koptic bishop alone had any moral power to lead the minds of his flock towards piety and religion. Had the emperors been at all times either humane or politic enough to employ bishops of the same religion as the people, they would perhaps have kept the good-will of their subjects ”

“ The Orthodox Church is the heir of all the Greek traditions. The old glories of the free Greek States, vague memories of Marathon and Salamis, the majesty of the Roman Empire, their cause against Persian and Arab, Frank and Turk—it is all gathered together and still lives in the Holy Apostolic Orthodox Catholic Church of the Seven Councils. So one can understand how they feel about a renegade from that Church: he betrays the true faith of Christ, and he betrays the cause of the Fatherland. And one can understand, too, how the Church resents attempts at seducing her children. ”

“ Egypt is full of Monophysite Copts, Syria of Jacobites; Armenia has fallen off, the Nestorians have all escaped to Persia. On the other hand, we find established throughout the Empire one great corporate body, far greater than all the schismatical Churches put together, which, in spite of such nicknames as Melkite, Dyophysite, and so on, is always officially known as the Orthodox Catholic Church. Throughout this Catholic Church the Pope reigns as Over-Lord and Chief (we shall see this in the next chapter) ; it is divided into the five patriarchates and the autocephalous Church of Cyprus. ”

“ The British occupation of Egypt profoundly modified Coptic religious life. Before it the Copts lived in their own semi-fortified quarters in Cairo or Old Cairo or in country or desert Dairs (Ders) . Walls and gates were now thrownPresent state of the church. down or disused: the Copts began to mix and live freely among the Moslems, their children to frequent the same schools, and the people to abandon their distinctively Christian dress, names, customs and even religion. Freedom and prosperity threatened to injure the Church more than centuries of persecution. ”

“ The Coptic convent is on the north of and near to the Pool of Hezekiah; it is a plain Arab house. Its inmates are far from clean, and the visitor generally carries away unpleasant reminiscences of their dwelling; they also possess another house near the north-east corner of the Church of the Resurrection, of which I have already spoken [531] ; as well as of the miserable dens that shelter the Abyssinians. ”

“ Rome is the greatest, the most untiring, the most dangerous enemy. They dare not try to convert Turks; Protestants have not inferfered with them very much on the whole (though there has been trouble on this side too, see p. 254) , the unorthodox Eastern Churches are quite harmless—no one ever thinks of changing from Orthodox to Jacobite or Copt—so the great question of all, here as all over the Christian world, is that of the enormous united communion that may be hated but cannot be ignored. ”

“ The bells of the Cathedral and the Ursulines' chapel were ringing for high mass, and a mocking-bird, perching on a chimney-top above Madame John's rooms, was carolling, whistling, mewing, chirping, screaming, and trilling with the ecstasy of a whole May in his throat. "Oh! sleepy Kristian Koppig," was the young man's first thought, "—such a dunce!"
Madame John and daughter did not go to mass. The morning wore away, and their casement remained closed. "They are offended," said Kristian Koppig, leaving the house, and wandering up to the little Protestant affair known as Christ Church. ”

“ And yet I have always found the Orthodox Church in all its ramifications the most charitable and liberal of all the forms of Christianity with which I have come in contact. No stranger is turned from the doors of a Greek convent or refused such succor as is in the power of its inmates, be he Protestant, atheist, or even of their bitterest enemies, the Roman Catholics. ”

“ One cannot expect any great theological movements, nor look for the names of famous scholars in a community that was ground down as were the Rayahs before the more tolerant laws of the 19th century. The one duty of the Orthodox, then, was to keep their faith in spite of everything, and this they did very nobly.
However, their Church was not really quite dead. She produced some theologians; was very conscious of her own position when the Protestants wanted to make an alliance with her, and she was on one occasion convulsed by a really serious trouble in the affair of Cyril Lukaris. ”

“ Although the Coptic liturgy, like that of the Latin Church, is in a tongue "not understanded of the people," there are observances enough which must explain themselves pretty clearly to these poor creatures. Such are the multitudinous fasts. ”

“ There is the ruined mosque of Amer, and there are the quaint old Coptic convents and churches, built about with mud walls, and hidden away amid mounds of rubbish. To these dust-filled lanes and into these mouldering edifices the antiquarian will gladly go. These churches are the land of the flea and the home of the Copt. Anything dingier, darker, dirtier, doesn't exist. To one of them, the Sitt Miriam, Church of Our Lady, we had the greatest difficulty in getting admission. It is up-stairs in one of the towers of the old Roman gateway of Babylon. ”

“ Most, indeed nearly all, of the work of the Orthodox theologians during this time has been written against the Pope and the Latins. One can understand this. To the Eastern Christians the enormously greater, more powerful, and more prosperous Catholic Church looms very large; the question why they are not in union with the bishop, who should be the first of the patriarchs, is always the burning one. And the Popes have never ceased trying to convert them back: papal missionaries and schools are to be found all over Eastern Europe (except, of course, in Russia) ”

“ This is another proof that the Coptic scribe was as careless in assigning authorship to the works he was copying as the translator was in making his Coptic paraphrases of the Greek text. The argument of the writer is as follows: The Church will never be without enemies, and though men may plot against her, and the waves of persecution break over her, she will never be overcome, for she is built on the "Rock Who said that the gates of Hades should not prevail against her." Trial is good for a man, and he should not fear temptation, for tribulation does no harm to the man of fortitude. ”

“ The Coptic Church had but little active concern with the efforts of men in the East to come to terms with the Western Church. The origin and motives of these efforts were not religious or even ecclesiastical; they were purely political. John Palæologus and other emperors saw the desperate need of a European alliance if the onward march of the Turks was to be stayed and the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire preserved. What interest had that policy for the Copts, already subject to Islam and not of the Greek communion? Nevertheless the Coptic patriarch, John xi., sent John the abbot of St. ”

“ The Easterns know quite well, of course, that all Anglicans do not think like this, but if what the Patriarch of Constantinople a year or two ago called "the Ritualist sect" ever becomes the whole Church of England, then, indeed, in faith there would be little to choose between Anglicans and Orthodox. ”

“ One would think it impossible for any one to read what were almost the last words of so great a Pope without emotion. And nothing could be kinder, more generous, more gracious than what he said to the Orthodox. There is not one harsh word, not the shadow of any blame. ”

“ In 1861 the pope consecrated an old Bulgarian priest, Jos. Sokolski, archbishop of the united Bulgarian church. Very soon, however, he and almost all his followers returned to their allegiance to the Greek Orthodox church. Leo XIII. in his encyclical of A.D. 1880, by giving conspicuous honour to Cyril and Methodius, and uttering kind sentiments about the Christian church in the East, and conferring high rank on dignitaries of the Eastern church, seeks to smooth the way for a union of the two great churches. ”

“ The Czar's Empire contains about 130 million victims of his government. Of these from eighty to eighty-five millions are members of the Orthodox established Church. [51] So the Church of Russia is enormously the greatest part of the Orthodox Communion; she alone is about eight times as great as all the other Churches together. She is ruled by eighty-six bishops, of whom three (Kiev, Moscow, and Petersburg) are always metropolitans, and fourteen archbishops. In Russia the title of metropolitan, which in most Eastern Churches has come to be the common name for any bishop, is much rarer. ”

“ They have set up centres all over the Near East, and no one prevents them from preaching; but every one now knows that to join them is to leave the Orthodox Church. In Russia, where other ideas of liberty prevail, the Bible Society was expelled, and its Bibles forbidden. These Protestants have made an infinitesimal number of converts, who call themselves Εὐαγγελικόι, and the Orthodox feel nearly as bitter towards non-Anglican Protestants (Διαμαρτυρόμενοι) as towards Catholics. [23] ”

“ There is no external architecture in the Coptic churches; they are all masked with immense enclosure walls, so as to escape attention. The walls of the interior still preserve a great portion of the paintings of scriptural subjects; the screens dividing off the Haikal and other chapels from the choir are of great beauty, and evidently formed the models from which the panelled woodwork, doors and pulpits of the Mahommedan mosques have been copied and reproduced by Copts. ”

“ The very voluminous writings of the other Gnostics were destroyed by the triumphant Church with such minute care that the Coptic texts described in the last chapter form the only relics of this once enormous literature that have survived to us. The heathen religions which for some time disputed the ground with the Church have also left few traces partly for the same reason, and partly because the secrecy to which they pledged their votaries made it unlikely that many written documents of these faiths would survive. But the Antitheses of Marcion were in the hands of Photius in the Xth century ”