As Xmas approaches, I present a really interesting guest blog from Samuel Kaldas. So few people today realise the incredible debt we owe to Christianity. Going on the words below, society today would be unimaginable had not that very special Baby been born two thousand years ago. Enjoy…

As often happens when one walks the streets of the Sydney CBD, I was once approached by a homeless woman who asked me for some money. In the conversation that followed, she commented on how irritated she was at the way city-goers would routinely snub her off and ignore her completely; “I mean,” she said, “I’m as human as everyone else.” I agreed with her of course. Who would deny as obvious a fact as that? Even those people who snubbed her and provoked the comment no doubt understood that although this woman was homeless, and lay considerably lower on whatever scale of social respectability we use to categorise ourselves nowadays, she was still as human as the richest person in Sydney. Her status as a member of the human race meant that she had a sort of inalienable value; she deserved exactly the same sort of basic respect and dignity as the richest and most successful members of our society, purely because she was a human being.

This might sound like a fact so obvious that it doesn’t really need to be said. All of us know perfectly well that a person’s social station does not reflect their value; we all understand that wealth and poverty, health and sickness don’t necessarily reflect any particular virtue or flaw in a person’s character, and that even if they did, we would be no less obliged to help any of our fellow human beings in need. How could we think otherwise? Isn’t that what it means to be human? In “Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies”, the Orthodox theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart argues that if it weren’t for Christianity and its revolutionary re-imagining of what it means to be a human being, none of us might think that way at all. In the book’s introduction he says

“At a particular moment in history, I believe, something happened to Western humanity that changed it at the deepest levels of consciousness and at the highest levels of culture.”[1]

Living as we do, at the end of 2000 years of Christian history, in a culture that has been irrevocably shaped by the Christian view of the world, it is hard for us to appreciate just how revolutionary Christianity was when it first stepped onto the stage of history. We Copts know especially well that the Roman emperors were brutal and bloody in their repression of Christianity (half the icons that line our churches are the victims of Roman persecutions), but we do not, perhaps, appreciate why as well as we should. If Hart is to be believed, Christianity’s fundamental claims that God became man and died the death of a criminal, and that the sick, the poor and the sinful are as precious to God as any other of His children, were among the most subversive, rebellious and offensive ideas that the ancient world had ever encountered.

Modern readers might be surprised to find that one of the greatest problems the ancient pagans had with the early church was the ‘sort’ of persons they invited to their churches. Celsus, a pagan of the 2nd century AD, wrote:

“No wise man believes the Gospel, being driven away by the multitudes who adhere to it.”^[2]

He harshly criticises the Christians for teaching wisdom to women, children and slaves, claiming that they only teach such people because they are unable to convince people of more ‘intelligent’ pedigree.^[3] In saying this, he was merely echoing the soundest principles of classical wisdom; centuries earlier Plato[4] and Aristotle[5] had insisted that men, by nature, were superior to women, children and slaves. Such was the natural order, the way the gods had fashioned the world, and to treat slaves and women like men by teaching them and exhorting them to wisdom, was pointless stupidity.

He expresses a similar distaste for the way that Christians called ‘sinners’ to faith in Christ. Unlike most almost every respectable religion that came before it, the Christianity not only accepted but sought out prostitutes, drunkards and other ‘sinners’ in order to convert them to life in Christ. The outrage that this practice provoked in the minds of the ancients is readily apparent in the Gospels themselves; Christ’s contemporaries were repeatedly disgusted at the company He would keep (tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers etc.), and Christ would simply explain in response that He had come to save those who had need of saving.^[6] While to us, Christ’s reason for behaving this way (“those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick …”^[7]) makes perfect sense, to many of the ancients it was impious madness. Celsus complains that: “… no one by chastisement, much less by merciful treatment, could effect a complete change in those who are sinners both by nature and custom, for to change nature is an exceedingly difficult thing.”^[8] For Celsus, sinners were sinners as much as women were women and slaves were slaves. It was ludicrous to think that one could change ‘what they were’ by any amount of correction or punishment. They simply were lesser, fouler members of the human race and no-one could or should attempt to change that. To attempt, as the Christians did by Christ’s example, to win sinners over by loving and serving them (or, to use a more modern term, by treating them as human beings) was the height of idiocy and bad taste.

To understand Celsus’ objections properly, it’s important to understand that pagan societies were heavily hierarchical^[9] – they were very clearly ordered. Every person had their place on the grand ladder of social/religious importance; the emperor’s family, the wealthy landowners and the priests sat at the top of the ladder, while slaves, poor men, sinners and women tended towards the bottom (with occasional exceptions). It borders on being an undeniable fact that the people at the higher ends of the ladder were viewed as more ‘important’ and more ‘worthwhile’ than those at the bottom.

This is partly because, by and large, the pagans saw little difference between the spheres of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’. That is to say, your place on the social ladder reflected not only your political importance or your level of ‘authority’, but also reflected your virtue, your ‘worth’ in the eyes of the gods. As one author put it, “for the Romans, it was not true that all people are created equal.”^[10] The gods had not created ‘humanity’ as we understand it today, a set of individuals who differ in ability, circumstances and social station but all share equal worth; the Roman gods had created rulers and subjects, masters and slaves, men and women, some of whom were made to rule and some of whom were made to serve.

Roman society was ordered in a way that reflected the superiorities and inferiorities that the gods had built into nature itself, and that notion of hierarchy pervaded every level of the Roman state, including the family. And it was the gods, captained by the great Creator God Himself, who preserved the hierarchy that held human society together; as Hart says, “the gods love order above all else.”[11]

Keeping all this in mind, think for a moment about Christianity’s fundamental historical claim: that God Himself became a lowly Jewish carpenter, spent most of His time preaching to and serving tax collectors, lepers and prostitutes, and was ultimately executed as a criminal. The extent to which this idea was a rejection of the pagan worldview is impossible to understate. In Hart’s rather forceful words:

“[To the pagans] the gospel was an outrage … this was far worse than mere irreverence; it was pure and misanthropic perversity; it was anarchy.”[12]

Christians claimed that the Creator God Himself, who should have been working to sustain and encourage the created order, had humbled Himself to its lowest level by taking the ‘form of a bondservant’^[13] and dying the death of a criminal. And in so doing, He shattered, or even inverted the pagan hierarchy and brought into being a new order; an order in which “there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” and where “all are one in Christ Jesus.”^[14]

In other words, it is in Christianity that we first see the ideas of ‘humanity’ and the ‘infinite worth’ of every single human being regardless of virtue or social station, coming into being. Arguably, if it had not been for Christianity’s stunningly subversive teachings about the value of sinners and lower class peoples, such people might never have come to be considered fully ‘human’ at all. In Hart’s words, “it would not be implausible to argue that our very ability to speak of ‘persons’ as we do is a consequence of the revolution in moral sensibility that Christianity brought about.”^[15]

Christianity is called a lot of things nowadays (dreary, outdated, dogmatic, evil …), but one character rarely applied to it is rebellious; which is rather ironic given that the early Christians (and their persecutors for that matter) inevitably understood themselves as rebels. Unfortunately, as modern Christians we rarely appreciate this sense of rebellion, even though it survives powerfully in our prayers and rites. It is nowhere more obvious than in the rite of baptism where the convert (or their parents if they are a child) turns to the West and declares:

I renounce you, Satan, with all your impure works, all your evil soldiers, all your wickedness, all your powers, all your despicable worship, all your deceiving and misleading trickery, all your armies, all your principalities and all the rest of your hypocrisy.

I renounce you! I renounce you! I renounce you!

The significance of these words to an ancient convert was absolutely life changing. In saying them, he was rejecting the pagan gods (who the Christians now began to call demons), and the human empire which they sustained – which is probably why early Christians refused to worship the image of the Roman emperor even on pain of torture and death.^[16] By becoming Christians, they were confessing their allegiance to a new emperor (Christ) and a new order. And this new order rejected all the ‘hierarchy’ of the old, corrupt order; baptism washed away all pagan labels. Instead of a society based on rank and authority, the church was a community where all members bore the rank of the King Himself, for all Christians were said, by baptism, to have ‘put on Christ.’^[17] In Christ’s church, even authority figures ought to humble themselves instead of ‘lording it over each other like the Gentiles’.^[18] The Church also offered those whom the pagans despised as ‘sinners’ liberty from the rigid restraints pagan society had placed on them. In response to Celsus’ claim that it was near impossible to change the nature of a sinner, the Egyptian church father Origen replied that:

“for the word of God to change a nature in which evil has been naturalised is not only not impossible, but is even a work of no very great difficulty, if a man only believe that he must entrust himself to the God of all things.”^[19]

And that was a definite difference between the pagan and early Christian views of humanity. Where the pagans (with some exceptions) saw only men, women, slaves and sinners who were what they were and could never be otherwise, the Christians saw a potential Christ in everyone. For Christians, the worldly wisdom^[20] that ascribed different levels of worth different ‘sorts’ of people was an abomination. A Christian could not judge anyone’s worth based on their position in the social hierarchy, precisely because Christ had told them that even ‘the least of these’ warranted the respect due to the creator God Himself.

That is why Hart argues so passionately that if it weren’t for Christianity and it’s revolutionary ideas about the human race, the homeless woman I met on the street might never have thought to make the assertion that she was ‘as human as everyone else.’ For a pagan like Celsus, the idea that a homeless woman and the emperor himself shared some sort of equally respectable ‘nature’ may well have been not only ridiculous but an insult to the dignity of the emperor. Perhaps, if it had not been for the ‘Christian revolution’, many of our most cherished ‘modern’ ideals would not even have been possible.

Obviously, there’s a lot more that could be said about all this. There are questions like why, if Christianity was so revolutionarily egalitarian, Christians continued to keep slaves for so long (to which the short answer is ‘old habits die hard’), and many more. As a disclaimer, you’ll notice I’ve made a special effort to say ‘Hart argues’ or ‘according to Hart’ in much of the above rather than simply stating his arguments as facts, and this is because historical arguments this wide-ranging are hard to assess properly without a good level of historical knowledge, which I certainly don’t possess. Hart is a stunningly knowledgeable author however, and certainly, his arguments carry far more weight than the generally poorly informed historical arguments of the New Atheists. For those want to learn more, this is a beautiful, short and sweet summary of the argument:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FytwCHCniCk&feature=BFa&list=LL69h4BfHEoj4QkUWhBgHo1Q&lf=plpp_video

And of course, I highly recommend “Atheist Delusions” itself. It can be slow going at times, but Part 3 in particular presents one of the freshest and most inspiring visions of the Christian faith I have ever come across.

^[2] Origen, ‘Against Celsus’, Book III, Chapter 73,  (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04163.htm)

^[3] Ibid., Book III, Chapters 54-58 (same URL as above)

[4] Plato, The Republic, Book IV, Part v (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm#2H_4_0007) (The relevant passage can be found by pressing Ctrl+F and searching for ’servants’ – the few paragraphs above that give useful background to understanding Plato’s argument here)

[5] Aristotle, The Politics, Book VII, Part iii (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8po/book1.html)

^[6] (Luke 5:30-32), (Luke 7:36-50)

^[7] (Mark 2:17)

^[8] Quoted in Origen’s Against Celsus, Book III, Chapter 65 (http://web.archive.org/web/20060427150628/http://duke.usask.ca/~niallm/252/Celstop.htm)

^[9] Barbara McManus, Social Class and Public Display (http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/socialclass.html)

^[10] N.S. Gill, Roman Society, About.com – (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/socialculture/tp/Roman-Society.htm)

[11] DB Hart, Atheist Delusions, pg. 173

[12] Ibid, pg. 115

^[13] Phil 2:7 (Paul’s statement that Christ ‘did not consider it robbery to be equal with God’ makes a lot of sense when viewed in light of the pagan hierarchy; arguably, it was precisely this ‘robbery’, this pretension of a low ranking criminal carpenter to be the God that sat at the top of the created order that so infuriated Celsus and his contemporaries.)

^[14] (Gal 3:28)

^[15] DB Hart, Atheist Delusions, pg. 167

^[16] (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/pliny.html)

^[17] (Gal 3:27)

^[18] (Matt 20:25-26)

^[19] Origen, ‘Against Celsus’, Book III, Chapter 69,  (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04163.htm)

^[20] (1 Cor 1:18-31) and (1 Cor 3:18)

Moallem Jirgis Al Jawhary

A 32 year old Protestant Iranian pastor with a young family is on trial in Iran for apostasy from the Muslim faith. He stands at grave risk of being executed, although he has been told that he would be a free man if only he would ‘repent’, renounce his Christian faith and return to Islam. Interestingly, a Muslim blogger, Hesham Hassaballa, has responded in the most powerful way possible: by proving from the very words of the Quran that such treatment is against the teachings of Islam. A sample: 

The evidence is overwhelming: Islam firmly upholds freedom of choice in matters of faith. Indeed, some Muslims do not, but their sins do not speak for the entire faith. Rather, their sins are an affront to the principles of Islam.

 The Iranian authorities must let Pastor Nadarkhani free. The choice of faith that he makes is his alone, and he will face the Lord in the end for his choice.

 Even if the head Shaikh of Al Azhar University converted to Catholicism, it would not diminish the truth of Islam’s message one iota. The Qur’an is quite confident in the truth it speaks, and so should it be with its adherents.

 When will Muslim fundamentalists in Egypt and all over the world understand that if they want to be true to their own religion, they need to accept freedom of religion?

 I think we will be waiting for a long time. This kind of fanaticism is nothing new for the Copt. An interesting historical article about important Coptic historical figure, Girgis El Gohary by Dioscorus Boles highlights some of the horrible circumstances Copts endured as recently as the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Surely we, as a human race, have moved on from such barbarism?

Over the past nine months fanatic elements within the Egyptian Muslim community have stirred up civil unrest all over Egypt. Copts have been attacked, houses and shops looted, and churches burnt down. While it is true that a general degree of anarchy has prevailed in the country since the revolution, one expects that as the new order comes to fruition, such anarchy will quickly be brought under control. THis is to be expected when so drastic a revolution happens in any nation. But acts of violence along religious lines will divide the country and turn it into another Lebanon. As thousands of Egyptian Copts protested the lack of protection from the ruling Army since the revolution, the army opened fire killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds. The Army has blamed “unknown culprits” for the violence. Yet surely, there is no doubt as to who did the killing?

If Egypt is ever to become a modern country it has to embrace modern standards of integrity and accountability. Provocateurs are being blamed for inciting the violence, yet we have often seen armies in other countries counter such violence without killing anyone. Why can’t the Egyptian army do the same? Are they not well enough trained? It is simply not good enough to say “they started it”. You are the ones with the training and the weapons!

After this terrible incident any decent army command would very quickly find out who gave the orders to fire on civilians and make a public example of them so that the rest of the soldiers understand that this absolutely unacceptable. The Army showed admirable constraint and what seemed to be great wisdom in refusing to use violence against protesters during the January revolution. Why has that restraint disappeared now? Why does it disappear only against Christians?

If the army does not want to be seen as being selective in who it protects, it MUST take immediate, decisive action against those in its own ranks who have shown this lack of discipline and were responsible for this atrocity. Only in this way can it prevent this tragedy from being repeated. Covering up and blaming others is a green light for atrocities like this to recur in the future. There is an old adage that says, “What you allow, you teach”. If I were a Muslim army officer, with the slightest tendency towards sectarianism, and I saw the perpetrators of this violence getting off scott-free, what message does that give me? If on the other hand, i saw them being severely punished: tried, courtmarshalled, perhaps imprisoned; then I would certainly think twice before repeating their mistake.

Egypt is not at war. Soldiers killing civilians is simply not acceptable! Those responsible have committed murder. When will it be recognised for what it is?

Persecution is nothing new for the Copts. We have survived nearly two thousand years in an environment that has been hostile for the vast majority of that period. But the events unfolding in Cairo are the fork in the road for the Egyptian nation. The Army can use this crisis to point the way for a better, brighter future for all Egyptians by exercising transparency, integrity and responsibility. Or it can just fall back on old ways of the old regime and plunge an Egypt that has tasted true freedom back into the dark ages.

His Holiness Pope Shenouda has called for three days of fasting and prayer starting today on behalf of the peace and security of Egypt. This is indeed a watershed moment.

Related Posts:

http://www.frantonios.org.au/2010/10/25/292/

http://www.frantonios.org.au/2010/11/03/fanatical-drive-against-copts/

Three interesting new resources I have come across recently, and thought I might share with you today:

In 1991 a huge project came to fruition with the publication of the eight volume Coptic Encyclopedia. Containing nearly three thousand entries by a variety of authors, both members of the Coptic community and foreign scholars in Coptology, it is perhaps the most comprehensive reference on all things Coptic ever produced. The hard cover eight volume set is not only very expensive, but has also been out of print for some years and hard to get a hold of. So it was with great pleasure that I came across this wonderful project at Claremont Graduate University in California. An excerpt from the announcement of this project: 

The Coptic Encyclopedia, published by Macmillan in 1991, is an eight-volume work. Its 2,800 entries, written by 215 scholars, took 13 years to compile. But as a paper-bound document it was only available to a limited readership and nearly impossible to amend. The digitized version, renamed the Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, can be constantly updated and is available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Apparently, Phase 1, which began in 2010, is to digitise and make available all 2,800 articles in the original 1991 edition. You can access the articles far completed here.  Last I checked, they were somewhere in the “O” section, working alphabetically from “A”. Phase 2 will be to add multimedia accompaniments to appropriate articles, especially pictures and perhaps audio. Phase 3, and most exciting of all, is to provide continuous updating of existing articles and add new ones to reflect ongoing research and developments in the field of Coptology, and to track the unfolding history of the Coptic Church in the twenty first century. Three cheers for CGU!

How often have you turned up at Church on a feast day or during a fast and wondered why everyone was doing things differently? Many of the special seasons of the Coptic calendar have not only their own unique tunes, but also their own unique rites. And none is without meaning. To understand and be aware of these rites and their meaning is to experience Coptic worship in its full depth and beauty. But where can one find all this information? Till now, I have had to depend on my ponderously slow and rather unreliable command of written Arabic and an old book written by HG Bishop Mattaos for the correct rites throughout the year. But now, all that precious information has been made available online, and … in ENGLISH!

The Choir of the Heritage of the Coptic Orthodox Church website provides articles, audio and a really useful guide to the rites of every occasion in the Coptic Orthodox sacred calendar. Not only is it in English, but for the extremely pedantic, each article on the seasonal rites lists the source, just to give the reader comfort that the description given wasn’t just some variation that old Uncle Abdelmessih thought up last Sunday. 

And finally, have you ever had to prepare for a lesson or a talk and wondered why you were taking so much time putting together a snazzy powerpoint presentation when surely hundreds of others have done exactly the same thing before you? Wouldn’t it be great if you could have access to the fruit of their labours? Well, the Church of St Mary and Archangel Michael in Houston Texas have made a huge library of talks and lessons, including powerpoint presentations, available on their website. Here you’ll find almost any topic you can think of (although they were a little light on the apologetics, I must say). My only criticism is that this excellent resource would be so much more useful if it had a search engine.

Enjoy!

 I’ve been listening to some terrific podcasts by Fr Thomas Hopko, an Eastern Orthodox scholar and parish priest. It is a series on the clergy of the Christian Church through the ages and begins in the Apostolic Age, working its way slowly through the centuries. For anyone who loves ancient Christianity, and who desires to live the Orthodox Christian faith today as closely as possible to its original form in ancient times, this set of talks is a veritable treasure chest! Keep in mind when you listen that Fr Thomas is from the Eastern Orthodox family and thus views the Council of Chalcedon from that perspective. (While the Oriental Orthodox Churches like the Coptic Church reject that Council, most other Christian Churches accept it).

 But his account of the first two centuries is engrossing and makes sense of so many things in our history that we generally hear in isolation and out of context. For example, one can gain a valuable insight into the true spirit of ancient Christian leadership when one learns that the titles for the leaders of the ancient Church were actually taken from the titles of slaves! The Episkopos (over-seer) was the household slave in charge of overseeing the affairs of the household on behalf of his master, and for the welfare and benefit of the master and his family. Episkopos is the title the early Christians adopted for their bishops. The Economos was in charge making sure the ‘economy’ of the house ran smoothly, and thus would look to the day to day details of household provisions and accounts and so on. His role was to preovide the resources that everyone else needed to live their lives happily and safely. Again, the early Christians adopted this name for those among the Elders (’presbyteros’ ) who were entrusted with caring for the day to day affairs of the household of God, and ‘economos’ has evolved into the modern title, ‘hegomen’.

But note that both these positions were those of slaves. Applied to the Christian roles, what this meant is that the bishop and the hegomen were both ’slaves’ of the Master of the household, God, and their role was to care for His children. As slaves, they were not to boss the children around or exert authority over them so much as to serve them and provide faithfully for all their needs. And this is of course in keeping with the command of Christ:

But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42-45 

It also intriguing to hear about the developments in the years after Chalcedon, a period of history in which we Copts were not involved for the most part – being more occupied with things like survival in a hostile environment of Melkites and later Muslims. Here, this account explains so much of why both the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches are what they are today. Of particular interest I found the account of the dispute over whether clergy were allowed to marry. In the west, radiating from Spain, apparently, was the idea that even parish priest must be celibate. But the East held on to the ancient tradition that these clergy may be married before their ordination, although they may not marry once they have in fact been ordained (so, for example, if a priest’s wife dies, he may not remarry).

On a related topic, his exposition on the history and theology of speaking in tongues, ”The Gift, the Gifts, and Glossolalia” (released10 July 2011 ) is scholarly yet easily digestible and provides some valuable insights into this controversial topic.

For those who still prefer the written word to the spoken, a mind-expanding book you must read is “The Atheist Delusion: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies” by David Bentley Hart. This book was the basis for much of the second talk (by Samuel) at the “Why Christianity?” Day yesterday. Hart, in spite of his Western name, is a convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and a highly respected and widely published scholar. He is particularly interested in Patristics, St Gregory of Nyssa and St Maximus the Confessor being two of his foci.

The book was awarded the Michael Ramsey prize in Theology earlier this year. Hart mercilessly dissects the arguments of the New Atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett and exposes the faults in both their reasoning and their factual foundations.

As only a historian can, he paints a vivid picture of the heathen world into which Christianity was born. I had never before realised just how revolutionary Jesus and His followers were. Things we now take for granted, like equality of all humans and the value of every human life, turn out to be, by Hart’s account, innovations due solely to Christianity. Had Christ not come, there is every chance that we might still be living in a horrible multi-level society where the suffering masses exist only to serve the elite few.

Bible verses to which we have grown accustomed through long usage take on new and unexpected meaning in this setting. For example, I have long considered Christ’s claim that whenever we do an act of kindness to the sick, the poor or the imprisoned we are doing it to Him personally as a given (Matthew chapter 25). In fact, such a claim was, believe it or not, one of the main reasons the pagans persecuted the Christians so violently. The assertion that we should identify God (incarnate) with the lowest level of unfortunates in society undermined the very foundations of pagan civilisation.

All these ‘advanced’ societies – Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Chinese – depended upon the idea of a hierarchy, with the great God at the very top, down through levels of lesser gods, various human social levels,and finally down to the poor, the sick, the slaves and the criminals at the very bottom. At the top of the human levels of this hierarchy were the rulers, the rich and the priests. All the levels below them existed to serve them and to meet their needs. Thus for example, when an important Egyptian died, it was not unusual for his servants to be buried alive with him, since their lives only mattered so long as he lived. Once the master was dead, the servants became worthless.

But by coming down from Heaven and becoming one with this lowest level of society, Jesus was turning this whole system on its head. The pagan rulers and priests could not possibly tolerate this! Pagan philosophers like Celsus railed against the Christians: how could they demean themselves so horribly as to help or even speak with the rabble and the riff raff?! Is it any wonder that the earliest Christians were so opposed to paganism? And of course, these facts of history totally demolish the arguments of the New Atheists that Christianity has been a force for evil in the world and that the world would be so much better off without it.

One shudders to think where we might be today had not God shown mercy upon His creation and stooped to lift it out of its darkness and death…

I would enjoy reading your comments on this or any other books you may have enjoyed.

Fr Ant

One of the nicest things about living in Australia is that you don’t really have to go out and visit the world – the world comes to you. Being a multicultural society, Australians are born or trace their heritage to nearly every country in the world. Our society is enriched by a multitude of languages, accents, and forms of dress, not to mention the delicious cuisines and tastes of scores of cultures. 

Through marriage and through the blossoming Outreach Service to the neighbours at our parish, we now count as members of our Christian family people from a rich variety of backgrounds. The map shown illustrates the various countries from which members of our parish have come, and they are listed at the end of this post.

The Apostles’ Fast is all about celebrating the incredible work of the Holy Spirit in spreading the Good News of Christ to all the nations. Whereas the Old Testament chosen people tended to be isolated and keep to themselves, the New Testament Christian is commanded to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

That is not to say that this is an easy command to carry out. One of our experiences over the years has been a certain tension between our history and our destiny. On the one hand, there is fourteen centuries of being a relatively insulated faith community that was beaten into submission by hostile Muslim suppression, so much so that we lost the desire or the skill to evangelise others. When we came to Australia, much of this mindset came with us, and we found ourselves being suspicious of ‘outsiders’, mistrusting their motivations and their morals. On the other hand, younger generations of Copts have been imbued with the Australian ethic of respect for others as equals regardless of their race or colour, and a desire to connect and interact with the Australian society of which we are a part.

Let’s not mince words: people who have converted and been baptised into the Coptic Orthodox Church have often found it quite difficult to adjust. It is not easy to feel ‘different’ in a community, to be the only one, for example, with blond hair and blue eyes amidst a sea of Middle Eastern olive skin and brown eyes. It is not easy to have people around you speaking in a language you do not understand, or to be constantly afraid of doing something that might be considered inappropriate according to the prevailing culture. Many Coptic immigrants experienced this sense of alienation when they came to Australia, so of all people, we should be able to sympathise with the non-Copt who joins our Church. And just as we found kind and thoughtful Australians who went out of their way to make us feel at home here, we too should go out of our way to make everybody feel at home and welcome in our Church.

And things have indeed changed considerably over the last few years and continue to change at pace. Our Church should never be for just one ethnic group to the exclusion of others – I fail to see how that could possibly be in accord with the commands of Christ and the example of the Apostles whom we revere and honour at this time of year. Today, we open our arms and we embrace those who have joined us in the Body of Christ with joy. They bring with them new languages and customs and cuisines, and they are most welcome, for they enrich our lives, just as the entry of Christ into their lives and the ancient and profound Coptic Orthodox spirituality are to them a blessing beyond price. 

So to commemorate and mark this historic change in the nature of our Church community, below is a roll of the backgrounds of Copts who attend our parish of the Archangel Michael and St Bishoy in Mt Druitt. I apologise if I have left anyone out – please let me know. We embrace each and every one of you; you are each a precious part of our lives and fellow travellers in this world, seeking the Kingdom of God, and humbly working out our salvation together in the footsteps of the Saviour of all humanity.

Aboriginal

Armenia

Anglo Saxon

Canada

Chile

China

Czech Republic

Egypt

Ethiopia

India

Italy

Lebanon

Liberia

Mauritius

Philippines

South Africa

Southern Sudan

Sudan

Syria

Thailand

USA

At the threshold of Passion Week, I present an excerpt from an archaeological article written in 1985 by Vassilios Tzaferis. He reported on the first ever finding of the remains of a victim of crucifixion, although of course, there is a great deal of written evidence that the practice of crucifixion was by no means uncommon in the ancient world. Here he presents a brief history of Crucifixion. I warn you, some of it is not very pleasant reading.

Many people erroneously assume that crucifixion was a Roman invention. In fact, Assyrians, Phoenicians and Persians all practiced crucifixion during the first millennium B.C. Crucifixion was introduced in the west from these eastern cultures; it was used only rarely on the Greek mainland, but Greeks in Sicily and southern Italy used it more frequently, probably as a result of their closer contact with Phoenicians and Carthaginians.

During the Hellenistic period, crucifixion became more popular among the Hellenized population of the east. After Alexander died in 323 B.C., crucifixion was frequently employed both by the Seleucids (the rulers of the Syrian half of Alexander’s kingdom) and by the Ptolemies (the rulers of the Egyptian half). Among the Jews crucifixion was an anathema. (See Deuteronomy 21:22–23: “If a man is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale him on a stake, you must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury him the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.”)

The traditional method of execution among Jews was stoning. Nevertheless, crucifixion was occasionally employed by Jewish tyrants during the Hasmonean period. According to Josephus, Alexander Jannaeus crucified 800 Jews on a single day during the revolt against the census of 7 A.D. At the end of the first century B.C., the Romans adopted crucifixion as an official punishment for non-Romans for certain legally limited transgressions.

Initially, it was employed not as a method of execution, but only as a punishment. Moreover, only slaves convicted of certain crimes were punished by crucifixion. During this early period, a wooden beam, known as a furca or patibulum was placed on the slave’s neck and bound to his arms. The slave was then required to march through the neighborhood proclaiming his offense. This march was intended as an expiation and humiliation. Later, the slave was also stripped and scourged, increasing both the punishment and the humiliation. Still later, instead of walking with his arms tied to the wooden beam, the slave was tied to a vertical stake.

Because the main purpose of this practice was to punish, humiliate and frighten disobedient slaves, the practice did not necessarily result in death. Only in later times, probably in the first century B.C., did crucifixion evolve into a method of execution for conviction of certain crimes. Initially, crucifixion was known as the punishment of the slaves. Later, it was used to punish foreign captives, rebels and fugitives, especially during times of war and rebellion.

Captured enemies and rebels were crucified in masses. Accounts of the suppression of the revolt of Spartacus in 71 B.C. tell how the Roman army lined the road from Capua to Rome with 6,000 crucified rebels on 6,000 crosses. After the Romans quelled the relatively minor rebellion in Judea in 7 A.D. triggered by the death of King Herod, Quintilius Varus, the Roman Legate of Syria, crucified 2,000 Jews in Jerusalem. During Titus’s siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., Roman troops crucified as many as 500 Jews a day for several months. In times of war and rebellion when hundreds and even thousands of people were crucified within a short period, little if any attention was paid to the way the crucifixion was carried out. Crosses were haphazardly constructed, and executioners were impressed from the ranks of Roman legionaries.

In peacetime, crucifixions were carried out according to certain rules, by special persons authorized by the Roman courts. Crucifixions took place at specific locations, for example, in particular fields in Rome and on the Golgotha in Jerusalem. Outside of Italy, the Roman procurators alone possessed authority to impose the death penalty. Thus, when a local provincial court prescribed the death penalty, the consent of the Roman procurator had to be obtained in order to carry out the sentence. Once a defendant was found guilty and was condemned to be crucified, the execution was supervised by an official known as the Carnifix Serarum.

From the tribunal hall, the victim was taken outside, stripped, bound to a column and scourged. The scourging was done with either a stick or a flagellum, a Roman instrument with a short handle to which several long, thick thongs had been attached. On the ends of the leather thongs were lead or bone tips. Although the number of strokes imposed was not fixed, care was taken not to kill the victim.

Following the beating, the horizontal beam was placed upon the condemned man’s shoulders, and he began the long, grueling march to the execution site, usually outside the city walls. A soldier at the head of the procession carried the titulus, an inscription written on wood, which stated the defendant’s name and the crime for which he had been condemned. Later, this titulus was fastened to the victim’s cross.

When the procession arrived at the execution site, a vertical stake was fixed into the ground. Sometimes the victim was attached to the cross only with ropes. In such a case, the patibulum or crossbeam, to which the victim’s arms were already bound, was simply affixed to the vertical beam; the victim’s feet were then bound to the stake with a few turns of the rope. If the victim was attached by nails, he was laid on the ground, with his shoulders on the crossbeam. His arms were held out and nailed to the two ends of the crossbeam, which was then raised and fixed on top of the vertical beam. The victim’s feet were then nailed down against this vertical stake.

Without any supplementary body support, the victim would die from muscular spasms and asphyxia in a very short time, certainly within two or three hours. Shortly after being raised on the cross, breathing would become difficult; to get his breath, the victim would attempt to draw himself up on his arms. Initially he would be able to hold himself up for 30 to 60 seconds, but this movement would quickly become increasingly difficult. As he became weaker, the victim would be unable to pull himself up and death would ensue within a few hours.

In order to prolong the agony, Roman executioners devised two instruments that would keep the victim alive on the cross for extended periods of time. One, known as a sedile, was a small seat attached to the front of the cross, about halfway down. This device provided some support for the victim’s body and may explain the phrase used by the Romans, “to sit on the cross.” Both Erenaeus and Justin Martyr describe the cross of Jesus as having five extremities rather than four; the fifth was probably the sedile. To increase the victim’s suffering, the sedile was pointed, thus inflicting horrible pain.

The second device added to the cross was the suppedaneum, or foot support. It was less painful than the sedile, but it also prolonged the victim’s agony. Ancient historians record many cases in which the victim stayed alive on the cross for two or three or more days with the use of a suppedaneum. The church father Origen writes of having seen a crucified man who survived the whole night and the following day. Josephus refers to a case in which three crucified Jews survived on the cross for three days. During the mass crucifixions following the repression of the revolt of Spartacus in Rome, some of the crucified rebels talked to the soldiers for three days.

The Crucifixion was a mode of death that symbolised the horror of man’s power over man. The very fact that human beings could do such terrible things to each other reveals the dark and frightening depths of the evil into which the human heart can plunge. How could we become like this? This behaviour is worse than that of animals, who kill only for food.

 This IS the reality of the human heart apart from the God of love.

For this reason did our God become man: to reveal these truths, and to offer us a way out …

 Reference: Tzaferis, Vassilios. “Crucifixion—The Archaeological Evidence.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan/Feb 1985, 44-53. http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=11&Issue=1&ArticleID=6 (accessed 4/15/2011)

Life today in a western society is very different to the life our parents and grandparents knew. As a result, our whole world view is quite different, and as such, I propose, our faith needs to also adapt to the new and ever changing circumstances.

 One important area where this applies is the relationship between faith and knowledge. Extremes often help to illustrate a point more conveniently: think of your ancestors of centuries ago, most likely living in rural village somewhere along the majestic Nile. Let us imagine Folla, your great, great, great grandmother. She has grown to be a young woman without the benefit of formal education, for very few Egyptians can afford a formal education, and the vast majority would not want it even if they could afford it. It would be a waste of time and would not in any way help in running the family farm. Thus she is blissfully unaware of any formal laws of nature, of anything but the most basic mathematics, she cannot read or write, so she has no access to books or newspapers, and the only history she knows is the local legends of her village and the stories she hears read out in Church from the Bible and the Synaxarion every Sunday. She does not understand what the priest prays in Church every Sunday, for he prays in Coptic while she only knows Arabic. Sunday School has not yet been introduced to Egypt and the priest has only slightly more education than her, so he does not give sermons or conduct Bible studies; in fact her chief source of religious knowledge is her mother, the kindly woman who would sit her on her lap when she was a young girl and tell her stories that she had heard from her mother before her.

 Folla’s faith is a very simple one. It is not based on outright reason so much as on trust. The people she loves and trusts in her life, her parents, her relatives, her priest, all agree about the faith they hold, so she holds it too, without questioning anything it. Not only is it backed by this authority (and no one in this society would ever dream of questioning authority), it makes sense of her world.

 Because this is the nature of Folla’s faith, she is blissfully unaware that the core of ancient Christian faith at its heart has been mingled with centuries of accretions and additions. For her, it is all one body of beliefs, all of equal importance. For her, it is equally important not to drag your feet inside the house (for that would bring bad luck) as to proclaim that Christ is risen at Easter time. So far as she knows, not dragging your feet was part of Christ’s teachings.

 Simple faith is a beautiful thing. In some ways, I wish I could have been Folla. Of course, the modern person would object that some of Folla’s faith is based on false premises, but this objection does not seem to me to be such a terrible thing. Even our most elaborate theology, our most impressive science, can never be more than our fuzzy guess at a reality that is far, far beyond our comprehension. There is absolutely no reason to think that we can ever gain a true and complete understanding of the nature of our reality in this life. As St Paul famously said, “For now, we see as in a mirror dimly, but then, face to face” (1 Corinthians 13). Isaiah gives this sobering evaluation, from the mouth of God Himself:  “ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’ ” (Isaiah 55:9). So in a sense, our best efforts are going to fall a long way short of the truth anyway, and the difference between the size of an ant and the size of a horse pales to insignificance when you compare both to the size of the planet upon which both live.

 However, I am certainly not advocating a return to ignorance! Today, we have been given the gift of knowledge, a gift that once received can never be returned. We cannot go back to being an ant, and the ways of an ant will no longer work for us – we must live as horses, like it or not.

 What does that mean? For one thing, it means that our faith can no longer be based solely on the authority of others. Today’s Folla, let’s call her Felicity to avoid confusion, is bombarded with conflicting viewpoints from many different authorities. She still has the Church telling her one thing, she probably has her parents who largely agree with Church but may differ on a few small points, then there are her school teachers and university lecturers who may not be Christian at all, and all those voices of authority in the media, experts and politicians and community leaders, many of whom are almost certainly not Christian.

 Felicity does not have the luxury of a being surrounded by a single unitary world view as Folla had. How is she to navigate this confusing maelstrom of ideas and beliefs? How is she to decide on her own world view?

 To expect her to simply accept what her family and priest say purely on faith is unrealistic. For one, she has been trained by the western education system to question everything and to think for herself. Even her parents were probably educated in a system where you mostly had to learn facts by rote to get through and creative thinking was squeezed out of them in the highly competitive race to succeed. But today’s young person in the west is trained to think and encouraged to think for themselves. If we come to Felicity now and ask her to suspend thinking for herself and just accept our authority, it will seem like a major step backwards, a step into ignorance and darkness.

 This is not the path to faith in the twenty first century. Reason is not the enemy of faith, but its helper. Our precious Coptic tradition teaches us that. We glory in the lofty achievements of the ancient Christian School of Alexandria, the centre of Christian learning and knowledge in the early centuries of Christianity. The most intelligent people in the world flocked to study at this school, where no discipline was off limits and natural science, astronomy and philosophy were firmly on the curriculum. Many of the ancient Fathers from this school display a remarkable mastery of the secular knowledge of the day, and use it to construct their arguments for their faith, arguments that were raised against the pagan philosophers who rejected the Christian faith. They took them on at their own game and won, in the process proving that reason too, is a gift from God, and completely compatible with faith.

 Felicity needs us, the Church, to return to that ancient tradition. If she is to sincerely believe, it will be a faith fortified with a hefty dose of reason. The alternative today is not a faith based only on trust, but no religious faith at all.

 How does the state of teaching in the Coptic Church measure up to this challenge at the moment? Well, there a lot of progress has happened over the past century, and especially in the last few decades. The re-establishment of the Theological College by Pope Cyril V around the turn of the twentieth century revolutionised the education of the priesthood and has led to today’s crop of highly educated, highly literate clergy. Figures such as the late Bishop Gregorius put knowledge and reason back on the agenda, even if they were not appreciated by everyone. The advent of books in English translated from the Arabic, especially by authors who are well in tune with the need for a reasonable basis for modern faith such as HH Pope Shenouda and HG Bishop Moussa have been of incalculable benefit to many young people growing up in the west. And most recently, vibrant discussions on the internet, such as those that run on www.tasbeha.org regularly, provide a forum for questions to be discussed and resolved.

 But there are still some areas that lag dangerously behind. Many Sunday Schools still follow curricula that do not address the real concerns of young Copts today. If you have ‘graduated’ from Sunday School, ask yourself this simple question: in thirteen years of teaching, how many times did you actually address the question of why we believe in God, why we believe in Christ as God incarnate, and in His resurrection? How well were we taught the arguments people have raised against these beliefs, and the reasons we reject them? When did you learn of the evidence for the accuracy of the Bible, of its agreement with other historical documents and archaeological discoveries, and of the evidence for the faithful transmission of its text down through the centuries? And how satisfying was the treatment of modern scientific issues such as evolution or the Big Bang Theory and how they relate to our Christian faith?

 It is wonderful to know the stories of the saints, the traditional staple of Sunday School lessons, but today, Felicity needs much more than that.  She needs to find satisfying answers to the many questions that will inevitably arise in her mind, and she needs a Church that provides a free environment for raising those questions without guilt or stigmatisation. She needs to be guided in how to harmonise her secular knowledge with her religious faith and use her mind as well as her heart to mould an all-encompassing faith for the Coptic Christian of the twenty first century. Can our Church provide that? I believe that nothing less than the future viability of the Coptic Church (and all Christian Churches) depends on the answer to that question.

 We have a lot of hard work ahead of us…

 Fr Ant

Having enjoyed tremendously The Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity (Popes of Egypt) by Stephen J. Davis, I was quite excited when I learned that Volume 2 had been published. Entitled The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt: The Popes of Egypt: A History of the Coptic Church and Its Patriarchs Volume 2 and authored by Mark N. Swanson, it makes for absorbing reading – if you are into history and the Coptic Church, that is. Now, the History of the Patriarchs is accessible on the net*, but it is only one among many primary and secondary sources that the author has drawn upon to provide a more comprehensive picture of the Coptic Church during the Islamic era. He has also added to his well-balanced scholarship some very insightful remarks on the patterns and lessons that may be drawn from this history. It is always interesting to see what an ‘outsider’ thinks of our Church.

 One of the things that really struck me as I read through the centuries was just how much more the words of some of our prayers mean if you think of the circumstances in which they were prayed back then. As you develop in your mind a picture of the pressures that were applied to Egyptian Christians a thousand years ago, you get a sense of a Church struggling just to stay alive. Heavy taxes on non-Muslims could only be relieved by converting to Islam, a course sadly taken by many Copts. Humiliating rules like being allowed to wear only black or dark blue clothes and turbans (the origin of today’s priestly uniform) and riding only donkeys, not horses, further pressured the Copts of the time. Added to this was the often blatant discrimination in the workplace, and the glass ceiling that prevented Christians from holding any kind of worthwhile position in government or in commerce. And then there was stifling burden that Muslim rulers imposed on virtually every new Patriarch upon his consecration: a one off tax of huge proportions that forced many patriarchs to spend their days wandering around the country collecting donations just to keep the peace for the flock and their Church. Many patriarchs who failed to satisfy the Muslim ruler’s greed found themselves in prison for lengthy periods of time.

 Some of the events are deeply saddening, like ambitious Christians who played the political game to gain personal advantages, even if that meant that their fellow Christians suffered, or the reign of Pope Kyrollos III Ibn Loqloq, whose selfish ambition for the papacy should have warned the Church not to elevate him to that exalted position. Among other things, he freely and openly resorted to simony (taking bribes in return for ordination of bishops and priests) to pay his debts to the Caliph, but also to amass his own treasure of personal wealth.

 But there are more stories that fill one’s heart with hope and joy, such as the era of Pope Matthew I The Poor, a saintly man of true humility and genuine Christian compassion who was respected by all, even the Muslim ruler of the time, Barquq. In his time also arose other saintly personalities who, as the author puts it, became like a symphony orchestra of sanctity with the patriarch acting as its conductor. Among these was the ascetic and boldly courageous Anba Rewais, who has given his name to the site of the modern Cathedral of St Mark in Cairo.

 These true tales are all the more poignant in these days of trouble for the Church of Egypt. Hearing about threats and accusations being brought against our beloved Pope Shenouda by Muslim extremists evokes an eerie sense of history repeating itself.  Sadly, rational and decent Muslims, like the late Sheik Al Tantawi (see picture: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/10/sheikh-mohammed-tantawi-obituary) are being drowned out by the shouts and clamour of radical, narrow minded Islamic extremism, and the bad old days seem to be coming back to haunt the twenty first century.

Prayers such as the Three Great Litanies in the Liturgy of St Basil take on new meaning and significance in the light of the constant stream of persecution our Church has and still is suffering…

 “Remember O Lord, the peace of Your one only holy catholic and apostolic Church … O King of Peace, grant us Your peace …”

 “Remember O Lord, our Patriarch, Pope Abba Shenouda III … In keeping, keep him for us for many years and peaceful times … grant them and us peace and safety in every place … All their enemies, seen and unseen, do trample and humiliate under their feet speedily. As for them, keep them in peace and righteousness in Your Holy Church”

 “Remember O Lord, our congregations, bless them … Grant that they may be unto us without obstacle or hindrance, according to Your holy and blessed will … Satan and all his evil powers do trample and humiliate under our feet speedily … The enemies of Your holy Church, O Lord, as at all times, now also humiliate. Strip their vanity, show them their weakness speedily. Bring to nought their envy, their intrigues, their madness, their wickedness and their slander which they commit against us. O Lord, bring them all to no avail, and disperse their counsel O God, who dispersed the counsel of Ahithophel … Arise Lord God, let all your enemies be scattered, let those that hate Your holy name flee before Your face…”

 I used to think of purely spiritual enemies when I prayed these prayers – you know, the devil and his armies, his temptations and enticements. Living in a democratic and tolerant land where freedom of religion is guaranteed to all and one can pray and live in peace; that was the only enemy I could really relate to. But having been reminded by this book of the far more tangible threats Copts have endured, together with the ever more frightening news coming out of Egypt, I can really feel the honest emotion in these words. I imagine myself being a priest in Old Cairo, say, in the eleventh century; oppressed and persecuted together with my longsuffering flock, and I can see how these words can bring great comfort, for they remind us that in the end, God is in control, and that there is no power greater than His. The very existence of the Coptic Church against all odds is testimony to that enduring truth.

 Please pray for our fellow Copts in Egypt, and especially for His Holiness Pope Shenouda and all the other faithful servants of Christ. He has already suffered years of exile during the reign of President Sadat, and has worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly to preserve and promote peace in Egypt between the Muslim majority and the Christian minority. He really does not deserve all this in his twilight years.

 If you are unaware of the recent events in Egypt, here are a few links that summarise the main issues and events:

 http://islamizationwatch.blogspot.com/2010/10/egyptian-anti-church-demonstrations.html

 http://www.jerusalem-religions.net/spip.php?article1822

 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pope+Shenouda+apologizes+over+bishop’s+Islam+remarks-a0238167381

 Fr Ant

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 * The first chapter of The History of the Patriarchs by Severus of Ashmunein can be found at http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/severus_hermopolis_hist_alex_patr_01_part1.htm. Links from there take you to subsequent chapters.

Fr Mina Nematalla and his family as a layman, not long before his ordination, together with his uncle, Pope Kyrollos VI.

Tomorrow, July 1st, marks the the tenth anniversary of the passing of Fr Mina Nematalla, the pioneering Coptic Orthodox priest of Australia. In 1969 he became the first Coptic priest to settle in Australia and established the Coptic Orthodox Church on this continent. Today I would like to share a few personal thoughts to mark this occasion.

Upon my ordination back in 1991 I was assigned by HH Pope Shenouda III to serve at Archangel Michael and St Bishoy Church as an assistant to Fr Mina. At that time, Fr Mina was alone in the parish, and very, very sick. In fact, it was during my ordination and stay in Egypt that Fr Mina finally underwent a complex kidney transplant that saved his life and released him at last from the tyranny of constant renal dialysis.

I arrived at the parish not quite knowing what to expect. My family had had some contact with Fr Mina back in the 70’s but that was very limited. I would go on to serve with Fr Mina until his passing in 2000, and during that time, I got to see him at his best, and at his worst. I came to respect the man as I have few other people on this earth. He had his faults – there is no denying that – we all have. But this is a day for remembering and celebrating the positives. Perhaps his legacy can then live on in our own lives, thereby enriching and encouraging our own journey to the God he loved so much.

The chief characteristic of Fr Mina that dominates his picture in my mind was his absolute straightforwardness. He was the kind of person who never left you guessing what he was thinking. With Fr Mina, what you saw was what you got, without fail. Some people found this confronting, others found it perhaps even discourteous. But I revelled in it. How much simpler and easier life becomes when people are honest with each other! This also meant that it was so easy to trust him. He was a man of his word, the kind of person who kept his word, even to his own disadvantage.

I fondly remember the times when I, as a young inexperienced priest, messed up. He would call me over for a private chat in which he would simply and clearly point out what I had done wrong. Following a genuinely two way discussion, he would give me my admonition, and then tell me that that was the end of the matter. And it was. It never came up again and it never changed his attitude towards me.

This straightforwardness was also an important part of his spiritual life and practices. No doubt, anyone who grew up serving with Fr Mina the Hermit (later to become Pope Kyrollos VI) should have a good grounding in the spiritual life, but what impressed me deeply was just how ‘organic’ his spiritual life was. His prayers were not for show – they were from the heart. There are many who still remember his deeply emotional liturgy, the wide inflections of tone, the profound expression in his voice and upon his face, the tears that sometimes leaked out. All of this came from the heart. To behold Fr Mina at the altar felt like beholding Moses at the Ark of the Covenant – that same sense of man bare before God is evoked. And the same may be said of his love for the praises of the Church, praises he refused to miss even in his illness. The obvious childlike delight he took in praising God served as an inspiration for many, yet it was a genuine delight in God, first and foremost. Even the smallest discussion with him on the topic revealed just how deeply that delight in God ran.

Another fond memory involves children. Fr Mina loved children, whether they were his own offspring or anyone else’s. People sometimes complained that the sanctuary had been turned into a nursery during the liturgy. He would love to have up to a dozen young deacons around him, teaching them how to chant the responses, when to bring the censer, how to behave in the sanctuary. This was a reflection of his generosity – he saw service in the sanctuary as a great honour, and he wanted to bestow that honour upon as many children as he could. We are still enjoying the benefits of this policy today in our parish, for it produced generations of deacons who genuinely love and respect the service of the liturgy, and particularly that sacred service of the sanctuary. We can only pray that we pass this tradition on to coming generations.

I was blessed to serve with a sensible man. In the tug and pull of parish service, with so much respect heaped upon the clergy by the congregation and so much pressure to follow the faith to the letter, it is not uncommon to find clergymen who lose their common sense. But Fr Mina was not one to fall into the this trap too easily. Deep down inside him was a heart of genuine humility, a humility that was not for general display, but guided his every action nonetheless. This humility, this sense of his own weakness and fallibility was, I think, what kept his feet so firmly on the ground. Many times did I see him wisely rejecting more fanatical directions suggested by others in favour of things that made sense, and worked in the real world in which we live.

These things may not seem to be major virtues to some readers, but they made our a parish a pleasure to be a part of. The faith that was both encouraged and practiced was (and is) a real faith, a living faith, rather than a “pie in the sky” faith. People in general felt comfortable to be themselves around Fr Mina, and felt freed to express their love for God through the rites of the Church. Being themselves of course meant that again that one saw both the best and the worst of people; but isn’t that a better way of being Christian?

Fr Mina, you are fondly remembered. Pray for us.

Fr Ant