J
John_of_Patmos
Guest
Is it just entropy?
I really wish the Copts and the Catholics would get back together…
I really wish the Copts and the Catholics would get back together…
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D
dzheremi
Guest
What makes you want this for the Copts specifically? 
J
John_of_Patmos
Guest
Wow, that was LIGHTNING fast!
Aren’t they sort of the foremost church within the Communion of Oriental Churches?
Aren’t they sort of the foremost church within the Communion of Oriental Churches?
D
dzheremi
Guest
Well they might think so, but no. The respect paid to the See of St. Mark is in turn given also to the Syriac Church, and the Armenian Church, and so forth. I am not aware of any such ranking, though for historical reasons it can seem otherwise.
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Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
Are you aware that there is a Coptic Catholic Church?
J
John_of_Patmos
Guest
Yeah, I was asking because I found the British Orthodox Church interesting.
Also, are the Coptic catholic pretty similar to the Coptic Orthodox, or are they latinized?
P
Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
British Orthodox Church? Never heard of it. Why would it make one think of the Copts?
Did you get the email I sent you?
J
John_of_Patmos
Guest
The British Orthodox are a mission church under the Copts.British Orthodox Church? Never heard of it. Why would it make one think of the Copts?
Did you get the email I sent you?
H
Hesychios
Guest
The problem with the Coptic Catholic church is that it was founded by RC missionaries, mostly Franciscan probably. They went in to convert Muslims and Copts to the Roman Catholic church.
Finding Muslims too hard to convince, they turned their efforts mainly on the local Christians of Egypt. Then finding this a tough sell, Latin Catholic priests adopted the Coptic liturgy in the villages in order to poach on the Coptic Orthodox (a tactic adopted in Ethiopia as well).
To their credit, these priests probably saved some villages from becoming completely Muslim, as the native church was shrinking and parishes had to be closed, the missioners were able to occupy and reopen some old Orthodox temples and gather a following among the few Christians left.
It was not anything like the Union of Brest nor the Melkite union. It was not a portion of the Coptic synod agreeing to submit to Rome. It was an entirely made to order church, and does not represent any kind of reconciliation attempt, it was more like a replacement attempt.
P
Phillip_Rolfes
Guest
Wow! I wasn’t aware of that. How sad, on the one hand that it was more a matter of “poaching” than reconciliation. But ironically how also happy that they were able to keep some souls within the Christian family.
T
Trebor135
Guest
Agreed.
Those Catholic clergy missionizing Muslims surely had a tough time of it, given how inhospitable the soil of the whole region must have been. Any converts from Islam to Christianity could reasonably expect to be shunned by their families, killed by vigilantes, or executed by the state–not a fate to which most folks have much interest in exposing themselves.
St. Mary, All-Holy Theotokos, pray for the conversion of Egypt’s seventy or so million Muslims and their coreligionists everywhere.
D
dzheremi
Guest
In light of the information presented by Hesychios, I don’t know if “Latinized” is the right word to use, but they seem pretty different to me. With the caveat that I have never been to a Coptic Catholic Church (they are hard to find; it is a very, very small church), I must say that I am certainly less than impressed by what I have seen online. But here are two videos to compare for yourself:
A portion of the Coptic Orthodox Liturgy, celebrated in Tennessee: youtube.com/watch?v=Nq_oqnh2oDQ&feature=related
The Coptic Catholic liturgy, as presented by Noursat TV channel in Lebanon: noursat.tv/en/vod.php?vid=1&pid=62
As someone who has been attending the Coptic Orthodox liturgy for almost a year now, I do not find much to connect to with the Coptic Catholic liturgy. It seems foreign. Some of this is probably due to its setting (the guy opening the liturgy on Noursat appears to be a Maronite or otherwise non-Coptic; such chanting is certainly foreign to the Coptic Church, but just the same would not be likely to find in this setting elsewhere, i.e., were it not filmed in Lebanon). Much of it is probably indicative of the difference between the Coptic Catholics and the Coptic Orthodox.
T
Trebor135
Guest
Back to the original topic…
*The Catholic and Coptic Churches signed a joint christological agreement in 1994, but this alone isn’t enough to heal the separation.
Unfortunately, much more than “entropy” is at play. The Catholic and Oriental Orthodox Churches don’t see eye to eye on a number of issues. In the areas both of doctrine and discipline, several points of divergence can be given: the christology as expressed at the Council of Chalcedon*, the filioque, papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction, the immaculate conception of St. Mary, purgatory, indulgences, the mode of baptism, priestly celibacy, and fasting rules throughout the liturgical year.
*The Catholic and Coptic Churches signed a joint christological agreement in 1994, but this alone isn’t enough to heal the separation.
C
Caspar
Guest
I think one of the greatest problems is the sometimes nasty divisions between the different Orthodox state churches themselves.
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
What does that have to do with the Copts in particular?
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Trebor135
Guest
Indeed. The Copts are about as close to being a state church as Trebor135 is to being the king of Saudi Arabia.What does that have to do with the Copts in particular?
Perhaps Caspar was referring to what may look like “ethnic churches” among the Oriental Orthodox.
D
dzheremi
Guest
You have to be profoundly ignorant of Christian history to look at the Oriental churches and accuse them of “ethnic” chauvinism (or whatever it means to call a church “ethnic”). The Coptic Church in particular has counted Romans, Syrians, Armenians, Ethiopians, Sudanese, Libyans, and others among its ranks, as laypersons, monastics, and even Popes (i.e., the “Coptic” Pope was not always ethnically Coptic). In addition to this, through the direct influence and teaching of the holy St. Athanasius the Apostolic during his two exiles in Western Europe and the spread of St. Antony’s monastic teachings and the others of the Desert Fathers, Coptic Christianity had a huge formative impact on Western Christianity. Other events recorded in the history of the church of Egypt also attest to pervasive Coptic influence on Christian practice in such far off locations as Switzerland, Britain, and Ireland.
It is hard to believe these days, but at one time (extending over several centuries) the Oriental churches were among the most cosmopolitan in the world. Maybe only the Nestorians did more legwork in spreading Christianity in the early post-Apostolic era, but the vast majority of their churches are now gone, just like the Orientals lost their churches in Libya, most of Sudan, and Mauritania, or the Latins lost theirs in what is now Algeria and Tunisia.
The expansion of the Coptic Church (and the Eastern churches, too) into places that did not previously know Orthodoxy (Mexico, Bolivia, Fiji, etc.) in recent decades shows that this missionary spirit is still very much alive. Check the video in my sig. An “ethnic” church? It sure is! A church of Mexicans, Bolivians, Fijians, South Africans, Afro and Asian Canadians, etc.
(If I do nothing else here, I really hope I can help to dispel this idea that “ethnic” churches are somehow less open to people outside of their geographical origin. It’s just not true.)
D
Dollinger
Guest
St Leo and Chalcedone, and dioscorus and many other things. Good luck.
H
Hesychios
Guest
You write like someone full of pre-conceived notions, like you have been reading a lot of Adrian Fortescue and David Armstrong or something like that.
If you ratchet the rhetoric down a bit I am sure we can have a lot of fruitful discussions.
kind regards
T
Trebor135
Guest
I was not accusing the Oriental Orthodox of being ethnically chauvinistic, having not looked into the history. (It has been delightful to see your YouTube links here and in other threads which indicate that Coptic Orthodoxy is spreading in such places as Fiji, however.) I was merely parsing what Caspar seemed to be driving at by his comment about “state churches”, without intending to signal agreement with it.
Let’s return to the topic of the OP.
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