Recently, I have come across the movie “Severus, Bishop of Antioch” by our Coptic Church in Egypt. A highly ambitious project to tell a very complicated historical period where theological, political, and cultural factors converged to cause a split in the universal Church that have lasted to this day. In this crucial period in the history of Christianity, the Coptic Church and Bishop Severus of Antioch played a major role in how the events unfolded. In the dramatic climax of the movie, a theological debate between the bishop of Constantinople versus Severus and one of the bishops that supported him takes place. What follows is a translation from Arabic of part of that debate:

Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople: Does Divinity suffer? Does Divinity die?

Miaphysite bishop w/ Severus: Your words are similar to Nestorius — Nestorius, the one who was excommunicated by the Council of Ephesus due to his erroneous teaching. Nestorius put himself in a dilemma upon rejecting the teaching of Pope Cyril, the pillar of faith, he rejected it because didn’t understand them —- Yet, if we go back in history to the teachings of Pope Cyril, you will find the answer to your questions.

Macedonius: Let’s forget about history, and concentrate on the present

Miaphysite bishop: I reject your views and words and forgetting the history and only focusing on the present

              Now, without getting in the nuances of the historical details, the movie clearly dramatized and romanticized the story (if you are interested in such details, see the recommended readings below and/or follow the podcast).

 The complex reality is that both sides claimed Pope Cyril’s teachings for themselves and both claimed that history is on their sides^1,2,3,4. That dramatization of the past is not necessarily a problem on its own. After all, the point of these movies is not to educate and inform, but to influence the faithful to live a Godly life by taking the example of the saints.

However, the more pressing problem is that by ONLY telling our story in this way (or worse, not telling it at all), we are giving away our historical past to be told by others with their own biases and cultural baggage.

When we abandon our scholars and in turn, our scholars abandon us, someone else just fills the cultural vacuum-and usually with their own cultural biases and agenda

I want to be clear, the movies are not the problem. They are needed to reach to the vast majority of the Copts. My point is that we need to engage the world with our story in the way it respects, which is well-sourced plain facts. Polemical defenses of the faith and pseudo-historical accounts alone are not sufficient.

In other words, we need more Coptic scholars writing about Coptic issues, and we need those scholars to be willing to speak to and about the Copts. In addition to more Coptic Scholars, the Coptic Church and community must cultivate Coptic academics as a legitimate voice that has plenty to offer for the advancement of the Coptic people and faith.   

              The Coptic Church and Academia have a long and complicated history that goes back to the 2^nd Century. Origen, a scholar of the highest order and the dean of the School of Alexandria was banished from Alexandria and labeled a heretic in a power struggle³. Didymus the Blind, another dean of the School of Alexandria was more fortunate and his excellent relationship with St. Athanasius allowed him some academic freedom. Nonetheless, his works (but not his person) were deemed heretical almost 300 years after his death because they were connected to Origen⁵. Pope Cyril the 1^st declared that “Hellenic learning is vain and pointless and requires much effort for no reward”, yet because of that Hellenic learning, he was able to eloquently express his theology and his writings became the Orthodox standard¹. Even after the Arabs conquered Egypt, a family of Christian theologians in the thirteenth century, Awlad Al-‘Assal who wrote in Arabic and contributed immensely to the survival of the Coptic faith were secular scholars and existed on the fringes of the ecclesiastical hierarchy⁵.

 After all, we can’t afford to retreat to the comforts of our echo chamber by skipping over the complicated parts that makes our saints and Popes less than perfect. Their imperfections are what made their greatness real instead of imaginary superheroes.

Habib Girgis spent his whole life fighting for the basic principle that priests should have formal theological training before ordination and more than 50 years after his death, his dream is still unfulfilled⁶. Being part of the Church hierarchy didn’t spare him from hostility and personal attacks. Remarkably, he was accused of wasting money trying to teach his students and aspiring priests Hebrew and Greek⁶. Now, for any serious biblical scholar, Hebrew and Greek knowledge is essential. Habib Girigs was essentially attacked for trying to create a generation of Coptic biblical scholars who can read the Church fathers’ original works. Although, he failed on that front, his other project, the Sunday school movement, succeeded and his legacy as a saint survived despite his scholarly adventures.   

              Even in contemporary times, when Donna Rizk, a serious scholar eloquently and academically challenged many of the “traditional” views about women in the Coptic Church (example here), she got plenty of applaud but no serious changes or even discussions took place. To be ignored politely is in a way better than the hostility shown to the other historical academics, but really, it is not that far off.

              So, what happens when we abandon our scholars and in turn, our scholars abandon us? First, someone else just fills the cultural vacuum and usually with their own cultural biases and agenda. Second, we end up living in a closed ideological echo chamber where faith, culture, tradition, and history all becomes sacred objects not to be discussed or studied in any depth. 

              To illustrate those points, consider the figure Shenoute the Archemendrite whose picture is displayed above. In our echo chamber, he is a holy monk and a “shining light” that could do no wrong⁷. Other than a mention in commemoration of the saints in the liturgy, and a feast day where he gets paragraph in the Synaxarium (book of saints), he essentially gets very little attention from the Copts. In the Academic circles of the West though, he looms large as a very important historical figure that gets plenty of attention. There are at least 10 books published about him and various aspects of his world, with countless PhD dissertations dedicated to specific issues pertaining to him^8,9,10. Pretty much, western scholarship has covered every aspect one can imagine when it comes to his life and we have watched from the sideline.

              To understand why this is a tragedy, it is necessary to know a bit more about Shenoute than the paragraph he is given in the Synaxarium. Shenoute was a very complex man. He was a monk for his whole life, a hermit for extended period of time, a magnificent writer who wrote exclusively in Coptic and essentially elevated it as a literary language. But, he also had no problems using corporeal punishment as a mean of discipline for his monks and nuns, with one monk dying in the process of being disciplined⁸. He went on raids against rich crypto-pagans who were exploiting the poor peasants and violently destroyed their property⁹. The same was also done to the small pagan temples that still survived to his time. In his world, his flaws weren’t really a big deal and part of everyday life. In the end of the day, despite those flaws, he managed to grow his monastery from few individuals to about 4000 monks and nuns and play a massive role in the development of Egyptian Christianity.

It would be a shame if his flaws were to be taken out of context, magnified, and all other aspects of his life minimized to fit with the wider Western theme of how Christianity destroyed the Classical Culture. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened for so long in the academic literature about Shenoute. The only English translation of his life is preceded by an extremely negative introduction, where the author concludes that “in Egypt, the Monastic life failed to mature”¹⁰, and “the Caliphate counterbalanced the dismal story of Egyptian Christianity”¹⁰. These statements are problematic at so many levels. Coptic Monasticism safeguarded the native Miaphysite theology in the face of extreme pressures to bring the Egyptians and their Church under Byzantine domination². The Caliphate was a political system that oppressed the native Egyptians and forced them to choose between Islam or social and political marginalization¹⁴. The Caliphate “counterbalanced” the story of Egyptian Christianity in the very same way that European colonizers have “counterbalanced” the Native Americans.       

              Only in the last 10 years or so, somewhat more balanced accounts emerged^8,9. Nonetheless, it is clear that we have failed in telling the story of one of the greatest Coptic writers of all time and thus he was turned into a cartoonish, violent character in Western Academia. Shenoute was a great Coptic leader and we have completely failed him by not telling his story in a scholarly way to the world. As a result, we found the World telling us their version of his story.

Unfortunately, Shenoute is not the only Copt who we abandoned telling his story in a fair and a balanced way. The same can be said for many giants of Coptic history. Pope Theophilus is a “bad, bold man”¹¹, Pope Cyril the 1^st is a “villain”¹², even St. Athanasius have gotten plenty of hostility¹³.           

              To end on a good note, I would like to highlight a successful project that made telling the Coptic story to the world, a reality. This project is the Coptic Encyclopedia and it is exactly what is needed to preserve our heritage. Scholarly, encyclopedic in scope, and with contribution of over 200 scholars, it serves as an invaluable reference to the world on Coptic studies. Born from a lifetime of work by a great Coptic scholar and given life on the internet by a group of dedicated scholars who keep it up to date. It survives with financial backing from donations from Copts with a matching grant from a national endowment. It needs to continue to grow accompanied with other endeavors that are more specialized and detailed. More importantly, it must be embraced as a source of truth and gain wider acceptance within our community. After all, we can’t afford to retreat to the comforts of our echo chamber by skipping over the complicated parts that makes our saints and Popes less than perfect. Their imperfections are what made their greatness real instead of imaginary superheroes. As a community we must embrace and support our scholars, because we truly need them. The story of the Copts will be told one way or another, the question is – Who is going to tell it?   

References:

1-      Russell, N. (2010). Cyril of Alexandria. London: Routledge.

2-      Frend, W. H. (2008). The rise of the monophysite movement: Chapters in the history of the church in the fifth and sixth centuries. Cambridge: Clarke.

3-      Davis, S. J. (2017). Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian church and its leadership in late antiquity. S.l.: AMER UNIV IN CAIRO PRESS.

4-      Farag, L. M. (2014). The Coptic Christian heritage: History, faith, and culture. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

5-      Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia. Entries: Didymus, Origenist controversies, Awlad Al-‘assal http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/cce

6-      S. (2017). Habib Girgis: Coptic Orthodox educator and a light in the darkness. Yonkers, NY: St Vladimirs Seminary Press. Synexerium

7-      Lives of Saints :: Synaxarium. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/synexarion

8-      Krawiec, R. (2002). Shenoute and the women of the white monastery: Egyptian monasticism in late antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press.

9-      López, A. G. (2013). Shenoute of Atripe and the uses of poverty: Rural patronage, religious conflict and monasticism in late antique Egypt. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press.

10-   Bell, D. N. (1989). Besa: The Life of Shenoute. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, Incorporated.

11-   Gibbon, E. (1845). The decline and fall of the Roman Empire. London: Chesterfield Society.

12-   Moss, C. (2017, January 01). The Villain Who Gave Us ‘Mother of God’. Retrieved from https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-villain-who-gave-us-mother-of-god

13-   Barnes, T. D. (2006). Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

14-   Mikhail, M. S. (2016). From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, identity and politics after the Arab conquest. London: I.B. Tauris.