A few weeks ago during a dinner conversation with my wife, we contemplated what our 2 year old toddler would think of herself as she grows up. Would she think of herself culturally as an American, Egyptian, or Copt?
When learning our history, we should aim to understand what made us who we are and our collective identity.
My wife quickly concluded that it doesn’t really matter what her cultural identity will be, for as long as she is a good Christian, she will be okay. I nodded in agreement, but the question has stuck and grew in my mind ever since.
If she will be culturally American, as one would naturally expect, will she be able to reconcile the cultural idiosyncrasies between the world inside and outside the church? If she can’t, could she still be a good Christian?
Ideally, by the time she grows up, the Coptic Church in America (or more generally, the Coptic Church outside of Egypt) would change enough to be able to accommodate her generation’s cultural values, and appeal to the currently elusive “American-Copt.”
This Americanization of the church is already happening but with varying speed and many challenges. Whether in the establishment of mission churches with the explicit goal of catering to converts and second generation Copts or the slow erosion of some Egyptian customs—like standing throughout the entire service, or kissing the priest’s hand as a greeting, this Americanization or more accurately globalization is slowly moving forward (Telushkin, 2018). A complementary solution would be to enhance and promote our Coptic identity, along with the shedding of unnecessary cultural baggage. To do that, we must know our history and how it shapes our identity.
If we use [our history] to normalize and accept injustices then it is bad, but if we use it to stand up against unethical and immoral situations and to keep the faith despite societal pressure, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
When learning our history, we should aim to understand what made us who we are and our collective identity. We should also clearly see that change is inevitable, and despite protest, long-standing traditions erode with time and get replaced with other traditions. For example, Deaconesses were a part of the universal Orthodox Church through its first millennium, but for various cultural reasons they disappeared around the 10th century (Karras, 2004). And recently, there is a renewed interest in reinstating the tradition(LACOPTS, 2016).
Finally, learning our history promotes and enhances our cultural values, thereby giving our children a strong identity they are proud of and therefore pass it on to their children as well. To advance these goals, I have created a podcast called “The History of the Copts” that I hope will be my small contribution toward “standing fast and holding to what you were taught” (2 Thes 2:15).
Now to be clear, I am not advocating for antiquated nationalistic ideas pushing the view of how great the Copts are, or how Copts are the source of everything good in the world. That’s more propaganda than history. Not to mention, our kids are sophisticated and skeptical enough to see through it. We shouldn’t use the knowledge of our history to cultivate Coptic nationalism.
Nationalism is a dangerous and a problematic idea, and I am defining nationalism as George Orwell (1945) saw it, which is by “identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.” That kind of thinking leads to things like alternative facts, hypocrisy, and doubling down on our mistakes.
In my Podcast, I tell the facts as they are. The Copts are a complex people; they had their great moments, but they have also had their bad ones. The point is not to glorify the past and resist change, but to see the pillars of our identity and how they came to be, then use that knowledge for a brighter future.
Those pillars of identity have formed in response to various geopolitical events in our history. They are neither good nor bad on their own; instead, they are just the things instilled in us as children that form our core values and ideologies.
For example, in America our society has an extremely high regard for values like Democracy, rule of law, check and balances, and separation of Church and State, all of which can be traced directly to America’s first generation’s obsession with tyranny and avoiding it. The Copts have their values as well, but with much more ancient and deep-rooted causes. Some of those values are Holy suffering, religiosity, political pacifism (whether it is passivism or pacifism is an interesting debate, but for another day) and a complementary relationship between Church and State. This list is obviously not all inclusive, but rather are just a few clear examples. These ideologies not only can be clearly identified in our history, but shape how we see the world around us today and how we react to it.
For example, let’s examine Holy Suffering and the development of “The Martyr Church” discourse. It was entrenched in the Copts early on with the Martyrdom of St. Mark. A couple of centuries after St. Mark, Pope Dionysius exalted it as a defense against government-sponsored persecution. It went further with the “Great Persecution” of Diocletian and the zeal by which Christians in Egypt were punished, and the resultant martyrdom of Pope Peter (Davis, 2017).
The Coptic identity is transforming in front of our eyes from a religious minority based in Egypt to a global ethno-religious group that is anchored by a global Coptic Church.
It was the ideology leaned on time and time again to deal with the pressures from Islam after the Arabs conquered Egypt. It is entrenched in our parents, in us, and will probably continue in our kids. How we use it, and whether it is a good or bad ideology is up to us. If we use it to normalize and accept injustices then it is bad, but if we use it to stand up against unethical and immoral situations and to keep the faith despite societal pressure, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Sometimes, those pillars of identity formed from events that have nothing to do with our church or Christianity. For example, if you ever wondered why the Copts never developed a civil law of their own (Church cannon is not civil law) or had an effective education system outside of the church (at least up to the 19th century), or why everything must flow from and through the church? Well, our history can give us plenty of answers. I emphasize again, this religiosity is not good or bad on its own; rather, its benefits or harms are decided by how we use it.
To sum things up, I am advocating for paying attention to our identity as Copts and I am using our history to do so. I also hope that I can inspire you to do the same in your own way. The Coptic identity is transforming in front of our eyes from a religious minority based in Egypt to a global ethno-religious group that is anchored by a global Coptic Church. We should both encourage the globalization of the church, while simultaneously promoting a Coptic identity in future generations, so that when my 2 year old daughter grows up she can proudly declare her Coptic heritage, be free of any unnecessary cultural shackles, and be a proud member of our Coptic Church.
As a minor footnote, The Coptic identity I am advocating for is not an Egyptian identity or even a Christian-Egyptian identity. They overlap to some extent today, but with the growth of our church in Africa and South America as well as the growing up of second and third generation Copts in the west, the “Egyptian” part is becoming less relevant. This is not a rejection of the homeland or some sort of cultural elitism. It is also not a call to leave the Copts in Egypt to their own fate and forge forward. It is simply acknowledging the fact that being an Egyptian is no longer a prerequisite to being a Copt. The Coptic identity I am advocating for is a global one with roots in Egypt but open to all who self-identify as Copts, regardless of their ethnic background.
Jonathan Adly is a Coptic father, church servant, and a Pharmacist. He writes and produces the “History of the Copts” Podcast. He is an avid reader and in the process of completing my MBA. In his spare time, Jonathon is either running or hanging out with my his wife and daughter.
A brief view of the History of the Copts Podcast:
This Podcast explores the history of the Copts from the Roman annexation of Egypt in 30 BC through Islam. Special emphasis is placed on the development of the Coptic identity as an ethno-religious group. I have taken great care to try as best as possible to avoid bias by relying on mostly non-Coptic scholars and on academic books that are sourced and went through the necessary academic rigor. A full list of the sources and other information is posted with each episode. If you are planning to listen, I ask you to patient with the first couple of episodes when I was still trying to figure things out.
If you would like to contribute to the Coptic Voice, please send an email with your bio and topic of interest to CopticvoiceUS@gmail.com
Further readings and references:
Seham Helmi
2 May 2018Very well written. Love it!