Coptic liturgy

Liturgy held a prominent place in the life of a Christian in 3rd to 9th century Egypt. Liturgical celebrations structured time, marked religious identity, and informed popular understanding of Christianity. Compared to its significance, it is little known in the historical research due to their marginal presence in literary and documentary sources. Our main access to Christian liturgy is through liturgical manuscripts, which are preserved on papyrus, parchment, ostraca, and wooden tablets from throughout the period. This thesis intends to serve as an introduction to this neglected genre. Besides establishing a corpus of 324 edited liturgical papyri, it addresses problems of dating, provenance, materiality, practical use, and language. The palaeographical dates assigned by the editors are revised, and a chronology of the most frequent writing style, the sloping majuscule, is established. The corpus originating from the monasteries and churches of the Theban necropolis is discussed in detail, where the richness of sources allows for a reconstruction of the liturgy in its late 6 th to 8 th century state. Since liturgical papyri are also the earliest liturgical manuscripts preserved, a chapter is devoted to their material features and the implications for the process of the transmission of liturgical texts. Noting the high proportion of informal copies, the thesis addresses the question of how these single sheets and ostraca were used. The observation of their materiality implies that they rarely served as amulets or in education and usually supported the performance of the services. The early evolution of the liturgical books is also introduced. Finally, the changing relationship between Greek and Coptic in the different parts of the services is tracked. From these discussions a history of writing the Christian liturgy in Egypt emerges. In addition, the thesis provides the edition and reedition of sixteen prayers in order to highlight the possibilities of the material still awaiting exploration.

Our Coptic Orthodox Church uses three liturgies in its Eucharistic prayer: St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory
Theologian and St. Cyril (or St. Mark, as it is known as the liturgy written by St. Mark completed by St. Cyril of
Alexandria). This paper will focus on the last two in attempt to compare their literary structure, content and describing
the theological distinctive message of each.

Edition with philological, theological and liturgical commentary of a Coptic prayer preserved on a papyrus from the seventh or eighth century in the collection of the University of Oslo Library (inv. 1665). The prayer, which accompanied the consecration of the wine in the chalice in the presence of already consecrated bread, has a coda in Greek signalling the ensuing oral recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

In Christ’s final prayer to the Father in Gethsemane, He prays for His disciples – and by extension His Church – that, “they be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You.” (Jn 17:20) This unity with the Triune God occurs mystically in the liturgical life of the Church, most especially in the Divine Eucharist, where, to quote The Prayer of Submission to the Father of the Anaphora of Mark in its Coptic recension, the gathered community prays to be made, “partakers of the body, partakers of the form, and partakers in the succession of Christ,” shortly before partaking of the Divine mysteries. This unity does not stop at the personal sanctification of the communicant, but implies by necessity a missionary witness to the person and work of Christ. The Church’s liturgical tradition therefore provides a particularly relevant angle to discuss the topic of the Church’s witness in the contemporary world. In this article, two examples from the Coptic liturgical tradition are examined as giving particular insight on aspects of Orthodox witness in the contemporary world.

(https://www.aschendorff-buchverlag.de/detailview?no=21766)

The Coptic eucharistic liturgy begins with a public ritual known as the prothesis rite, in which oblations of bread and wine are chosen and placed on the altar. While preparatory rites of this kind are common throughout Christendom, it is only in the Egyptian tradition that this rite takes center stage as a public activity involving both clergy and laity.

In The Presentation of the Lamb, Ramez Mikhail traces the evolution of the Coptic prothesis from its simple late antique origins to the middle ages, focusing on liturgical practices in Northern Egypt. Drawing upon a wide array of textual and material evidence, Mikhail provides the first study charting the evolution of any part of the Coptic Eucharist in such detail. The result is a fascinating glimpse into liturgical change in the Coptic liturgy in Islamic Egypt. In addition to a meticulous analysis of the Coptic prothesis, this work is an essential resource for the study of the Coptic liturgy generally, representing an indispensable reference for a host of primary sources, most of which are provided here for the first time in English.

https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823298327/guides-to-the-eucharist-in-medieval-egypt/

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed a rising interest in Arabic texts describing and explaining the rituals of the Coptic Church of Egypt. This book provides readers with an English translation of excerpts from three key texts on the Coptic liturgy by Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, Yūh.annā ibn Sabbā‘, and Pope Gabriel V. With a scholarly introduction to the works, their authors, and the Coptic liturgy, as well as a detailed explanatory apparatus, this volume provides a useful and needed introduction to the worship tradition of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. Presented for the first time in English, these texts provide valuable points of comparison to other liturgical commentaries produced elsewhere in the medieval Christian world.

First edition of a tenth-eleventh century parchment sheet found during excavations in the Monastery of Naqlun (Dayr al-Malâk, Fayoum). The sheet contains informal copies of two hymns in Fayoumi-Sahidic. The longest of these is an acrostic hymn on the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, which reflects the direct influence of the rich Coptic Dormition literature. Both hymns are interesting witnesses to the Sahidic Antiphonary.

Although witnesses of the presanctified liturgy exist in almost all Eastern
traditions, so far, a complete liturgical text of an Alexandrian liturgy of
the presanctified gifts has not been published or made known. This study
will publish and analyze for the first time the only such text known in the
Alexandrian liturgical tradition, the Presanctified of Mark from the 13thcentury
codex Sinai ar. 237. The text appears in 3 folios of this codex, and
appears clearly to be a presanctified liturgy based on the Liturgy of St.
Mark in its Greek Melkite recension. This article includes the original Arabic
text, followed by an English translation, and a detailed analysis of the
liturgical units comprising this unique text that seeks to situate it in its
proper liturgico-historical context.

Liturgical papyri are prime witnesses to the history of liturgy and the religious and theological currents in late antique Egypt.These items from the third to ninth century preserve hundreds of Greek and Coptic hymns, prayers, and acclamations, most otherwise unknown but some still recited by the Coptic Church. Ágnes T. Mihálykó offers the first extensive introduction to the liturgical papyri, facilitating the reader's access to them with a detailed inventory of edited manuscripts and an extensive discussion of their date and provenance. She also examines liturgical papyri as the first preserved liturgical manuscripts, describing their material features, the ways they were used, the early history of the liturgical books, and their languages. She reveals how liturgical texts were written down and transmitted and locates these important manuscripts in the book culture of late antique Egypt.

Fr. Athanasuis El Maqari is a monk from the monastery of St. Macaruis in Wadi Natrun, the ancient Scetis2. He wrote
over 40 books in Arabic explaining the development of Coptic Ritual in comparison with other churches’ rituals. In my
paper I will focus on his first book about the Divine Quddās3, the writer divided his book into two main sections: the first
one, Introduction to the Divine Quddās, the second one: the sections of the Divine Liturgy.
I will divide my paper into three main section or words driven from the book: First on Eucharist’s meaning, second on
the Leitourgia’s meaning, third on ritual meaning. In the conclusion section, I will show the infusion between what I have
read, learned in this course. I admit that I started to have a change in my thought in looking to some practices I used to
do which made the liturgy is dysfunctional by the issues of cook book, validity and clericalism. I did not know the name
of this dysfunction but I knew there is something goes wrong.

In 1936, Le Muséon published an article by the famous Coptic scholar Oswald Hugh Ewald Burmester on the Coptic liturgy in the presence of the Patriarch or a bishop. In this brief six-page article, Burmester briefly described the rubrics of the preparation of the Eucharistic oblations (prothesis) in the patriarchal and episcopal liturgy from a manuscript found in the church of St. Barbara in Qaṣr al-Sham‘ in Old Cairo, and dated AM 1276 (= AD 1560). Unfortunately, Burmester did not consider all the available sources for the Coptic patriarchal liturgy with their rich liturgical details, a shortcoming that is rectified in this article. To do so, a more thorough and systematic analysis of the patriar-chal prothesis rite is presented based on additional sources of this fascinating ritual. These sources are the description in Coptic Patriarchate 74 Lit. (AD 1444), the so-called Baramūs Codex, Baramūs 6/278 (AD 1514), and an addendum to ibn Kabar’s description of the liturgy in Uppsala O. Vet. 12 (AD 1546), one of the manuscripts of his work the Lamp of Darkness. Altogether, these newly analyzed sources reveal precious details about the Cop-tic medieval patriarchal prothesis rite, and pave the way towards a more nuanced view of Late Antique and Medieval Coptic liturgy.

" To date the research on the church architecture in Nubia has consistently failed to differentiate, territorially and historically, between two different Nubian kingdoms " (Godlewski 2006b) and one could add the third, Alodian, kingdom to this. The author's involvement in a project to publish the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago excavations at the Qasr el-Wizz monastery has generated this study of the early architectural history of the katholikon at Qasr el-Wizz and its development, analyzed in the context of studies on Nubian Christianity. Due to a rampant misuse of terminology referring to the functional parts of churches in Nubian studies, a review of this vocabulary was deemed essential as a background for a presentation of the late George T. Scanlon's views on the development of this particular church, followed by the present author's addenda et corrigenda, and a discussion and conclusions for the study of Christian Nubian sacral architecture.

هذا البحث يمثّل تأصيلاً لصلاة الشكر الصغرى كما تعرفها الليتورجيا القبطية. في هذا البحث سأقوم بتقديم الجذور اليهودية و الإنجيلية لهذه الصلاة كما سأقدم مقارنة لنص الصلاة كما يعرفها التقليد القبطي السكندري مع نص الصلاة كما يحتفظ بها التقليد اليوناني السكندري. و سأقوم بتتبع تطور النص من الناحية التاريخية معتمدًا في ذلك على مقارنة المخطوطات المختلفة لهذه الصلاة.   


هذا المقال هو نسخة مُراجعة من المقال الذي  نُشر  لأول مرة في مجلة المباديء اللاهوتية العدد الأول
http://prinj.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/vol1iss1/

This paper presents an annotated English translation of the rite of Vespers contained in the Melkite Alexandrian Arabic Book of Hours (Horologion) found in the 13th century Christian Arabic manuscript Sinai Arabic 232. Most of the texts comprising this service have been identified from the contemporary Greek Horologion, the Constantinople Euchologion and the Coptic Agpeya.
This very unusual combination is discussed. While further research on Sin. Ar. 232 and other Arabic Horologia is necessary before we may draw more definitive conclusions, enough seems clear at this point to suggest that the Egyptian Melkites originally used a Hierosolymitan type Horologion and that this, in due time, was both Alexandrinised and Byzantinised. We can therefore say that Sin. Ar. 232 is an Egyptian redaction of a Middle Byzantine Horologion with archaic Hierosolymitan features.
No other Arabic Horologia have been studied to date, and no earlier Melkite or Coptic Alexandrian Horologia are known. Considerable further research on Arabic Horologia is needed.

At the climax of the Coptic Great Friday service, the Coptic tradition observes certain ritual practices of a clear physical nature, inviting the bodily participation of those present. These practices are namely a series of one hundred prostrations in each cardinal direction, followed by a seven-fold procession of the cross and burial icon of Christ around the church’s altar and nave. The procession culminates in the “entombment” of this same icon on the altar, covered with rose petals and spices and wrapped in a white cloth. In this article, I explore the phenomenon of bodily participation inherent in these rituals. This is accomplished by analyzing the origins of these rituals in relation to the liturgical traditions of other Eastern Christian communities as well as within the historical development of the Coptic liturgical tradition.

Cet article vise à introduire le lecteur au contexte général de l'architecture développée par l'Église éthiopienne en fonction de sa liturgie. Les plus impor-tants repères observables dans les églises seront décrits. Grâce à eux il est possible d'étudier le développement des églises en relation avec le dévelop-pement de la liturgie dans le contexte des Églises de la vallée du Nil. Cette méthode est d'autant plus importante pour documenter certains aspects de l'histoire de la liturgie que les manuscrits liturgiques guèzes ne sont consul-tables qu'à partir des XIV e-XV e siècles. i. corrélation dEs liturgiEs Et dEs églisEs égyptiEnnEs Et éthiopiEnnEs La liturgie eucharistique est célébrée en Éthiopie et en Érythrée selon la tradition apostolique reçue de l'Égypte. Elle continua de se développer dans sa ligne originale qui lui a progressivement donné ses traits régionaux, encore en évolution. Parce que les églises sont des bâtiments utilitaires conçus pour la célébra-tion concrète de la liturgie, la façon dont elles ont été construites et la façon dont certains éléments architectoniques ont été disposés en reflètent d'im-portants aspects.

The horologion contained in Sin. Ar. 232 is not easy to situate geographically.  Many of the elements, canticles and prayers, are found in today’s rite, although not always at the same place.  Others have not yet been identified in the service books.  The proposed date of the 13th century seems the most likely in the absence of a colophon.  The psalms are distributed as in today’s rite, apart from the exceptions mentioned above in Prime, which follows on directly from Mattins, and the addition of psalm 50 as a fourth psalm in the mesoria.  As I have shown in my earlier articles, the saints commemorated, particularly in Compline and the Midnight Office, show a strong Egyptian influence.  However, these saints are accompanied by typical saints indicating Sinai.  The presence of Saint Sabbas may be linked to the monastery of Saint Sabbas at Alexandria, and Alexandrian origins would explain many of the ritual particularities that can be observed in the offices. 

N.B. the published version contains some small changes and improvements.

Partindo de uma leitura da "História do Patriarcado Copta de Alexandria", crônica oficial desta instituição, este trabalho tem por objetivo reconstituir, de forma sinóptica, o funcionamento econômico da Igreja Copta nos estágios iniciais do Egito islâmico – ou seja, desde a conquista do Vale do Nilo pelos árabes, em 641, até as vésperas da tomada da região pelos fatímidas, em 969. No âmbito de tal reconstituição, deu-se especial atenção às assimétricas interações econômicas entre o governo islâmico e a comunidade cristã egípcia, e às estratégias de arrecadação praticadas pelos diferentes tipos de profissionais vinculados à Igreja Copta – tais como monges, bispos, clérigos casados e patriarcas. Espera-se que o texto contribua para a elaboração de uma futura história comparada da administração eclesiástica na Antiguidade Tardia e no Medievo.