Category Archives: Coptic Orthodoxy

A Charismatic Coptic Priest: Abouna Makary Younan (1934-2022)

by Febe Armanios

Abouna Makary
From Abouna Makary Younan’s program Shuraka’ Al-Masih (“Partners of Christ”), December 4, 2020 (YouTube)

On January 11, renowned Coptic Orthodox priest Abouna Makary Younan (1934-2022) died in Cairo of complications from COVID-19. His death quickly followed that of his wife Mama Souna, who suffered from the same illness and passed away on January 7. Based in the old Coptic Orthodox Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo’s Azbakiyya district, the oft-controversial preacher was famous for his charismatic style, for his miracles, singing, and capacity to perform exorcisms. Abouna Makary’s popularity grew exponentially since the mid-2000s, when his sermons and church services began to appear on Christian television channels in the Middle East. For more than fifteen years, he honed a particularly captivating televisual style that touched millions of viewers and influenced scores of preachers on Arabic Christian channels.

Sabry Younan ‘Abd al-Malik was born in the Upper Egyptian town of Maragha, near Sohag. He was educated to be a teacher and then worked as a government civil servant for several years, but after receiving a diploma from the Coptic Clerical College, his interest in devoting a life to the church intensified. While living in Cairo in the 1970s, he served with Abouna Zakaria Botros, priest at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Heliopolis. Then, Abouna Zakaria—a towering if controversial Christian media figure in his own right—was known for organizing a weekly meeting at St. Mark’s, attended by hundreds and marked by the practice of exorcisms and exuberant singing. It is said that Sabry honed his talents for leading praise and worship during these meetings.

Continue reading →

Human Rights and Persecution Economies

by Candace Lukasik | Ελληνικά

Earlier this year, I published a short piece with Anthropology News on Coptic Christian persecution in Egypt, American power, and racism in the United States. I then received a barrage of social media criticism claiming that I overemphasized racism against Copts in the US, and in so doing eschewed focus on persecution of Copts in Egypt. Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute wrote: “While some have experienced prejudice in America, [Copts] reject the attempt to create a moral equivalence between the persecution they faced in Egypt and whatever experiences they have in America…the Coptic experience in the United States has been extraordinarily successful, with Copts reaching heights they wouldn’t have dreamt of in Egypt.” Rather than noting the racialization of Copts alongside Muslims in America, by his account, I should draw attention to the relative success of American Copts and compare it to Muslim oppression of Copts in Egypt. In this modest response, I briefly elaborate on why American Coptic life must be taken on its own terms, and how the politicization of Coptic oppression in Egypt by American religio-political actors leads to real methodological issues.

As a minority Christian community in a majority Christian nation, American Copts are enmeshed in current debates on whiteness and American Christianity—whereby evangelical responses to racism have been theologically mired in individualism and consumed in culture wars, rather than the ways that broader social forces, institutions, and culture can constrain and shape social responses to societal ills. Earlier this summer, former attorney general Jeff Sessions, described to the New York Times how he considered his support of Trump from the standpoint of his faith as an evangelical Christian, and evoked the Copts as persecuted kin who turned to a strongman (Egyptian President al-Sisi) for protection: “And that’s basically what the Christians in the United States did [when they elected Trump]. They felt they were under attack, and the strong guy [like Sisi] promised to defend them. And he has.” Likewise, an older American Coptic man recently noted to me: “Trump is a Christian, and he’s trying to keep America a Christian nation. Under Obama, it was Happy Holidays! Now, we can say Merry Christmas again. We came to the US to escape discrimination in Egypt. We don’t want to be stripped of our rights as Christians here.” Although the diaspora offers opportunities to form new solidarities, the happy convergence of otherwise divergent persecution narratives has placed American Copts into vectors of political belonging with the Christian Right seeking to preserve a white, conservative Christian America. Sometimes at the expense of those very Copts.

Continue reading →

The Limitless Hope of Bishop Samuel (1920–1981)

by Samuel Kaldas | Ελληνικά

Bishop Samuel

Few Copts today remember Bishop Samuel, the first General Bishop of Ecumenical and Social Services. They do not hang his picture in their homes or keep it in their wallets as they do with his contemporaries like Pope Kyrillos VI or Pope Shenouda III. Those who have heard of him are likely to know little beyond the shocking manner of his death: he was killed in the crossfire during the assassination of President Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981—39 years ago today.

But long before that day and the bitter controversies surrounding it, Bishop Samuel had served as the public face of the Coptic Church under three successive patriarchs; he had been, in the words of John Watson, “in effect, the Coptic Orthodox Minister of Foreign Affairs,” and “the most famous Copt inside and outside Egypt.”[1] In fact, he was very nearly the 117th Pope of Alexandria himself; his name was one of the three in the altar ballot which selected Pope Shenouda III in 1971. Westerners who worked with him at conferences and ecumenical gatherings were consistently struck by his keen intellect and his open heart. When he met him in the early 1960s, Edward Wakin (late Fordham professor of communications) wrote: “He is the only member of the monastic elite who is addressing himself to the contemporary problems facing the Copts.”[2] After his death, he was remembered in The Times of London as “a small bustling man, with a big heart [who] will be missed by Christians in many parts of the world” (Obituary: Bishop Samuel, The Times, October 12, 1981).

Continue reading →

Coptic Orthodox Communion in the Age of COVID-19

by Febe Armanios | ελληνικά

Long handled Byzantine spoon

The Eucharist or communion is one of seven sacraments at the heart of the Coptic Orthodox faith. The sacrament takes place during the Liturgy of the Faithful—the “Anaphora,” which concludes with receiving communion. Copts consider communion as a “mystery.” They favor the older verbiage of “change,” meaning that the elements of communion literally turn into the body and blood of Christ, and avoid terms more commonly used in Western traditions such as “transubstantiation” (Catholicism) and “consubstantiation” (Lutheranism). But like many other Christians, Copts believe in the doctrine of the “Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.”

Communion wine in the Coptic Church today, as in most Orthodox churches, is distributed by a long-handled spoon which scoops the wine from the chalice into the mouth. Not too long ago, a Coptic parishioner expressed concern about this shared spoon that might be placed inside the mouths of dozens, if not hundreds, of parishioners during a single liturgy. In response, the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Southern United States stated that “[t]he holy body and holy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is a burning fire that purges and cleanses us from all sin. There is no documented evidence of any communicable diseases anywhere in the world stemming from partaking of the Holy Eucharist in this manner.” The Coptic Church is certainly not alone in this position: on the common spoon, the Orthodox Research Institute has also indicated that “from a purely microbiological perspective, the sweet red wine used in communion is typically high in alcoholic content” and therefore “invisible microbes that may enter our mouths from the previous communicant are harmless.”

Continue reading →