Whose Heritage Counts? Narratives of Coptic People’s Heritage

This paper examines whose voices narrate official Coptic heritage, what the in-built biases in representations of Coptic heritage are and why, and some of the implications of omissions in narratives of Coptic heritage. It argues that the primary narrator of official Coptic heritage during the twentieth century was the leadership of the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Coptic Orthodox Church is the body that holds authority over the sources of heritage, such as church buildings and manuscripts, and also has the resources with which to preserve and disseminate heritage. The Church hierarchy’s leadership was not entirely uncontested, however, a middle ground was continually negotiated to enable lay Copts to play various roles and contribute to the articulation of Coptic heritage. Ultimately, though, alternative voices must operate within the limits set by the Church leadership and also negotiate the layers of exclusion set by society and state.

Matthew the Poor: Towards Modern Birth Control Methods in the Coptic Orthodox Church

The paper is focused on the Matta el-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor) and his reflection of selected bioethical issue: birth control. The paper deals with the forming stages of the bioethical discussions within the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt. The research is based on Matthew the Poor´s articles and books. The first part presents his teachings about theosis as an key concept of his theology in general and bioethics in particular. The second part brings analysis of his birth control reflections and presents his observations about the role of the Church and the state in the decision making process of Christian believers.

A minority at the bar: Revisiting the Coptic Christian (in-)visibility

How do Coptic Christians make sense of a predominantly negated practice such as drinking and selling alcohol? What do they do when they are forced or voluntarily desire to join alcoholic spaces that are refused by ruling religious and social forces? In this article, I build on the unorthodoxy of beer and liquor as per the hegemonic Coptic Orthodox Church tradition of khidma in Egypt by pointing out to completely overlooked interactions that Coptic Christians have at alcoholic spaces. I argue that experiences of Coptic Christians at a bar complicate how and where Copts strive for a ‘visibility’ (i.e. recognition) in a country of a Muslim majority. Especially with the brutal crackdown on the post-2011 street activism following the 2013 coup, predominantly negated venues of entertainment and fun give us hints to important meanings of agency in the lives of members of the largest Christian minority in the Middle East.

Coptic and Ethiopic Historical Writing

This chapter focuses on how the Christians of Egypt and Ethiopia were closely connected by ecclesiastical bonds for nearly 1,700 years. The connection lasted from the time when Ethiopia's first bishop was consecrated by the Patriarch of Alexandria in the 340s, until the dependence of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church on the Coptic Orthodox Church ended formally in 1951. As a consequence of this long allegiance of the former Church to the latter, contacts in the cultural sphere developed strongly. The chapter shows how Coptic literature was written in two languages: in Coptic itself, written in an original alphabet that was based on the Greek, but expanded with seven letters borrowed from the Demotic writing system to represent sounds that did not exist in Greek; and in Arabic, as after about AD 700 Coptic began to lose its position as the language of the Egyptians.