GABRIEL V (?-1427)

A Patriarch (88th, 1409-1427), liturgical reformer. Gabriel V was patriarch during a period of political instability, economic difficulties, and repeated outbreaks of plague, during which the Coptic community, like other dhimmi communities in Egypt, was regularly scapegoated and shaken down for funds.

The Muslim historian al-Maqrizi reports that Gabriel was obliged to travel barefoot from village to village in order to beg for aid. Still, Gabriel found the time and energy to reform the liturgy of the Coptic Orthodox Church by producing a Kitab Tartib or Ordo, setting forth the major offices of the Church and specifying prayers and gestures with great precision. This Ordo represents a gathering as well as a unifying and standardizing of earlier traditions. It was approved at a synod at the Church of Abu Sayfayn in Old Cairo on May 3, 1411.
See also CHURCH OF ST. MERCURIUS.

GAWDAT GABRA