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Mercurius Of Caesarea, Saint

MERCURIUS OF CAESAREA, SAINT A Roman army officer who was martyred in the third century in Caesarea, Cappadocia, and is credited with many subsequent miraculous appearances. Known in Arabic as Abu Sayfayn, he is commemorated by the Coptic church on 25 Hatur. In addition, two other feast days are observed in memory of this saint: …

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Coptic Translations Of Old Testament

Bible / By Armia FAYEZ

COPTIC TRANSLATIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT The earliest of the Coptic translations of the Old Testament, like those of the New Testament, remain obscure. Christianity first took root in Alexandria, a city predominantly inhabited by Greeks, who had no need of a translation of the Greek Bible (the Old Testament in the form of the Septuagint). …

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Saint Pachomius (292-346)

Eminent / By Armia FAYEZ

SAINT PACHOMIUS (292-346) founder of cenobitic monasticism (feast day: 14 Bashans). He was born of pagan parents in Upper Egypt. His first contact with Christianity occurred in 312, when he was a conscript in the Roman army. As a soldier, he experienced great acts of charity from a local community of Christians whose members brought …

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Evagrius Ponticus

Eminent / By Armia FAYEZ

EVAGRIUS PONTICUS (345-399) monk and writer with Origenist views. The life of Evagrius is known from the chapter that PALLADIUS devoted to him in his Historia lausiaca (chap. 38). He was born about 345 at Ibora, in the province of Pontus. In his youth he was a disciple of the two Cappadocian fathers, BASIL OF …

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Coptic Music

Heritage / By Armia FAYEZ

COPTIC MUSIC Description of the Corpus and Present Musical Practice The following remarks pertain only to the music of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Other Christian churches in Egypt (Greek Orthodox, Coptic Catholic, Protestant, etc.) have their own musical practices. Coptic music, an expression of a proud and constant faith, still lives today among the Copts …

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John Iv The Faster, Saint (D. 595)

Eminent / By Armia FAYEZ

JOHN IV THE FASTER, SAINT (d. 595) Patriarch of Constantinople engaged in a controversy over a title with two popes. John, born in Cappadocia, was called the Faster (Jejunator in Greek) because of his extreme asceticism. As patriarch from 582 to 595 he took the title “Oecumenical [universal] Patriarch,” which had been given to his …

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Elkasites

Books, Eminent / By Armia FAYEZ

ELKASITES A name occurring in variant spellings in several patristic texts and referring either to an allegedly revelatory book or to a religious teacher. Details about a book connected with the name Elchasai or Elxai are found in Hippolytus’ Refutation and in the Panarion of Epiphanius. In Hippolytus, Elchasai is assigned a role in the …

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Didache

Books / By Youssef Matta

DIDACHE ديداخي/ديداكي A work, also known as The Teaching of the Apostles, discovered in 1873 by the Metropolitan Bryennios in a Greek manuscript written in 1056 (now Codex 54 in the Library of the Greek Patriarch in Jerusalem), which also contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Epistles of Clement of Rome. The Greek text …

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Didascalia

Books / By Youssef Matta

DIDASCALIA دسقولية The complete title of this third-century work is Didascalia id est doctrina catholica duodecim apostolorum et discipulorum sanctorum Salvatoris nostri (Instructions, That Is, Catholic Doctrine, of the Twelve Apostles and Holy Disciples of Our Savior). Although originally written in Greek, it is currently extant in a Syriac translation and extensive Latin fragments. Portions …

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Eikoston

Places / By Youssef Matta

EIKOSTON One of the monasteries in the coastal strip separating Lake Mareotis from the sea, west of Alexandria. The site has not been located. Like the ENATON or the OKTOKAIDEKATON, it was so called from the number of milestones (in this case twenty) separating it from Alexandria (Raabe, 1895, pp. 64-65). According to R. Raabe, …

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