JULIAN - Coptic Wiki

The Monastery of St. Antony (RED SEA)

The Monastery of St. Antony (RED SEA) SAINT ANTONY, THE FATHER OF MONKS, found his final place of refuge in a cave in Mount Colzim (Qulzum) in the Wadi al-‘Araba near the Red Sea. A spring at the foot of the mountain supplied water and he planted a small garden. After his death in 356, […]

The Church of St. Mercurius (OLD CAIRO)

The Church of St. Mercurius (OLD CAIRO) THE CHURCH OF ST. MERCURIUS is part of a complex of three churches and a convent, also dedicated to St. Mercurius (Abu Sayfayn). St. Mercurius, “the Father of the Two Swords,” was a commander in the army of the Emperor Decius (249-251). On the eve of an important […]

Scetis

SCETIS A name that historically designated the area of monastic settlement extending about 19 miles (30 km) through the shallow valley known in the medieval period as Wad Habb, now called Wad al-Natrun, which runs southeast to northwest through the Western or Libyan Desert, about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the Nile Delta. In […]

Coptic Calendar

COPTIC CALENDAR The Coptic calendar, sometimes referred to as the Alexandrian Calendar, is based on the ancient Egyptian calendar of the solar year. This calendar system continued to be used by the Coptic Church. The Coptic year is divided into 12 months of 30 days each, followed by five more days, called epagomenai, as well […]

Coptic Calendar

COPTIC CALENDAR Early Egyptian Christians, like those elsewhere, took systems of reckoning time used in the world that they knew, modified them, and adapted them to their own observances and practices. The civil day of Christians in Egypt began in the morning, as did that of the ancient Egyptians and the Romans; but their liturgical […]

Gregorian Calendar

GREGORIAN CALENDAR A reform of the Julian calendar (see CALENDAR, JULIAN) was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in his bull Inter gravissimas of 24 February 1582. The commission that he had named with this in mind ultimately adopted most of the details of the project drawn up by a Calabrian astronomer, Luigi Giglio Ghiraldi (Aloysius […]

Julian Calendar

JULIAN CALENDAR The Roman adaptation of the Egyptian solar calendar introduced by Julius Caesar, with the technical aid of the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, in 46 B.C.; that year was extended to 445 days by intercalation in order to bring the civic year into line with the solar year. While the Egyptians divided the solar year […]

Julian Gaianus

JULIAN GAIANUS A Bishop. The controversy within the anti-Chalcedonian parties between Julian of Halicarnasus and Severus of Antioch led to the choice of two episcopal candidates after the death of the Patriarch Timothy of Alexandria (517-535): Theodosius (for the Severian party) and Gaianus (for the Julianist party). Although Theodosius received the most number of votes, […]

Christology

CHRISTOLOGY The study of the person of Christ with special reference to the union of the divine and human natures in the one person. From the New Testament we know that the early Christians regarded Christ as both God and man, but it was the task of later Christology to express this coherently in precise […]

Saint Copres

SAINT COPRES A monk and martyr. The Greek Synaxarion gives information at two dates about a martyr-monk by the name of Copres, who is named with another monk and a soldier called Alexander. It is not said where they at first led the ascetic life, and H. Delehaye, in “Les Martyrs d’Egypte” (1922, esp. p. […]