Sinai – Coptic Wiki

Trinity and Oneness and the Incarnation (20)

Trinity and Oneness and the Incarnation Introduction Lord Jesus Christ, glory be to Him, told His disciples, “and you shall be witnesses to Me.” (Acts 1: 8) This witness is based on two main pillars: first, bearing witness to the true doctrine, and second, bearing witness through Christian behavior. It is not possible to […]

How to pray- The prayer response secret (2) (14)

How to pray- The prayer response secret (2) (14) Introduction Why are some people’s prayers answered, while others don’t!! as if they don’t pray, or pray to another God who doesn’t respond?! There is a secret in prayer’s responding: 1st: Expectation. 2nd: Patience. Patience is important not only in the spiritual life, but in […]

Figures in the Carpet and Monastic Spirituality in the Wadi al-Natrun (Scetis)

Figures in the Carpet: Macarius the Great, Isaiah of Scetis, Daniel of Scetis, and Monastic Spirituality in the Wadi al-Natrun (Scetis) From the Fourth to the Sixth Century Not many years ago I read a very good scholarly book on Palestinian monasticism in Late Antiquity. In my review of that book I observed, however, that […]

The Sabbath

The Sabbath The sanctity of the Sabbath was instituted at Creation. After His creative work of six days, God rested on the seventh day and hallowed it. By hallowing it, God set the seventh day apart. He consecrated it as holy. Proper observance of the Sabbath was one of the Ten Commandments given at Mount […]

The Glory of Christ

The Glory of Christ We tend to think of glory as something achieved by extraordinary athletic victories, business achievements, or personal fame. In the Bible, however, it has to do with the radiant shining forth of the transcendent majesty of God. At crucial moments the splendor of Jesus’ deity burst through the cloak of His […]

Funerary Aspects in the paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit

Funerary Aspects in the paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit Introduction Much has been written about the monastic settlement of Bawit and it seems a daring task to try and add something substantially new to this. First of all, we have limited access to the material on which we can base our conclusions. Only […]

St. Mary In The Coptic Rite

ST. MARY IN THE COPTIC[1] RITE It is too difficult to give an account of the prominent place of St. Mary in the Coptic Church in this short treatise. For St. Mary is commemorated and invoked in every daily hymn and liturgy, and even in every canonical hour, day and night. Various Marian feasts are […]

Icon of the Virgin Mary and Child. Achmim area provenance. Photograph courtesy of Gawdat Gabra..

Toward an Understanding of the ‘Akhmim Style’ Icons and Ciboria: the Indigenous and the Foreign[1]

Toward an Understanding of the ‘Akhmim Style’ Icons and Ciboria: the Indigenous and the Foreign[1] THE LATE FOURTEENTH-century painting by Gherardo Starnina, La Tebaide in Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, provides perhaps the last medieval visualized memory of the (ideal) Christian sacred landscape along the Nile in Upper Egypt, densely inhabited by hermits tending their […]

The fortified monastery and church was built by Byzantine emperor Justinian in ad 537. Not until the tenth century was the monastery dedicated to the virgin martyr St. Catherine.

St. Catherine’s Monastery (SINAI)

St. Catherine’s Monastery (SINAI) ST. CATHERINE’S MONASTERY, at the foot of Gebel Musa in the Sinai desert, was built in the sixth century by the Byzantine emperor Justinian (527-565). It is one of the earliest remote Christian monasteries, and the oldest still used for its original purpose. Anchorites had settled at the foot of the […]

Icon of the 'Heavenly Ladder' of St. John Climacus.

St. Cyril Melkite Catholic Church (HELIOPOLIS)

St. Cyril Melkite Catholic Church (HELIOPOLIS) THE CHURCH OF ST. CYRIL is located on al-Thawra Street, Corba, Heliopolis, Cairo. The church is dedicated to St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (412-444), who is considered one of the greatest figures of early Christianity because he defended the title of the Virgin Mary, “Mother of God,” against Nestorius. […]