الموضوع: The Coptic Orthodox Church
عرض مشاركة مفردة
  #1  
قديم 02-03-2006
jesus_4_us jesus_4_us غير متصل
Registered User
 
تاريخ التّسجيل: May 2004
الإقامة: Waiting_4_ place in the Heaven
المشاركات: 858
jesus_4_us is on a distinguished road
flower The Coptic Orthodox Church



The Coptic Orthodox Church



The Establishment of the Church and its Creed


The church was established in Alexandria between 55 and 68 A.D. by St. Mark, one of the 70 Apostles of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the church is the same one that is cited in the New Testament according to the teaching of Jesus Christ and his Apostles (Mt. 16:18; 24:14). The Church believes in Jesus Christ, the Son of Man (Mk. 8:31, 38), Son of God (Mt. 3:17), and God (Jn. 14: 8-11), who was born through the Spirit of God to St. Mary 2,000 years ago (Mt. 1:18-23). He came to our earth to give salvation to mankind through his crucifixion on the cross (Mt. 27:27-44). After his death, Jesus was buried for three days in a tomb (Mt. 27:57-61), and on the third day his resurrection took place (Mt. 27:62-63). He appeared to his disciples (Mt. 28:16-20) relatives, and others. After 50 days, Jesus ascended to Heaven (Mk. 16:19). St. Paul emphasized such faith as follows: "He [God] was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the word, taken up in glory" (I Tim. 3:16). The Fathers of the Church summarize their faith according to the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament: "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Mt. 28:16-20), Three in One."



Pope Discorus of the fifth century A.D. as well as all the Alexandrian Fathers believed in and taught the pure Orthodox faith of their predecessors. Pope Discorus says the following concerning the Faith of the Coptic Orthodox Church: "If a piece of iron, heated to white heat, be struck on the anvil, it is the iron which receives the blows and not the white heat, though the iron and the heat form an indivisible whole. The unit of the iron and the white heat is symbolic of our Saviour’s incarnation, whose divinity never parted from his humanity, not even for a moment nor the twinkling of an eye. Yet though His divinity parted not from His humanity, their union was without mixing nor fusion, nor change, like unto the union of the iron and the white heat." The Fathers of the Alexandrian School define this union as "The one Nature of God the Word made "flesh" and is synonymous with St. John’s saying "the Word was made flesh" (Jn. 1:14).



One scholar writes about the early Fathers of the Coptic Church as follows: "Alexandrine Christianity became the light of the world. The venerable Fathers of the Coptic Church, the great theologians of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, the Coptic Saints and heretics, the founders of monasticism, the immortal leaders of the oecumenical movement, all these and numerous other categories of illustrious Copts made indelible contributions to the establishment of the new faith."



The Coptic Language and its Alphabet



The Coptic language is the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language. We know that the ancient Egyptian language was used by the Egyptians through the country's long history, even during the Greco-Roman period. But when the Ptolemaic Dynasty started to rule Egypt after the invasion of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., Greek was used as the official language while the ancient Egyptian language remained the popular or common one used by the Egyptians. Both languages continued to be employed after the Roman and Byzantine occupation until the invasion of the Arabs in the 7 th century A.D. (642 A.D.). "In 705/706 A.D. the Umayyad Viceroy 'Abd-Allah ibn 'Abd-al-Malik issued the hazardous and untimely decree substituting Arabic for Coptic in all state affairs. Though his injunction could not be carried out in practice, it proved to be an incentive for the native scribe to learn the language of the conqueror, and this resulted in the appearance of many bilingual documents in subsequent centuries". The Coptic language was employed as "a spoken and liturgical language until approximately the thirteenth century A.D." (7) But in the late Middle Ages (about the 17 th century A.D.) the Coptic language was discontinued as the spoken language of Egypt, "though it is still used as a liturgical language in Coptic churches to the present day" (with the Arabic language), among some Coptic communities in a few villages scattered in Upper Egypt. Much of its vocabulary has been used in the spoken Arabic of Egypt. Philologists have noticed that the Coptic language has different dialects such as Bohairic (the dialect of Lower Egypt), Saidic (Upper Egypt), Faiyumic, Bashmuric, Akhmimic, and sub-Akhmimic. The Bohairic dialect is still used in the Coptic liturgy.





الرد مع إقتباس