The Churches of Egypt

The Churches of Egypt
Author: Gawdat Gabra
Publisher: Amer Univ in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2012
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789774165726

With over 300 full-color photographs, this is the first fully illustrated book devoted to Christian houses of worship in Egypt. The text incorporates the latest research to complement the broad geographic scope covering nearly all significant Coptic sites throughout the country, from the ancient Coptic churches in Old Cairo to the churches in the monasteries of Wadi al-Natrun, the Red Sea, and Upper Egypt. Churches associated with the Holy Family's sojourn in Egypt, including Gabal al-Tayr and Dayr al-Muharraq, enrich the volume. Churches of all other Christian denominations in Egypt are also described and beautifully illustrated here. A number of Greek Orthodox churches, Evangelical Coptic, Catholic, Armenian, and Anglican churches are included. Introductory chapters on the history of Christianity in Egypt, the architecture of the Coptic Church, and Coptic wall paintings help readers to appreciate fully the great cultural, artistic, and architectural heritage of Egypt's Christians.

Discoveries: Coptic Egypt

Discoveries: Coptic Egypt
Author: Christian Cannuyer
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2001-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780810929791

Egypt, land of the Bible, has been home since the time of Christ to an ancient sect of Christians called the Copts. According to legend, Mark the Evangelist founded their church in Alexandria in the 1st century AD, when Egypt was under Roman rule and practiced polytheistic religions. Though Egypt long ago became a Muslim nation, the Copts maintained their traditions and rites at monasteries and villages throughout the Nile Valley, the river delta, and the Mediterranean coast, and still do so today.

Christianizing Egypt

Christianizing Egypt
Author: David Frankfurter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691216789

How does a culture become Christian, especially one that is heir to such ancient traditions and spectacular monuments as Egypt? This book offers a new model for envisioning the process of Christianization by looking at the construction of Christianity in the various social and creative worlds active in Egyptian culture during late antiquity. As David Frankfurter shows, members of these different social and creative worlds came to create different forms of Christianity according to their specific interests, their traditional idioms, and their sense of what the religion could offer. Reintroducing the term “syncretism” for the inevitable and continuous process by which a religion is acculturated, the book addresses the various formations of Egyptian Christianity that developed in the domestic sphere, the worlds of holy men and saints’ shrines, the work of craftsmen and artisans, the culture of monastic scribes, and the reimagination of the landscape itself, through processions, architecture, and the potent remains of the past. Drawing on sermons and magical texts, saints’ lives and figurines, letters and amulets, and comparisons with Christianization elsewhere in the Roman empire and beyond, Christianizing Egypt reconceives religious change—from the “conversion” of hearts and minds to the selective incorporation and application of strategies for protection, authority, and efficacy, and for imagining the environment.

Egyptian Women in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt

Egyptian Women in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt
Author: Aida Beshara
Publisher:
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781644926130

Both Egyptian and foreign historians have testified to the high status of women in all spheres of life during the ancient Egyptian period. Women were queens in their own right; once, the chief physician was a woman. In the spiritual life, there were priestesses and female musicians and dancers serving in temples. This book deals with the role of women in the Christian Coptic Orthodox Church, which was established in the first century AD. The Coptic church has been blessed with thousands of female martyrs and saints, some of whom are of worldwide fame. There are fourteen female saints after whom Coptic churches in Egypt are named. The Virgin St. Mary is the most prominent of them. The two Egyptian saints Demianah and Refqah are also popular. Sts. Verena and Regula are Egyptian saints who were martyred and buried in Switzerland. St. Verena evangelized in Switzerland and taught Swiss maidens hygiene practices. There are more than eighty monuments consecrated to St. Verena in Switzerland. The Egyptian St. Sophia has a world-famous church in her name in Istanbul, Turkey. Unfortunately, after the Arab invasion of Egypt in the seventh century, the role of women in the church diminished considerably. However, since the middle of the twentieth century, a great revival of the role of women has occurred; more women have entered religious life as nuns and deaconesses, serving as Sunday school teachers, writing books about the church, and even teaching in Coptic seminaries. My goal is for this book to reach English language readers all over the world and enlighten them about the contribution of women in the service of Christianity through the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt.

Christian Egypt

Christian Egypt
Author: Massimo Capuani
Publisher:
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2002
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

"The history of their name is a reminder that this part of the world was at the center of an unusually extensive intermixing of populations and regions. The term "Copt" is an alteration of the Greek Aigyptios (Egyptian), which became qibt in Arabic, and gradually came to designate exclusively the community that remained faithful to Christianity in spite of the expansion of Islam.".

The History and Religious Heritage of Old Cairo

The History and Religious Heritage of Old Cairo
Author: Gawdat Gabra
Publisher:
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2013
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9774164598

Recipient of the 2013 PROSE Awards Architecture & Urban Planning honorable mention Just to the south of modern Cairo stands the historic enclave known as Old Cairo, which grew up in and around the Roman fortress of Babylon, and which today hosts a unique collection of monuments that attest to the shared cultural heritage of ancient Egyptians, Christians, Jews, and Muslims. In this lavishly illustrated celebration of a very special place, renowned photographer Sherif Sonbol's remarkable images of the fortress, churches, synagogue, and mosque illuminate the living fabric of the ancient and medieval stones, while Gawdat Gabra describes the history of Old Cairo from the time of the ancient Egyptians and the Romans to the founding of the first Muslim city of al-Fustat. Stefan Reif focuses on the Jewish history of the area, exploring the famous Genizah documents found in the Ben Ezra Synagogue that tell so much about everyday life in medieval Egypt. Gertrud van Loon looks at the early Coptic Christian churches, some of the oldest in the world, and Tarek Swelim describes the arrival of the Muslims in the seventh century, their establishment of al-Fustat on the edge of Old Cairo, and the building of the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'As, the oldest mosque in Africa.