Coptica 15, 2016

64 Ramez Mikhail

Throughout these canons, Gabriel II speaks strongly against the abuses of the urban clergy of his time. In this particular canon, he seems to include standing during the time of prayer bareheaded as a manifestation of respect for the church and the services. This is indeed surprising today in light of current practice, in which priests and bishops never celebrate the liturgy bareheaded, but it must be remembered that in the sources discussed so far, no head covering for priests has been mentioned, except in Scetis. As is often the case, canons are written to stop violations that are already occurring. It would seem then that Gabriel II was attempting to place a ban on a practice that was already widespread, at least enough so to attract the attention – and disapproval – of the patriarch himself. It can thus be concluded that the practice of urban Coptic clergy covering their heads with some sort of hat or cloth probably began around the 12 th century. It has already been suggested above that the practice in Scetis – the revered center of Northern Egyptian monasticism – developed in the direction of head coverings for priests, and eventually even deacons by the 11 th century at the latest. That Patriarch Gabriel II would find it important to stress on clergy to uncover their heads during the prayers despite the fact that this practice was normative by his time in Scetis may perhaps be related to Gabriel II’s own background. Unusual for his time, Gabriel II was one of the few patriarchs of the 12 th and 13 th centuries not to come from the monastic rank; he was a celibate layman who had served as a deacon in Cairo as well as a scribe in the government. Nonetheless, despite Gabriel II’s canon, it is clear that by the 13 th century the practice of priests covering their heads during liturgy had become the de facto custom. The Histories of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt , written between AD 1117 and 1204, discusses a certain priest, Abū Yāsir, who seems to have caused quite a stir in his day: [He] maintained customs at variance with those prescribed by the pure fathers: such as growing the hair long, and baring the head at the time of the liturgy, and christening infants without circumcision, and giving permission to the bridegroom to see the bride before marriage. If a priest with shaven hair and covered head said the liturgy, he would not communicate from his hand, but he had a second liturgy for himself. 41 Clearly the list of violations of the priest Abū Yāsir seems designed to shock and demonstrate his absolute departure from accepted customs. For the issue of covering the head during the liturgy to appear, not once but twice in this list of violations, is clearly indicative of the common mores of the time. It can thus be said with considerable certainty that by the 13 th

41 B.T.A. Evetts, The Churches & Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries Attributed to Abū Şālih the Armenian (Oxford, 1895), 140.