SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

yielded the last two patriarchs. This method which was codified in 1958 included the following steps: Nomination of names Selection of eligible nominees Voting by a large, yet select group Selecting the names of the top three nominees Casting lots for the final choice The discussions were mostly on rules and process of the election according to that law. Later on that afternoon, Mr. Ramses Wassif, delivered his paper on the history of the Bishop of Misr (Cairo). He surveyed the known history of that diocese. He then recounted the famous incident in the History of the Patriarchs in the 12th century between Patriarch Macarius II and the bishop of Misr Anba Sanhut, and the perceived refusal of the Patriarch to appoint a successor after the death of the bishop. This conflict apparently doomed the position of the Bishop of Misr and it only had two occupants since, and each was for special circumstances that the Church faced in the 13th and in the 19th century. The listener can easily understand that the move of the Patriarchate from Alexandria to Cairo would cause the position of that important seat to be redundant in the eyes of many and thus explains its eventual disappearance. More research would need to be done to document and substantiate these observations. In the morning session of the second day, Dr. Fawzy Estafanous presented a progress report of the activities of the St. Mark Foundation for Coptic History in the past year. The pr sentation included a report on the Egyptian Government-sponsored conference on the patriotic stand of the Coptic Church, where 80% of the papers were submitted by Egyptian Moslem scholars. Even though there was a touch of politics in the theme but it reminds of the scarcity of Copts working with sound methodology in the field. Among the other activities mentioned was the joining of both of our organizations with the Coptologia Publication to produce a journal in the form of a new series of that periodical which was initially published in

1980. This venture came to fruition by invitation from Prof. Fayek Ishak, Coptologia's chief editor. In the early afternoon session of that day, Prof. Boulos Ayad Ayad, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, delivered the last presentation in this category. This detailed presentation surveyed, through the use of slides, many of the features that survived thousand of years of Egyptian History. He recounted common features, related to Art, Architecture, Customs, Language, and Religion. However the time allotted though substantial, did not do justice to the topic. A whole symposium probably would have to be devoted to such a topic to maximize the benefit. d. Coptic Gnosticism: Prof. Dr. Jon Ma Asgeirsson, presented a most learned paper on the reassessment of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas in the early afternoon session of the second day. Since the early days of research in the contents of the Nag Hammadi Library, many scholars have focused their attention on this text. Many assumed that they were possibly looking at the ever-elusive Q-text that served as the basis for all the synoptic gospels. He surveyed the scholarly literature published on the subject. He then introduced his own opinion and proof that refuted much of what other scholars concluded about this gospel. In summary, others treated the sayings found in the gospel as an aimless eclectic collection, and He countered with the bold hypothesis that the composition was based on learned principles of its time and it showed an increased direction toward a complete text such as the canonical gospels that we have now. In other words it can be explained in terms of a proto-gospel that led to the writing of the canonical gospels that we have!

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter e. Coptic Literature: There were six papers in this wide-scope category that covered topics dealing with time frames spanning from the second century to the late twentieth century. Four were presented on the first day and two on the second.

The first paper was delivered by Mr. Hany N. Takla, on the Coptic Version of the Old Testament and the efforts that the Society was doing in the

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