SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

how this can be achieved and what are the challenges facing such interactions. ------------------------- Title: Liturgical Cycle of St. Michael Monastery at Hamouli (Al-Fayoum) Presenter: Hany N. Takla (Los Angeles, CA) Abstract: Early this century, a large collection of Coptic manuscripts were offered for sale in Europe. The asking price for the whole lot was expensive enough that only J. P. Morgan (with the advice of Fr. H. Hyvernat) was able to acquire them for his famous Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. This collection represented the largest monastic library of complete volumes ever found in Egypt. It was the surviving library of St. Michael (the Archangel) monastery in Hamouli (Al-Fayoum province). This contributed greatly to our understanding of local monastic traditions in the vast landscape of Coptic Egypt. Among the contents is a vellum manuscript, M573, of an Annual Lectionary for movable and immovable feasts and commemorations. The dialect of the manuscript, Sahidic, and its early date, 822-23 AD, makes it very unique. What adds to its importance is that it details for us the type of commemorations that were celebrated by the monks in that region at around that period of time.

In this paper, the commemorations included in the manuscript will be discussed and compared against the existing liturgical cycle, found in the Coptic Church now. Also these commemorations will be contrasted to the other liturgical and literary contents of the library. ------------------------- Title: Daniel of Scetis Presenter: Rev. Dr. Tim Vivian (Bakersfield) Abstract: Abba Daniel of Scetis is a relatively unknown but interesting figure from the sixth century. A dozen or so tales about or sayings attributed to Abba Daniel survive in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic; in addition, an editor or editors gathered much of this material and, with substantial additions, fashioned a Vita or Life of Daniel, which exists in Coptic and Ethiopic. Editions of much of this material were published at the turn of the 20th century, with a Portuguese translation of the Ethiopic Life, and there is a recent translation of the Syriac material, but the Greek and Coptic have not been translated and the Arabic manuscript, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, has not been edited. I am endeavoring to collect all of the relevant sources on Daniel and, with the help of other scholars, plan to publish a translation of the entire corpus. In this paper I will present a preliminary report on the Daniel material and offer an introduction to this desert father of Scetis.

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter ------------------------- Title: The Glorification of the Martyrs in the Coptic Church - The Example of Saint Menas Presenter: Dr. Youhanna Nessim Youssef (Melbourne, Australia) Abstract: Saint Menas is commemorated in several churches in the World. His martyrdom is preserved in Greek; Latin; Ethiopian, Armenian; Syrian and Arabic languages. In Coptic tradition, we have Sahidic Coptic manuscripts from the collection of Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, La Bilbliothèque Nationale de Paris and the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in addition of several Arabic manuscripts. Unfortunately we do not have any Bohairic text, which could be a first hand data. In Coptic tradition, we may consider the hymns provided by a Coptic doxology and a Psali as unique.

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