SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

informative abstracts of what is to be presented. However, no publication of the proceedings are made. This is quite unfortunate! Activities dealing with Coptic Monuments: During the conference, Dr. Robert K. Vincent, Jr., ARCE Project Director in Egypt, introduced the accomplishments ARCE made during 1997. His presentation included a description and slides of the work being done by an Italian group on the restoration of the Coptic frescoes at the Red Sea's St. Antony Monastery's Church of the Four Incorporeal Beings. The work described was nothing less than spectacular. In the near future they will be doing extensive preservation work on the famous Moallakah Church of Old Cairo. another achievement worth mentioning is their past coordination of the two archaelogical seasons that the Scriptorium has concluded at the site of the Ancient monastery of St. John the Little in Wadi 'N Natroun. Coptic Presence: One of the sad aspects of this meeting is that, in a area of an estimated population 50,000 copts and a university that boasts of a Coptic student body of over 80 in number, only one lay person was in attendance. To add insult to injury, at least three Copts from New York travelled at their own expense to attend this illustrious gathering. It seems to me that in or er to encourage the continuance of such important work on our monuments in Egypt, we at least need to show the authorities of ARCE our appreciation for all they have done by our presence and support. Contacts: Being the sole representative of the community and primarily of our Society, I wasted no time in contacting the key people in attendance that are connected with Coptic Studies. The primary person that I made contact with was Professor Leo Depuydt of Brown University. His accompishments in Coptology are numerous and significant. The most noted one is his catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The noted and intelligent scholar, of Belgian extraction, was kind enough to accept my inivitation to visit our Coptic Center,

which he learned about earlier through this Newsletter. This visit occurred on the evening of Friday, April 24, 1998, following the reception that was held for the attendees at the nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I would boldly venture to say that his impression was very positive of both the place and the work being done there. Other noted scholars that I met include Prof. Daniel Crecelius of California State University, Los Angeles. He is a specialist on endowments during the time of the Ottoman Empire, espcially in Egypt. He was one of the professors of our Society's Secretary, Mr. Ramsis Wassef, during his graduate work there. We talked frankly and extensively about his research and ours. He also shared his understandable disappointment with the support that he received from Coptic circles over the years, even though he was the sole representative of our point of view at the time when we had none to represent us. Also I met with Mark Stone and Geoffrey Grahram, graduate students of Dr. Bentley Layton at Yale University. The conversation with Mark dealt especially with Coptic Hagiographic material which seems of interest to his work. Dr. Susan Auth of the Newark Museum of Art was also an important person to meet. She initially contacted us on behalf of the Noted Russian art historian, Dr. Kakovkin of St. Petersburg's famed Hermitage Museum. She has expressed interest in lecturing on the subject of Coptic Art at one of the meetings of the Sourthern California Chapter of ARCE. When such a lecture is scheduled, an announcement will be made in this Newsletter. Lastly, I had a brief conversation with Dr. Jane Hathaway of Ohio State on the subject of her advicee, Miss Febe Armanious, who has recently has received her Master Degree in History from that institution. The Society has great hopes in the work that Miss Armanious is and will be doing on 19th century Coptic History. Among Coptic attendees, I would like to mention Mr. Sameh Iskander, a New York Engineer, who is working on his Ph.D in Egyptology and is also a current member of the

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

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