SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

deserves a more thorough academic investigation, considering its volume and scope. The sixth paper delivered by Mr. Mark Moussa also in the morning session of the second day, dealt with St. Shenouda's long discourse, "I Have been Reading the Holy Gospels". Like the majority of St. Shenouda's literary writings, this work is preserved in a fragmentary condition. Mr. Moussa gave a survey of the state of research on this work as well presenting selections of the text. This work is the subject of Mr. Moussa Doctoral dissertation at the Catholic University of America at Washington DC. Of course any work in this field requires the mention of Prof. Dr. Emmel 1993 dissertation on the literary corpus of St. Shenouda. Such contribution transformed Mr. Moussa work from an impossible task to just a challenging one. It is worthy of mention that Mr. Moussa repeated his justified criticism of the conference that only one paper, his own, is presented on St. Shenouda at a two-day conference named after him! f. Coptic Liturgy: There were two paper presented in this category this year. The first was submitted by Dr. Youhanna N. Youssef of Melbourne Australia, delivered by Mr. Maged S. Mikhail in the morning session of the first day. It dealt with the Coptic texts relating to the Apostles. The second was presented by Mr. Joseph Fahim during the morning session of second day, dealing with the usage of the Lord Prayer in Coptic Liturgical services. In the first paper, Dr. Youssef drew attention to the preaching of the Apostles, as found in Coptic liturgical sources, Bohairic and Sahidic. He contrasted these to the information found in what is generally recognized as the apocryphal texts about the apostles. The thought that comes to mind about this subject is how much of the information in the so-called apocryphal texts would have been considered part of the orthodox church tradition and during what time period. In the second paper, Mr. Fahim surveyed the usage of the Lord prayer in Coptic liturgical services. His findings confirmed that the text used in these

services was in agreement with that found in the Coptic text of the Gospel of St. Matthew and disagreeing with the one popularly used in the Coptic Church today. He showed that the last section of the prayer "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever Amen." was never part of the Coptic textual tradition of these services. How did that come about. I personally think that the adaptation of this section can probably be attributed to the popularity of the Mid 19th century Arabic translation of the King James Version, which included it. Then, as it is customary these days, the publishers of these liturgical texts based their editions on the popular usage rather than the correct traditional usage. A trend that need to be curbed or halted because of possible damage it can do to the integrity of these texts. g. General Addresses: There were four opening addresses delivered at the conference along with a brief tribute to Prof. van Moorsel, send to the conference by Dr. Mat Immerzeel of the University of Leiden. Two were delivered at the beginning of each day of the conference with the tribute for Prof. van Moorsel being read before the reading of his paper by Rev. Dr. Vivian. In the first day Prof. Antonio Loprieno briefly described how Coptic Studies in America in general and at UCLA in particular is spread among three different disciplines: Language, History, and Religion. He further predicted that the work of our own and his student Maged S. Mikhail (now Deacon Severus Mikhail) will help define this as a single discipline at least in UCLA. This was followed by a brief word from Bishop Samuel, praising the work of the Society in general and the organization of this conference in particular. In the second day, Dr. J. van der Vliet address to the conference was read. The full text is published in this Newsletter. Then Bishop Serapion delivered his opening address that centered on the issues of the challenges facing the Coptic Church in America and how Coptic Studies, done by Copts, should orient itself first and foremost towards helping the Church in meeting such

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

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