SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

The New Patriarchal Library of the Coptic Church (By Hany N Takla)

efforts of Dr. Gawdat Gabra, then the Director of the government-run Coptic Museum (CCM), was able to microfilm the majority of the manuscripts of the Museum. However BYU did microfilm about 250 of the biblical manuscripts of the Patriarchal Library, not all of archival quality due to the abrupt stoppage of the project. A brief, unpublished catalog was made by Dr. William MacComber of these microfilms, which BYU gratifully has supplied a copy for use at our Coptic Center. The Society attempted to secure copies of these microfilms, but the Church declined to give the necessary permission for reproduction of these microfilms, held at BYU! Preservation Efforts by St. Mark Foundation (SMF): The same event that triggered the efforts of BYU, prompted two other churches with manuscript collections, in Old Cairo, to deposit their manuscripts with the Pope personally. They feared the same fate that befell the Virgin Mary Church may extend to their churches also, especially after the devestating earthquake in Cairo in the mid 1980s. These collections were kept for several years at the Pope's Residence at Wadi al-Natrun, which was the home for the first Symposium on Coptic Monasticism, organized by SMF in 2002. Due to the close ties that SMF enjoys with the Patriarchate, the Pope asked them to restore and catalog these manuscripts. This became the first major undertaking of SMF in Egypt in early 2000. These manuscripts, as mentioned above, came primarily from two churches in Cairo. The most notable part of them, is that of the library of the ancient Church of St. Mercurius (Abu Sefain). The other manuscripts belonged to St. Mena Church in Old Cairo. The work included extensive preservation and restoration work done at St. Mena Monastery in Maryut followed by cataloging by Mrs. Samiha Abdel Shahid, the former director of the

Background: For the last several centuries the Patriarchal Library of the Coptic Church has referred to a manuscript library housed in Cairo. Until last last year it was located on the site of the old St. Mark Cathedral in El-Azbekia, in the heart of the city. Over the last quarter of the 20 th century several important and large book and manuscript collections of departed Copts and endangered churches were bequeathed to the Patriarchate. For a variety of reasons, these collections were never properly cataloged or housed. Also the original manuscipt collection was kept in an unsanitary environment, utilized by very few people. I dare to say that over the years the number of rats and insects that infested the place was hundreds of times more than the scholars and students that were permitted to use it. All in all, the situation was both pitiful and inappropriate for the Patriarchate which claims such scholars as St. Athanasius the Apostolic and St. Cyril, the Pillar of Faith. Preservation Efforts of the Contents of the Manuscript Library: In the early 1980s, an unfortunate fire consumed the Church of the Virgin Mary, Qasriat al-Rihan, in Old Cairo. This ancient church was home to an important collection of manuscripts. This event triggered the microfilming project of Brigham Young University of Utah (BYU) of Christian manuscripts in the Coptic Church. It was designed to have as wide a scope as that done earlier by Hill Monastic Manuscript Library of Minnesota with the manuscripts in Ethiopia. The first place to start was this manuscript library of the Patriarchate. This was a tumultous time in the Patriarchate, as the H.H. Pope Shenouda, was confined to his residence in Wadi al-Natrun. As a result an atmosphere of distrust developed between the Church authorities and BYU. This culminated in the demise of the project. BYU, through the

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

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