Talk:Coptic Orthodox Church

Current Events

On the main page this section currently reads:

Coptic Persecution and oppression in Egypt

The New Years Eve Terrorist attack on the Coptic Orthodox Church in the city of Alexandria which left 21 dead [26] a premeditated and calculated strike at a minority group. 21 innocent people died for no other reason than their belief.

The oppression of the Coptic people in Egypt is widespread and regular, the situation in Egypt is that of the Apartheid in South Africa but without the political force behind it, while the Egyptian government will condemn these attacks as acts of terrorism, justice to those who lost their lives will not be served, those who committed these atrocities will not be brought to justice. South Africa didn't cave in to external pressure, they caved in due to internal pressure, rebels, the Africans tried everything peaceful, they were murdered going to school yet they still marched, Gandhi leaned his theory of Civil Disobedience[27] through the South African Rebel Movements led by the likes of Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC), but nothing changed till they started fighting back, they died in their thousands but they got independence, and most of their confrontations were peaceful demonstrations where the Afrikaner white 'police' would open fire at the crowds with automatic machine guns... killing women children and men indiscriminately.

An oppressed people is a time bomb waiting to happen, it is a lesson repeated in history countless times.

(end of quote)

This section has been marked as disputed neutrality.

It seems to me to be a valid complaint, in that it claims discrimination against Copts and other Christians, but only refers to one (very serious) incident.

It would be better to list alleged claims of intolerance by Islamic extremists and of legalised discrimination by the State, which would make a more neutral and fact based section, together with alleged incidents of intolerence by Copts against Muslims.

For example:

How easy is it to change religion Copt to Muslim and Muslin to Copt? Are there legal barriers?

What restrictions are there upon building new Churches and what upon building new Mosques?

How many attacks have there been on Christian groups and how many upon Muslim groups? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerddaf (talk • contribs) 17:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Cerddaf 3-1-2011 17:29 GMT — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerddaf (talk • contribs) 17:30, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no attempt at npov in the section, the diatribe about South Africa emphasises it and has no place in the article. I have removed all but the factual element until it is sustantially rewritten Markmcgrego (talk) 14:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Even apart from neutrality issues, this article is about a faith/organisation that has existed for nearly 2000 years. Including a section about the deaths of 21 people suffers from WP:RECENTISM. I say remove the whole section. If the bombing (tragic as it is) ends up having a more profounding impact on the church, it should be re-included then. Ashmoo (talk) 13:06, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm personally having my doubts about having a "current events" section in something that's supposed to be an encyclopedia article, as the definition of "current" changes as time goes by - you typically wouldn't have a section for current events in a hard-copy of an encyclopedia, such as Britannica, for instance. ♠ 15:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Font

I am a casual reader of this article and I notice that it requires a font of some sort - but this is not specified anywhere. What font is needed? Shouldn't the article mention what font is required, as other articles do? AprilHare (talk) 14:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done Added a warning template under the infobox designating where you will find information on Coptic fonts. I've downloaded the first one listed and it works fine. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 05:50, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Coptic women

An interesting article surrounding women in Christianity would be Coptic women. In Egypt, Coptic women are in a rather special situation because they are a minority of Christian women living in a Muslim-majority country, where the patriarchal culture is very strong. As Egyptian Christians, they are culturally isolated from other Christians because of the miaphysite schism. From inside the Church too, there are strong cultural pressures because of certain existing prohibitions against divorce, infidelity and abortion. [1][2][3] ADM (talk) 07:45, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Bull of Union with the Copts

The article should probably mention the Bull of Union with the Copts in the history section, which was adopted at the time of the Council of Florence in the Middle Ages. Even though the bull failed, it remains significant when discussing the past external relations of the Coptic Church, especially with regards to modern efforts by the ecumenical movement to achieve greater Church unity. ADM (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

New article

Does Coptic Ages have any merit? It seems to duplicate a lot of what is here and is totally unreferenced. Fences&Windows 00:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Title

Could someone explain to me why the title of the article is "Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria" instead of just "Coptic Orthodox Church"? Deusveritasest (talk) 06:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

St. Paul was an anchorite?

From the "The cradle of monasticism and its missionary work" section:

...This was the beginning of the monastic movement, which was organized by Anthony the Great, Saint Paul, the world's first anchorite, Saint Macarius the Great and Saint Pachomius the Cenobite in the 4th century.

What does the above mean? Is the Saint Paul referred to the Paul in the New Testament and author of several New Testament books? Is he the world's first anchorite, (meaning I guess that he was some kind of ascetic monk)? What is the basis for that claim? Is it a claim of the Coptic Church or of some monastic movement? Is it a claim accepted by any secular scholars? --Davefoc (talk) 09:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

== Reply to: St. Paul was an anchorite? == The article meant Saint Paul of Thebes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_of_Thebes not Saint Paul the Apostle.

This message was left for me on my talk page:
A totally different Paul from Paul the Apostle. See here. --λⲁⲛτερⲛιξ^[talk] 16:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Assuming this comment is correct perhaps the article should be amended to specify which Paul is meant and a hyperlink provided for the intended Paul?

CopticWiki

Please condider helping and maintaining http://copticwiki.org which is a Wiki specifically for the Coptic Orthodox Church. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.212.126 (talk) 10:52, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Other Christian churches in Egypt

What is the point of this? I'm unaware of any similar article (cf. Armenian Apostolic Church) that has a section such as this in it. It seems to me that it would be much more appropriately appended to an article on Egypt (or one on 'Religion in Egypt') with the addition to it of the Coptic Orthodox Church and retitled as 'Christian Churches in Egypt'. Irish Melkite (talk) 10:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

This sentence needs help

"There was an opinion in the Church that viewed that perhaps the Council understood the Church of Alexandria correctly, but wanted to curtail the existing power of the Alexandrine Hierarch, especially after the events that happened several years before at Constantinople from Pope Theophilus of Alexandria towards Patriarch John Chrysostom and the unfortunate turnouts of the Second Council of Ephesus in AD 449, where Eutichus misled Pope Dioscorus and the Council in confessing the Orthodox Faith in writing and then renouncing it after the Council, which in turn, had upset Rome, especially that the Tome which was sent was not read during the Council sessions."

That sentence is poorly and lazily constructed. Must all that information be shoe-horned within one sentence? I bet most people have trouble following it from start to end. I will not perform the edits, merely suggest that they be done. I also bet there are hundreds of articles with such abominations, but I digress. 68.185.19.38 (talk) 21:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Independence

Why does the time of "Independence" in the template say "Apostolic age"? Didn't the copts break away from the Church after Chalcedon? 24.191.87.42 (talk) 15:28, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Too many photos in the gallery?

There are probably too many photos in the gallery. They should be pared back to just a few, less than a dozen, leaving only the most significant and representative. --Bruce Hall (talk) 01:44, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Introduction needs some reworking.

The introduction states: The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

This is historically incorrect. There was no such thing as the "Eastern Orthodox Church" in October 451. There was one Holy and Catholic Apostolic Church, plus, of course, the usual crowd of dissidents, heretics, do-it-your-selfers which any religion develops within the first few decades.

The schism between the Roman and Eastern (Constantinople) churches didn't happen for another millenium, usually cited as happening when the legates from Rome and the Patriarchs of Constantinople mutually excommunicated each other in 1054 (although it was a much more graduate separation than what most textbooks state--it took from the end of the 9th Century until the early 15th century to break off all ties, although the most definitive break occurred at the beginning of the 14th Century with the siege and sack of Constantinople in retaliation for the massacre of nearly all the Roman Catholics in 1182).

Suffice to say, the introduction needs to be rewritten to reflect the historic reality, and to help avoid the confusion of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.1.89 (talk) 17:05, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Coptic religious practice

This article gives very good information about the history and management of Coptic Christianity, but says nothing at all about the actual religious practices of Coptic monks and nuns, practices related to monastic life and the propagation of the religious life in Coptic monasteries, along with the relationship between the Coptic monastics and church on the one hand, and the Coptic society in Egypt. 59.164.1.194 (talk) 07:46, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

History needs expansion

What, complete historical silence between the 12th century and the 19th? Really, everything after Chalcedon is pretty slight even then. What of those 1500 years?--Akhenaten0 (talk) 14:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 December 2015

Change the spelling of "Monastery of Saint Anthony (California)" to "Monastery of Saint Antony (California)". This is consistent with how the name of the monastery is spelled on the website: Sejongfan (talk) 06:58, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Already done Request was already done by another editor. --Stabila711 (talk) 04:23, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

References

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STRANGE FAULSE FORMULATION !

This sentence : "The Council of Chalcedon, from the perspective of the Alexandrine Christology, has deviated from the approved Cyrillian terminology ..." can not be true ! There was Cyrillian terminolofy in this period of time !