St Helen's Church (AUTHOR PHOTO)
The place that Copts have made their home in the Old City of Jerusalem is unusual –the Holy Sepulcher Church roof. It is not easy to find them. The stairs lead through a little Ethiopian Church, adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and out to a stone yard with wilted trees and stocky domelike structures, which look like a hermit cloister in desert. There is a wall with a narrow embrasure at the opposite side of the yard. The world of Copts starts here.
All community is squeezed into a small plot of land, but the first impression of the scarcity is deceptive. A cluster of churches, extensions, apertures and arches, looks like a many-tiered town, a box with hidden locks and secret compartments.
Though turned upwards, it descends downwards. A steep narrow staircase concealed by the side-chapel of St Helen's Church, goes down to the gallery; the parching outside heat doesn’t affect the inside cold. Cooled off at night, steams cover the ceiling of the cave by hoar-frost and eventually return dripping to the black smoothness of the well during the day. This rhythmic "thaw” in the closed dark room creates uncanny atmosphere which reminds of the silent kingdom of Osiris, where souls of the deceased descended for the doomsday.
For two thousand years, the Coptic "town” has not actually changed. Founded by the Egyptian natives in the first century of the Common Era, it has preserved its unique originality, typical for Coptic monasteries and settlements at the dawn of Christianity. Modest unpretentious churches make an entire pattern of stone constructions. Painted white, they look like those first basilicas built by the hermits and pilgrims in Egyptian deserts. The icons made at the early verge of Christianity are plane designs reproducing the first images of Saints.
About three thousand Copts live in Jerusalem nowadays. Those swarthy, bronzed people with black beards in falling black garment and black caps are priests and monks. They have been wearing these garment for two thousand years. One of them is Father Afragem. Like most of the Coptic priests, he is an Egyptian by origin. He lives in Jerusalem for more than 10 years.
Standing at the icon of St. Anthony, the founder of the monastery school in Christianity, in the church named after him, Afragem tells us about the tortuous way of Copts. For a long time the Christian world referred them to the Monophysite sect (an early Christian school, which denied the reality and completeness of the Lord's Human Body, the human origin of the Christ contrary to the canonic doctrine, that Jesus Christ was the God-man).

Excommunication by Patriarchs

Copts are the descendants of ancient Egyptians and pioneers of Christianity, says Afragem. Sermons of Mark the Evangelist met practically no resistance from the local people. Egyptians surprisingly easy were conferred to the new faith. Even the cruel repressions of the Rome deputies could not stop that process.
It took two hundred years, to turn Egypt into the bulwark of the new religion, and Alexandria became the centre of Christian learning. Ascetic St. Anthony went to the desert and founded the first monastery; St Pachom initiated monastic way of life eventually adopted by the entire Christian world. People who were later canonized and became patrons of millions of Orthodox and Catholics around the world (Makary, Catherine, Maria from Egypt), were born in Egypt. Well known theologians, who have determined the development of Christianity for the coming years ahead – from Clement to great Origen, to Dionysius, to St. Athanasius of Alexandria and patriarch Cyril. They are all Egyptians by origin. The art of icon painting with its typical plane and slightly oblong images was also born in Egypt. Later in Russia, the famous painter Andrei Rublev brought this art to perfection.
The flourishing of Christian learning in Egypt declined in the 5th century after the Council of Chalcedon. The Egyptian church was accused of Monophysite heresy, but the Copt clericals consider otherwise. "The Copts fell victims to political intrigues of Constantinople, which tried to bend the entire Christian world to its will and restrict the power of the too independent Papa of Alexandria. We always believed that Jesus was the God-man. We were slandered. Only recently the Christian world has acknowledged their fault", explained Afragem.
However, the consequences of The Council of Chalcedon defined the fate of Copts for many years ahead. Alexandria entered the era of decline and neglect. Two centuries later, rejected and lonely Copts were almost happy to meet the Arabic cavalry that freed Egypt from the "friendly embrace” of Byzantium. During the centuries that followed Copts lived quite safely under the Islamic crescent, and only in the 19th century the growing Islamic radicalism complicated their life.

 

Albert Adib (AUTHOR PHOTO)
However, the life of the Coptic community in Egypt is tolerable. According to a representative of Egyptian Copts Albert Adib, who came to the Holy Land for the Easter ceremony, the Copts feel rather safe in their homeland. "Egyptians are peculiar people. They are mostly very easy to deal with and not inclined to violence and fanaticism. A lot of Muslims in Egypt are the descendants of the same ancient Egyptians, as Copts-Christians are”, he explains.
"Religion is of less importance than the ethnic origin", he continues. "Most of the Copts in Jerusalem are Palestinians, and they greatly differ from the Egyptian Copts in character”, he says.
Copts are not so few in number. Only in Egypt there are about seven-eight million of Copts, and besides there are several Coptic communities scattered in the Arabic world and West. Few of them are growing in number. "Some local people in the West accept the Coptic dogma, considering it the authentic Christianity", says Father Afragem.
In Egypt, the traditional Copts thirst for education helps them to take the proper place in the social hierarchy of the country. "Our community has strong connections. A priest here is also a healer and adviser to whom people apply for help. Such bonds keep people together”, says Albert.

Following the Osiris boat

The Coptic people are proud to be the descendants of ancient Egyptians. The word "Copt” is an English word taken from the Arabic word "Gibt" or "Gypt”. It originated from "Aigyptos”, which in its turn, came from the ancient Egyptian words "Ha-Ka-Ptah", one of the names for Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt”, explains Albert.
Copts, he continues, have preserved their own written language – the mixture of the Greek alphabet with the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, though it is used only during liturgies and for commentaries to religious texts. They also use ancient Egyptian music. Albert switched on the tape with slow, modulating, and flexible like a river stream, elusive melody.
However, the language and music are only external displays of influence of forgotten Egyptian culture. Observing the history of Copts, we will see that their esotericism and symbolism , the significant part of the Christian world, reflect the attitude of ancient Egyptians in many respects.
The beliefs of ancient Egypt, with dominating myths about Osiris and Isis, are definitely based on the idea of submission to the post mortal life, recompense and punishment. According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, souls of the deceased Egyptians in the boat followed Osiris along the underground river to the other world, the mysterious dark realm of death, Duat land and faced the Court of Osiris for the Final Judgment.
The Doomsday is the crucial moment for a Christian too. Like an ancient Egyptian, led by Anubis, he appears before the divine face, who weighs his good and bad deeds. In ancient Egyptian mythology, those are scales of goddess Maat. In Christianity, Archangel Michael is holding the scales. A sinner is thrown into the jaws of a terrible monster, ancient Egyptian Ammut, with the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a lion and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. The beast actually hasn’t changed in Christian traditions. The best confirmation is the yawning behemoth in the medieval icons, depicting the hell. In the ancient Egyptian myths the souls who were found worthy to dwell in the Afterlife, went to the fertile Fields of Peace; in Christianity, it is Paradise.

Moreover, the criterions of the decisions made by the Court of Justice are comparatively the same. Virtue and submissiveness define the fate of a deceased both in Christianity and the Court of Osiris some thousands years ago. Only an obedient and patient soul, that had not encroached on life and property of his fellow, and was not burdened by hatred and rage, could come to the Fields of Peace. "I’m clear, I’m clear, I’m clear”, - repeated a deceased in the Court of Osiris.
The sacred image of the Blessed Virgin appeared in Egypt under the influence of the Isis cult as well. In Palestine and the neighboring regions, Mary had the modest role of the Virgin- Mother of Jesus. The veneration of the Blessed Virgin reached its peak in Egypt. It was here that the first icons of Mary with the infant-God man in her lap appeared. Moreover, they looked strikingly alike with those of Isis with little Horus – the son of Osiris.
From ancient Egyptians Christians adopted faith in communion (the Eucharist) i.e. that partaking of magic, sanctified food, led to eternal life. In ancient Egypt, the dead were buried with a bowl of sanctified food. This tradition had been preserved for several centuries after Christianity became firmly established. Eventually it disappeared, but faith in food salutary for soul remained and moved on to the new religion.
Not only myths but also symbols of ancient Egypt, including the cross and fish, got new life in Christianity. The cross was a functional device in a T-shaped form with a ring on top for measuring water level. Long before the martyr Christ's death, Egyptians, who worshipped the water element, had converted it into the magic talisman to keep away evil and disasters. Later it became the symbol of eternal dying and rising life and in this form was adopted by first Christians.

Fascinating mirages

How did this transformation from ancient Egyptian beliefs to the first Christian ones happen? According to Afragem, Alexandria school of Greek scholars and philosophers made the most important contribution to this process.
The magic of ancient legends captivated Greek philosophers and especially Plutarch. He endowed with mystical essence the Egyptian consecration rite accompanied by cutting hair and symbolic leaving for the land of death. The genuine sense of Egyptian mysteries, he believed, can only be understood by long abstinence and contemplation. Christianity adopted Plutarch’s ideal and developed it into asceticism, monasticism. "Alexandria school absorbed the concepts of ancient Egypt, and later, with the appearance of the first Christians, transformed them into monastic school”, explains Afragem.

Father Afragem (Wikipedia)             Meanwhile, he emphasizes the priority of the Christian idea in Coptic dogmas. "The essence of the Church theology is Christian-originated, but Pharaoh’s traditions affected the forms, external side of the dogma, and its esoteric aspects”, says Afragem.
Folklore for instance has borrowed many images, considered exclusively Christian, from ancient Egyptians: Phoenix, his rebirth to life from ashes; St. George conquering the Dragon; Cynocephalus St. Christopher (with the head of a dog instead of a man), the patron saint of travelers; unicorn. Saint George in Egyptian pictures was depicted as a warrior on a horseback with a spear, defeating a crocodile or a hippopotamus. In St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers we can easily recognize Anubis, the guide to the realm of death. The unicorn horn, the phallic symbol in ancient Egypt, has been transformed into the tool of punishment for "sinners”.
In addition, icon -painting Christian tradition was also encouraged by Egyptian pictures. Archaeological discoveries confirm it. At first sight, images are plane and simplified. The so-called Fayum portraits, the images of saints, found in Egyptian Oasis of Al Fayyum, are considered to be the first icons.
…Ancient Egyptians believed that a human being found life after death. In an astonishing way, something like this has happened to their religion. Ancient Egyptian beliefs, having ceased to exist in the form of public ritual worship, remain in collective memory of people. They had enriched a new religion, which came to the Egyptian land, and later spread all over the world. They gave Christianity the belief in the miracle of Transfiguration, a somewhat vague, but staunch thirst for some mystical knowledge, concealed from the world and accessible only to the chosen ones. Perhaps, that is why all secret European Orders (from Templar to Rosicrucian, to Masons) considered themselves spiritual heirs to the "consecrated” of the ancient Egypt.