Journey Back to Eden.pdf - St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Chicago

152 APRILmony. Even recently, some monks passed out during the ritual, sogrievous is the weight of the shroud, the lack of air, and the accumulationof body warmth.There were no words which the monks being consecrated hadto say, no other ritual they had to perform. They just had to liethere under the shroud. The rite of consecration was accomplishedeffectively by the songs and the prayers of the monks who were allaround them in the church. Apparently, the willingness of themonks being consecrated simply to lie there manifested their fullsupplication of heart and mind and will to live the monastic life.They “died” to the world outside the monastery; that is why theylay there under the funereal shroud. This is not altogether differentfrom the ceremony held in many monasteries in the WesternChurch which have traditionally performed their monastic consecrationthe same way, even until recent times.So important is the funereal aspect of monastic solemn consecrationin Egypt that, I am told, for monks of olden times, no funeralmasses were said for them when they died. Rather, they weresimply buried, because their funeral had taken place on the day oftheir consecration and did not need to be repeated after theirdeath!At the end of the ceremony, the shroud was lifted and all sixmonks rose up, thanks be to God. They were tonsured and thenthey were named. They were rapidly vested in the black galabeya ofthe traditional desert monk and were given the stitched cap whichthe monks have been wearing for the last generation or so. In priortimes they simply wore a black wool cap over their heads, but nowthey wear a hood-like cowl stitched with twelve crosses.I’m not familiar with all of the varieties of religious garments inthe Eastern or Orthodox Churches generally, but I think thismatches a type of hood worn in other Oriental Churches. PopeShenouda introduced this style to bring the Egyptian Church intogreater participation with the larger ecclesiastical world.The twelve crosses, representing the twelve apostles, are sewninto the hood. They are to remind the monks that by their withdrawalinto the desert, their solitude, and their private prayer,they are nevertheless living an apostolic life. They are providinglife to the apostolic labors of their Church by giving her a contemplativeheart. The cowl is made of two pieces of black fabricwhich are sewn together by cross-stitches of a different color, so