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

A TIME FOR FAREWELLS 195I somehow sympathize with the Moslems on one level. Whyshould one hold to a religion he does not think is true, and whyshouldn’t it be true for everyone if it is true for him? But I alsosympathize with the Copts, of course, and I sympathize more andmore with the Jews throughout the ages. They must have alwaysbeen in a position analogous to that of the Copts of Egypt.I met the aging bishop of Beni Suef, Anba Athanasius. He isvery kind. He gave me a tour of the church and the grounds immediatelyaround his chancery and has instructed some of his servantsto be hospitable to me while I am in his diocese.Coptic DeaconessesI have met many “deaconesses,” the equivalent of the apostolicreligious sisters we know in the West. But since the Copts think ofreligious women in terms of the contemplative, eremitical life ofthe “Mothers” behind an enclosure, they do not call these women“Sister.” Rather, they refer to them as “deaconesses” because oftheir work in the Church of serving the poor and the young, aswell as a variety of other charities. They are not ordained deaconessesin the ordinary meaning of the word “ordination” to us.This reference is a problem for us, I told them, because the ordinationof women as deacons is a matter of debate in the WesternChurch. They’re simply innocent altogether of the idea thatwomen might aspire to the prerogatives of office which are associatedwith the manhood of Christ and his apostles. So they can usethe word “deaconess” and yet not associate it at all with the word“deacon” when that word is linked with ordination to the priesthoodor with Holy Orders.These women, by and large, are young, healthy, strong, andnumerous. There’s a growing movement of apostolic religious lifefor women in Egypt. I should one day like to study this phenomenonhere. The very kind of life which is dying out in my countryhas caught on in Egypt and is proving to be a great boon to the lifeof the Coptic Church. These deaconesses wear habits of a modifiedsort—that is to say, we in the West would recognize them as Religiousbut their habits do not impede their apostolic service asWestern Sisters often allege. In some ways, there is an interestingaesthetic symmetry between the “religious deaconesses,” as they