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

A TIME OF SIGNS: CAELUM ET TERRA 81a dozen men here who are learning to be proper celebrants, properpriests and presiders, and they are very busy in the mornings,studying the various rites of the Coptic Church. The monks whowould otherwise be assisting at the Kodes are intensely occupied,teaching them the hymnody, the liturgical gestures, and the rubricsof the Coptic Eucharist.It’s an extraordinary thing, really. The average Coptic priest issimply commissioned by his church. The parishioners recommendthe fellow to the bishop and the bishop takes their request underadvisement and perhaps ordains the young man. Of course, thismeans that someone who is probably more or less worthy, someonewho is devout and practical, has been ordained. But he is not necessarilysomeone who has had any prior training in Coptic sacramentalrites or Coptic theology.So, after ordination, these priests are bundled up and taken to amonastery where they literally spend forty days on retreat, spirituallyconsolidating the transition that has just occurred. They learnto celebrate the Coptic Kodes and the Coptic sacraments so theycan officiate at these rites when they return to their parishes. Theygrow beards. Since every Coptic priest in the service of the Church,like every Coptic monk, grows a beard, it would be considered unseemlyfor a newly ordained priest to appear with a half-grown one.So forty days in a monastery after ordination gives them the opportunityto grow in religious knowledge, in the practice of religiousritual, and even to grow a beard. Of course, that is what PopeShenouda also asked me to do when I first arrived.All day long I can hear them practicing. They’re in all thesmaller chapels: the center ones and the side ones of the monasterychurch. They’re also in the monastery keep which is not far fromwhere I’m living, so I can hear them in the rooms which have beenconverted into chapels there. I can hear them praying and singingthe various intonations of the Coptic Kodes. It’s quite a lot to learnbecause the musical corpus is fairly substantial. There are severalliturgies, in fact, which are proper to the Coptic rite, all of whichthe priests must know, as they are used in the various seasons of theyear. Of course, there are also many variations in orations and prefacesfor the saints’ days and feasts, so the cycles are rather complex.There’s a lot for the priests to study; it takes hours and hours a day.I think that some of these poor priests are actually rehearsing ten ortwelve hours a day!