THE COPTIC , THE APOSTOLIC VICAR MAXIMUS GIUAID (1821–1831), THE PROPAGANDA FIDE AND THE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY

Anthony O’Mahony

Coptic-Catholic relations until the eighteenth century

After the split in the unity of the Christian church at Chalcedon, relations between what emerged as the Coptic Church in Egypt1 and the Western church were at times intense and at others non-exis- tent. The reunion of the with during the Council of Florence2 in 1442 and its acceptance by the Coptic John XI (1427–1452)3 did not bear fruit. Occasionally until 1582, Rome did consider the Church of in union with . Between the and the end of the nineteenth century, the Roman church held a rigorous doctrine on the unity of the church: the nature of schism as the separation from the Church of Rome, and union as the full doctrinal and jurisdictional author- ity with the pope and the Holy Roman . In 1560, two Coptic priests went to Rome as delegates of the Coptic Church to negotiate terms of reunion. Then Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) sent two Jesuits, Christoforo Rodriguez and Giovanni Battista Eliano, to

1 Annick Martin, “Aux origins de l’Église copte. L’implantation et de développe- ment du christianisme en Égypte (1er–IVe siècle),” Revue des études anciennes 83 (1981), 35–56; Ugo Zanetti, “Les Chrétientes du Nil: Basse et Haute Égypte, Nubie, Éthiopie,” The Christian East: Its Heritage, Its Institutions and Its Thought: A Critical Reflection, Robert F. Taft (ed.), Orientalia Christiana Analecta 251 (Rome, 1996), 181–216. 2 Georg Hoffman, “Kopten und Aethioper auf dem Konzil con Florenz,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 8 (1942), 11–24; G. Bassetti-Sani, “L’unione della Chiesa Copta Alessandrina alla Chiesa Romana nel Concilio di Firenze,” in Giuseppe Alberigo (ed.), Christian Unity: The Council of Ferrara-Florence 1438/39–1989 (Louvain, 1991), 623–643. 3 Phillippe Luisier, “Le lettre du Patriarche copte Jean XI au Pape Eugène IV: nouvelle édition,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 60 (1994), 87–129; Ph.Luisier, “Jean XI, 89ème Patriarche copte; commentaire de sa lettre au Pape Eugène IV suivi d’une esquisse historique sur son patriarcat,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 60 (1994), 519–562. 94 anthony o’mahony the Coptic Gabriel VII (1525–1568). This mission brought no positive results.4 In 1582 another attempt at reunion with Rome was made by the Coptic patriarch John XIV (1570–1585), his intentions were on the face of it sincere and serious. He requested Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) to send legates from Rome to negotiate the terms of reunion. When the two papal legates, Giovanni Battista Eliano and François Sasso, arrived, he convoked a synod of the Coptic Church on 1 February 1584, to discuss the matter. However, when John XIV died suddenly in mysterious circumstances, the Ottoman Turkish authorities as foreign spies imprisoned the two legates.5 They were released only after a ransom of 5,000 gold pieces was paid. Eliano negotiated with the new patriarch, Gabriel VIII (1586–1601), a pro- fession of faith that did not include a formula of “the two natures in Christ”; this seems to have found no support in Rome. The results of the attempt at reunion remained ambiguous and contested through mutual lack of understanding between the two parties.6

4 Mario Scaduto, “La missione de Cristoforo Rodriguez al (1561–1563),” Archivum historicum Societatis Jesu 27 (1958), 233–278; Jose C. Sola, “El P. Juan Baptista Eliano. Un documento autobiografico inedito,” Archivum historicum Societatis Jesu 4 (1935), 291–321; Francesco Pericoli-Ridolfini, “La missione pontifica presso il patri- arca copto di Alessandria Gabriele VII nel 1561–63,” Revista degli Studi Orientali 31 (1956), 129–167. 5 For the position of Christians and Jews under Islam in Egypt, see Michael Winter, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517–1798 (London, 1992), 199–224. The doctors of Islam law tended to draw quite distinct boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims, and to interpret the subjection of dhimmis to Islamic authority as a justification for discriminatory and humiliating measures imposed upon them, Albrecht Noth, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen islamischer Toleranz,” Saeculum 29 (1978), 190–204; “Abgrenzungsprobleme zwischen Muslimen und Nicht-Muslimen: die Bedingungen ‘Umars (as-surut al-’umariyya)’ unter anderem Aspekt gelesen,” Studies in and Islam 9 (1987), 290–315. 6 Throughout the seventeenth century little of note occurred in the relations between the Jesuits and the Copts; however, the interest of Anastasius Kircher (d. 1680) in the Coptic language should be noted. He had an intuition that a study of Coptic could lead to the decipherment of hieroglyphics. The second stage of Jesuit presence in Egypt began in 1697, when they established a small house in Cairo from which they could launch missionaries to . To facilitate this assignment, they courted the support of patriarch John XVI (1676–1718), who accorded a favorable welcome to them and even commissioned one of them by the name of Father Dubernat to carry to Ethiopia the ‘Chrism’ consecrated in 1703. Father Dubernat, who died in 1711, recounted this incident to a Bollandist col- league by the name of Jean Baptiste Sollerius, who wrote a treatise on the of Alexandria. His successor in Cairo was Claude Sicard, whose writings are a prin- cipal source of knowledge about Coptic in this period. Later the Jesuits