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21 Mission in the Coptic Church 21 Mission in the Coptic Church: . Perspective, Doctrine and Practice MAURICE ASSAD . I_ The Church is Mission The visit of the Holy Family to the African soil of Egypt was the first mission in the Christian era. The picture of the Virgin Mary riding an ass with the child Jesus in her hands and Joseph walking by her side continues to remind the Christians everywhere, and indeed the whole world, that the mission of God incarnate, on whose birthday the Angels came to earth around his manger, has been extended to the whole world. The son of God has taken refuge from the persecution that took place in his homeland among his own people into the peaceful land of Egypt .... The African Apostle St. Mark the Evangelist, citizen of Cyrenaica of Pentapolis, presently Libya, came in his first mission to Egypt around A.D. 48 carrying his Gospel .with him. Through the power of the Word, he founded the first Egyptian Church in the house of Anianos, whom he baptized with his family, and later ordained Bishop of Alexandria with three priests and seven deacons. According to Coptic Tradition, St. Mark was the first Patriarch in the Coptic Orthodox Church and Anianos was the second. For twenty centuries, the Coptic church was an expression of continuing christian witness that has embodied mission in different circumstances as the continuing act of God in Egypt and through the Egyptian people to many parts of the world. They have continued to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel that was carried to them on a shining hot day by the young Apostle Mark. ' ' II. History as Mission . An ancient church almost two thousand years old might be expected to be a dying church that has already been put in a museum of the past. But the Coptic Church is a living church that has been a shining light in the dark nights of the Egyptian deserts and valley. Through the decades and centuries, she has offered her witness to the world in different She has that itself is witness to the Christian ways. proved history . message in successive stages of history and that mission and witness are inseparable concepts in the life of a church that has been determined to force her existence on all the powers she had to face. Her members have been so skillful to create conditions of existence, of the regardless . situations forced on them. They were already religious people with a very long religious tradition .... They found in Christianity much similarity to their legendary story of the triad Isis, Osiris and Horus. The resurrection of Osiris was similar to the rise of Christ from the tomb. The early Coptic representations 'of the Madonna feeding the baby Jesus, was much similar to the image of Isis feeding the baby Horus . of her breast. 22 However, we may distinguish the following aspects of Christian Mission and witness in the long history of the Coptic Church: A. The Age of the Teachers Since the coming of St. Mark to Alexandria, what was needed in order to teach chris- ' ' tianity was to develop forceful educational method that would speak to the contemporaries of each age, and proclaim the validity of the Gospel in face of the different situations in which the church found herself. St. Mark was a teacher. He was an eloquent writer and a distinguished orator. The power of his words was accompanied by a spiritual power of miracles. Anianos who was a cobler cut his finger while he was mending the strap of Mark's shoes which was torn after several days of walking. Anianos cried: "Heis ho Theol" - God is one. Mark touched the hand of ' the wounded cobler and said: "In the name of the one God you shall be healed". The blood immediately stopped and the pain vanished.. Since then Anianos took Mark to his home which became later on the first Churches in Egypt, probably in the same place where the present Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark is situated to this day. The newcomers to Christianity in Alexandria and other Egyptian cities needed more than the Miracle to accept Christianity. They needed to understand more clearly the salvation process. They needed a special leaning process before being fully admitted to the Church. They were instructed into the life and doctrine of the church for a . period extended as long as two years. Their instruction included instruction of the nature and character of God, teachings about the life of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church after Pentecost, Scripture, history, the Prophets and how they paved the way to Christ, the life of Christ as illustrated in the Gospels and the Apostolic writings and His crucifixion, death and resurrection. The great teachers of the Christian faith in the Early Christian centuries were found in the Catechetical School of Alexandria that was founded - according to Coptic tradition - by the Apostle Mark himself, in order to combat the pagan school that existed in Alexandria at that time. The names of Pantaenus, the first head of the school, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen are but few examples of the great Egyptian teachers still offering important guidance to Christian mission until this day. However, great teachers like Athanasious the twentieth Patriarch and Cyril the Great preserved the integrity of Christian faith and life. Athanasious' "On the Incarnation", "Message to Pagans" and St. Basil's "On the Holy Spirit" are but few examples of the illustrious contributions of these great church fathers in the face of the herecies that were bound to destroy the Christian faith. _ The Pyramids and the Valley of the dead are witnesses of the living memory of the Ancient Egyptian belief in life after death, which is an essential element in the , Christian faith, confirmed in the closing phrase of the Nicean creard; itself written by the young Egyptian Deacon Athanasious and approved by the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), and completed at the Council of Constantinople. B. Mission of the Martyr The age off dying for being a Christian extends along the history of Christianity in Egypt. The Coptic Church has always been a church of Cross, a church of suffering. .
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