1. Church History for 2010/11
Introductory Remarks

2. Video Clip Part of Christianity in the First two thousand years
Church History
Video Clip Part of Christianity in the First two thousand years

3. Church History
A living history “History is life, it is consequently the story of the people wherever they are” (Iris El-Masri, Story of the Copts). Her story when asked when did the Copts adopt Eutychanism (or being called monophysites).
During a round table conversation with some visitors to Egypt, Iris was asked: “Since when did you adopt Eutychanism?” She answered : “We never adopted it, nor ever will.” Her host resumed: “But I read somewhere that you have deviated from Orthodoxy.” She rejoined: “We never deviated, nor ever will, by the Grace of God. But it happened, that when we went to Chalcedon...” Here, one of the guests interposed: “When did you go to Chalcedon?” She answered: “We went in A.D. 451”. At which all those present roared with laughter, then her host said gently: “To hear you speak thus, one would imagine that you went this year, or at most last year, and that you were among those who went.” It was her turn to laugh as she answered : “Such are we Copts-when one of us has attended, we have all attended. And there is no difference between the delegates attending in 451 or in any other year, because our history is one whole indivisible unit. Nay it is life itself, and not some short-lived pictures on a screen. The proof of this fact is that the three first ecumenical councils, the only ones acknowledged by the Coptic Church, have decreed laws by which we still abide. Also we still suffer from the harmful consequences of Chalcedon. History is, therefore, indivisible, though it appears to us in diverse pictures; it is like unto matter which is never destroyed though its forms change”.
Hence, she found it compatible to quote the comment Dr. Cyrus Gordon, the eminent American scholar, made on our behavior at Chalcedon. It was : “When the Egyptians went to Chalcedon, they were proud of their Pharaonic heritage, and rightly so; they were proud of their Alexandrian Fathers, and rightly so; they frankly told the whole world what they believed, and when the world refused to listen, they walked out, and rightly so”.

4. Church History
Continuity of the Living History:
Absolution of the servants in the Divine Liturgy:
... be absolved from the mouth of :
+the All-Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
+the one only holy catholic and apostolic church
+the twelve apostles
+the beholder-of-God the evangelist St Mark

5. Church History
+the Patriarch Saint Severus, +our teacher Dioscorus, +St Athanasius the Apostolic, +St Peter the priest-martyr and high priest, +St John Chrysostom, +St Cyril, St Basil, and St Gregory,

6. Church History
+the three hundred and eighteen assembled at Nicea, the one hundred and fifty at Constantinople, and the two hundreds at Ephesus +and from the mouth of our honored father, the high priest Abba..., and from the mouth of my abject self...

7. Church History
Course Outline: will cover major church saints (particularly Popes of Alexandria) over the 20 centuries: + Short Biography + God’s purpose in Saint’s life +Achievements +Main events during that period