“Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16) In the month of January and first half of February, our Coptic Orthodox Church celebrates five feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ: The Nativity, The Circumcision, The First Miracle at Cana of Galilee, The Theophany, and The Presentation of Our Lord at the Temple. During the first four centuries of Christianity, the Feasts of the Nativity and Theophany were celebrated – …

On the 5th of Epip (July 12th), the Church celebrates the Feast of the Apostles, which follows the holy fast bearing the name of our fathers the Apostles. This fast begins on the day following the Feast of Pentecost, the day on which the Church was established. The 5th of Epip was specifically chosen to be the Feast of the Apostles since it is the day commemorating the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul in – …

In the past few months, we have been shocked by the news of disasters and tragedies, which resulted in sudden death of many people. We lived through the disastrous news of the crash of the Egypt Air plane off the shores of the Northeastern United States. This resulted in the death of 217 persons, of whom many of us may have had social, friendly, or family ties. In less than a minute they changed from – …

GOD HONORS YOUTH God created man to live in this world forever using his or her complete energy, as if he or she is a youth. I do not believe that it was in the divine plan for man to grow old and die. We can say that He honors youthfulness. The Psalmist offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, saying, "Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like – …

I congratulate you all brothers and sons on Christmas and the new year, may God bring in happy days for all of you, for our beloved country Egypt and for the whole world, praying that the Lord may save the world from the dangers of earthquakes, floods and wars and that He might restore peace and structure to all those devastated regions and lighten the pain of its people those who survived, to expand His – …

St Severus of Antioch is one of the great Fathers of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. In the decades after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD it was he, more than any other theologian, who expressed most forcefully and clearly the Orthodox Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. He grew up in the confused environment of the Church produced by Chalcedon and intermittently exacerbated by imperial persecution of those who rejected the decisions of that – …