The Coptic Church as an Egyptian Cultural Centre

Zoxsasi

Can I just ask you all something here? Those of you that go to Coptic Orthodox Churches outside of Egypt:

Do you find that your Church is literally an Egyptian Social Centre where there happens to be just Coptic Christians there?

Do you get the impression that what unites you with other Coptic Christians is not necessarily Jesus Christ, but rather Egypt?

is the environment of the Church based on Christ's teachings, or is it all cultural based on the standards by which Egyptians live by?

I spent nearly 5 years attending a Russian Orthodox Church. All they did, every sunday, was just have a cup of coffee with the priest (after the mass) and talk quietly.

That's it.  On wednesdays, they'd gather together in a hall and just read the Philokalia.
That's it. Someone would just read it, and people would just listen and contemplate on it. That was about all there was to the Church "after liturgy" life.

So, the "after liturgy" events in the Church, well in a Coptic Church, are not really like this. There are people looking for work, people looking for a wife, people looking for trouble, people looking to have a good time; and there are some people looking for Christ. Looking for fellowship - Christian fellowship.

However, if what unites us together is NOT Christ in a Church, then those that will suffer the most are the group looking for Christian fellowship. We don't really have that in our Church - Do we???

Do you all agree with this?? There is NO fellowship in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

You can go after the mass and have a ta3maya / falafel sandwich with a nice black espresso coffee, or have a white cheese sandwich with cucumbers.. but you'll never really be able to have that around a discussion of people reading the philokalia or the synaxarium.  I've NEVER seen this for some reason in the CoC.

The CoC's Christian fellowship seems like a way to pass time, rather than to invest time. It literally becomes time wasting and counter productive. Don't you find this???

My arabic, for goodness sake, improved in the CoC OUTSIDE of Egypt, than it did actually visiting Egypt.

The problems are this: The Orthodox Faith IS NOT only for Egyptians. There are many Europeans who are interested in Orthodoxy, and what they will encounter is the Egyptian nationality.

Does anyone else find this to be the case??

mabsoota

it can occasionally be the case; however people quietly contemplating spiritual works (which to me, implies not really applying them to day to day situations in their life, just seeing them as a nice abstract piece of poetry) is not always better.
i know people who are afraid to get involved in gossip (ok, this part is good) and so hurry home after church without really talking to anyone.
i think this misses the opportunity to be the body of Christ and to really look after each other's needs.
the time after church, in my opinion, is when we relate what we just heard to our day to day lives.
in order to do this we need to:
1. understand the sermon
2. have a personal spiritual discipline involving prayer and Bible study so we can think of the sermon in it's correct context
3. know each other so we can discuss spiritual things with each other.

in order for that to happen, we do need a bit of interraction with each other and we need to get to know stuff about each other.
also it's quite normal to go to work, have neighbours and get married. it's good for these activities to include people in the church.

different churches are differently skilled at this.
i saw a good example in the cathedral some time back where, after mass, there were spontaneous groups of people practicing alhan, praying together, teaching spiritual things to the children and cleaning the church buildings. for anyone who was not already busy, there was Bible study (dars kitaab) with the priest, where anyone could ask any question and even the difficult questions were both welcome and answered.

there are many things we can do to encourage spiritual growth in our churches, and to bring in other people from outside who need to know God's love. the coptic evangelism fellowship of north america has many great examples.

if u want to visit my church, send me a p.m. and i can show u many egs of how to do it (and probably a few of how not to!)

for me, the most important thing is for there to be regular Bible study, usually on a sunday after mass as many people travel long distances, lead by the priest or a deacon (or subdeacon) who is being trained by the priest.

we ARE the church. it's our job to help make the body of Christ more beautiful, by asking for Bible studies or by starting discussions with people after mass about the sermon.
this takes time and patience, but as we 'spur one another on toward love and good deeds' (hebrews 10:24), God will bless us.

lightening

i think you are right zox. the uniting factor is more of cultural nature than Christ. this is why they are all of the same culture in the gathering. otherwise coptic church would not be that homogeneous. i am afraid this applies to all cultures, not just coptic. this has many advantages but also very many disadvantages. my research in this area concluded that homogeneous congregations/churches are NOT biblically justified. we can explain how and why the phenomenon occurs but this does not justify it theologically. there is no 'culturally based' church encouraged in the bible. in Christ there is no jew, no greek, no slave, no free man, no egyptian, no Swedish, etc. cultural ghetto syndrome should not permeate the church as it is often the case. meanwhile, we need to do church, anyway...