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A Coptic Renaissance

Egypt’s Al Ahram reports on a revival of Coptic monasticism — and the resulting benefits for patristic studies.

The Coptic monastery known as Deir Al-Surian, or the Monastery of the Syrians, contains more than 3,000 books as well as a vast number of texts in Syriac, Aramaic (the language of Christ), Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic. They date upwards from the fifth century and today, as a result of the revival in Coptic monasticism in recent years, a new generation of educated monks are anxious to safeguard this heritage. Both Syrian and Coptic monks are engaged in their conservation, as well as restoration of the monastery itself…

Read on.

UPDATE: Amy has more news on Copts, these ones Catholic.

2 thoughts on “A Coptic Renaissance

  1. Thanks a lot for this link. It’s a shame that the Syriac heritage has been underprivileged compared to Latin & Greek.

  2. I think that’s beginning to change, at least in academia. I remember reading recently that Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ caused a surge of enrollment in Aramaic courses. That’s bound to lead to still more graduate studies. (Great to hear from you, Jacques.)

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