Omaha daily bee., 1882-10-26
The Cop ts

Gentleman's Magazine.
The Copts of the present day barely
number one-fourteenth of the Egyp.
tians. Their churches have for the
most part been destroyed and replaced
by mosques, and their ruined ION.
vents are to be seen all over Egypt
Even their language is dead; for
though their liturgy Is written in Cop
tic, Arabic is now the vulgar tongue,
and multitudes, even of the illiterate
priests, cannot understand thepraYers
In the dead Coptic which they have
learned to gable by rote, as many of
them cannot read. AS to the. laity,
they cannot be supposed to be wiser
than their teachers, and very few
understand n word of the SER
vice, though they all join in
responses to them meaningless. So
that, like a good many other
things in Egypt, this modern repres.
sntative of the once vigorous and en-
ergetic Alexandrian church is but a
poor degrading thing, wellnigh as life
less az a Wondering mummy. TIL.
Patriarch of Alexandria is the. supreme
head of the Coptic church, and claims
to be the lineal successor OF st. Mark,
who is regarded as the founder of the
Egyptian church, and accordingly re-
ceIves the same reverence that the
Western church bestows on st. Peter.
The Patriarch, in contradistinctlon to
his subordinate priests, who must all
be married men, ID himself a celebate.
He Is invariably chosen by lot from
the monks of st. Anthony, whose
convent, in the desert of the Red sea,
Wa founded by st. Anthony himself,
and claims to be the most ancient of
all Christian m~onasteries. Although
the Coptic liturgy, like that
of the Latin church is
in q tongue not understanded
of the people," there are o~bservances
enough which must explain themselves
pretty clearly to these poor creatures
Such are the multitudinous fasts.
Besides every Wednesday and Friday
when they eat fish and oil if they can
get it), there are four long annual
fasts-that OF Lent, lasting Do days,
during which every sort of ANNA
food - HrHihited, even eggs, milk or
ch.',~ me OF their o~bservances
would seem to have been borrowed
from their Moslem neighbors. Not
content with baptism, their children
must also be ciroumcised. Moreover,
after death, a curious sacriise for the
departed is offered; when three times
a year the survivors repair to the
tomb of their relative, and, having
spent the night in wailing, they kill a
sheep or a buffalo in tine morning and
give its fish to the poor. Their
marriages are also arranged on
purely Oriental principles, IA the
anxious husband is not allowed to sci
eyes on his child bride whose age
varies from 10 to l3) till after the
wedding, the damsel being chosen fol-
him by a professional matchmaker,
AS among the Jews Of old, both bride
and bridegroom wear golden crowns
during the marriage service. These.
however, being church property, are
removed ere the young couple leave
the church. Their forms OF worship
are generally similar TO those of Rome
They acknowledge the seven sacra
mentT, with this popularity, namel!
that extreme JUNCTION is administered
not only to those at the point of death
but also to penitents after the com
mission of any great sin. They bap
tise by immersion, and use a cross tn
form of a I. Not that thi
seems invariable, az in III
photographs of the Abyssinian Pri
mate (Uoptic), his jeweled robeE ar
Embroidered with Maltese crosses in
Vulnerable. By the way, what
surious race those Abyssinian Chris
) tians are-with. their priests, monk
> all dressed in leather; and friars weal
: ing yellow caps, and carrying q COW