What Did the Lord Jesus Christ Say
About The Coptic Orthodox Church?
By
Deacon Victor Beshir
Fact:
The only place that the Lord and the holy family lived in besides
But, why
Fact:
The Lord almost spent more time in
Fact:
The only church that our Lord Jesus talked about was the Coptic Orthodox
Church, which started in
Why does the Bible refer to
Why was
Why did the prophecy about the altar of the New
Testament mention
There are a lot of amazing
facts that need to be disclosed about
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I know that you are eager to hear what the Lord said
about the Coptic Orthodox Church. But
before we listen to what He said, we need to start the journey from its old
sources in the:
The Old
Testament:.
First we meet with: Joseph, son of
The life of Joseph, the son of
In addition, in the days of
the first Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; we have seen people making
many trips to
The spiritual food in the New Testament is our Lord
Jesus Christ, since He is the ‘Bread of Life’ (John
Now, you can know one reason for why Joseph was a
symbol of Christ. Both Christ &
Joseph came to
Second, let us
examine: Moses & The Exodus:
Again, Moses’ life is
considered as a symbol of the Lord’s life.
The Passover made by Moses, the Manna, crossing the Red Sea, and the
exodus of the children of Israel, all were considered by the New Testament and
the fathers of the church as prefigures of the salvation on the cross, of our
spiritual life in Christ, and of the spiritual trip into the heavenly Jerusalem
respectively.
As we all know, the word of
God is very accurate. If it refers to
Christ clearly makes the
connection between eating manna and eating from the Eucharist when He says: “I
am that Bread of life. Your fathers did
eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat
thereof, and not die. I am the living
bread which came down from heaven: if any man eats of this bread, he shall live
for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world (John
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Egypt
was mentioned in the Bible 587 times, which indicates the importance
of
Although,
Therefore, to start a
New Testament, a great spiritual power was needed to get rid of the idolatry
center in Egypt and to restore Egypt to
its first image as the spiritual ‘garden of the Lord’ and the spiritual feeder
of the world.
According to the laws of Moses there should be only one
altar, and that altar was moved to
This verse is the only
place in the Old Testament that talks about another altar, the Christian
altar. This altar is in
As to the ‘Pillar at its border,’ this pillar
could refer to St. Mark the Apostle, the founder of the Coptic Orthodox Church
and the writer of the second gospel, or it could refer to the city of
Alexandria, located at the Northern West border of Egypt, where the Coptic
Church first started and is still called until today ‘The Church of
Alexandria,’ or it could refer to this great ‘Alexandrian Theological School,’
where Bible Interpretation and Christian Theology first started and many great
theologians of the early church graduated from.
At any rate, this prophecy of Isaiah foresaw the great
spiritual role of the Christian Egypt and its church, the Coptic Orthodox
Church, in an exclusive way that was never told of any other church in the
world.
2- “Blessed is
This is a great blessing to the children of the Coptic
Church, one of a kind in the Bible. It
is uttered from the mouth of the Lord Himself.
This blessing is the yeast of life that started the Coptic Church and
kept it alive over the centuries to overcome waves of severe persecutions,
monstrous heresies, and the gates of hell.
This blessing made the Coptic Orthodox Church a very spiritual one,
which over the centuries presented a great number of saints, martyrs, teachers,
theologians, Bible interpreters, and faith defenders. In it also started the Christian Monasticism
by St. Anthony in the Fourth century.
Leaving
Now, after harboring for a while in the Old Testament,
let us move to:
The New Testament:
The Flight of The Holy Family (Jesus, Joseph & Virgin
Mary) To
King Herod, as it is recorded in the second chapter of
the gospel of Matthew, planned to kill Jesus when he was a child. The angel of the Lord ordered Joseph to take
the Virgin Mary and Jesus and flee to
How Saint Matthew Phrases the Flight of the Holy Family?
It is amazing that the Holy
Spirit uses almost the same words used in the Old Testament when He talked
about Moses and applied them here on the flight of our Lord into
First comparison:
Moses:
‘When Pharaoh
heard of this matter, he sought to kill
Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt
in the
Christ:
‘When Herod
saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent
and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem
who were two years old or under’ (Matt 2:16)
‘An angel of the Lord appeared to
Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the Child and His mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you;
for Herod is about to search for the child, to
destroy him.” (Mat
Second comparison:
Moses:
‘And the Angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush (Exodus 3:2).
‘And the Lord said to Moses in
Median, "Go, return to
Christ:
‘When Herod died, an angel of the
Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up,
take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead"
(Matthew 2: 19,20).
‘Then Joseph got up, took the
child and his mother by night, and went to
Conclusion:
It is very clear that the Holy
Spirit intentionally uses these parallel verses to draw our attention to the
common salvation in both stories. Moses returned to Egypt for the salvation of the children
of Israel, while Christ fled to
What
Happened During The Flight To
Instead of going through
details of the flight to
1- Again, Isaiah foretold the flight and
described it in very precise words:
‘The
LORD is riding on a swift cloud and comes to
Saint Cyril the Great, a great
Egyptian theologian from the fifth century, views the swift cloud as the Virgin
Mary carrying Jesus and escaping to
2-
Reviewing the history of the flight of
the Holy Family, someone can easily
conclude that there was a great mission behind
the trip, which could be summarized in two aspects: destroying the worship of idols and planting seeds for churches.
3-
Although anyone expects that the holy
family would hide in one place in Egypt, however, to our amazement the Holy
Family did not stay in one place but
rather traveled all over Egypt from East to West and from North to South,
covering most parts of Egypt.
4-
The idols were destroyed in every place visited by the Holy
Family, as prophesized by Isaiah and witnessed by historians. Palladius, a historian from the Fourth
Century, went to
5-
Sozomenus
the historian mentioned in his ‘Ecclesiastical History, many incidents of
breaking idols and one ‘concerning the tree Persis
which was inhabited by a devil, and when Jesus passed by it, the devil fled
away and the tree worshipped Christ and became a source of healing.’[2]
6- As a
result of the trip, the Egyptians knew deception of the devil and falseness of worshipping idols. The roots of idol worship were uprooted from
the minds of the Egyptians, and that helped in
destroying the idolatry influence on the rest of the world.
7- the historians mentioned that in every
place welcomed the Holy Family, Christ blessed the place and prophesied that a
church or a monastery would be built in the place. All these prophecies were fulfilled. These blessings were like seeds planted in
those places and grew to be spiritual centers of the Christian faith.
8- Christ made
numerous miracles all over
Egyptians believed in Jesus as a divine child. The memories of the child helped many in
accepting the Christian faith later on.
Because
of the blessings of the flight of the Holy Family into
“Rejoice and exalt
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How much time did the Holy Family spend in
1-
The family left
The
Coptic Synaxarium, under 24 Bashans (Coptic
month), says: ‘The Lord came to the
2-
The Coptic book of Difnar, under 6 Hathor
(Coptic month), says: ‘The Lord came
with His mother and His pure apostles to this place where He escaped for three and a half years from Herod the
king.’
3-
In 1998, a small manuscript written in
Coptic was discovered and published in German.
The manuscript dated back to the fourth
century and contained the following: ‘The Holy Family stayed in
This means that The Lord Jesus
Christ stayed in
Summary of Jesus’ Life on earth:
years of JESUS’ life
|
where |
what HE DID |
1-2
years |
|
No
traveling |
3-6
years |
|
Traveled
all over planted
seeds of churches, & did miracles. |
7- 30
years |
|
In one
place, no recorded missionary work |
31- 33
years |
|
Great
work all over Israel |
The conclusion:
The Lord lived in two countries only:
In Israel He dealt with Jews, who worship God, and
familiar with the laws of Moses, and the prophets, and were waiting for the
Messiah. In contrast, in Egypt He dealt
with Gentiles who worshipped idols through the deception of the devil.
A Very Reliable Reference for the Flight To
As you know, apparitions of the departed saints and
prophets is mentioned in the Bible, we found one good example that illustrates
this fact in the apparition of Moses and Elijah to Jesus (Matthew 17:
1-8). They didn’t only appear to Him but
they also talked with Him and they were not seen by Jesus alone but by the
apostles too, while Moses was dead 1250 years before the birth of Jesus. This is what Jesus made very clear when He
says: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is
not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew
“For to me,
to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will
mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two, having
a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more
needful for you (Philippians
St. Theophpilus,
Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church (376-403 AD), had heard many accounts of the
Holy Family flight to
What Happened in the Monastery of Saint Mary (Dair Al-Muharraq)?
Then, before leaving that place, the Savior says the
following:
‘ The blessing of my good Father and the Holy Spirit
will stay in this house forever. In this
place a church will be built, and have a devoted altar to the Lord where people
from everywhere will come and offer sacrifices and gifts. The angel of peace will bless every person
who comes to this place and worships in sincerity. People
in this place will stay in the Orthodox[hgby1] Faith until My second coming.”
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My dear friend, do you know who are the people who live now in this place?
They are the monks of the Monastery of Saint Mary (Dair Al-Muharraq), Coptic Orthodox monks, and the church that this
monastery belongs to is the Coptic Orthodox Church. Then, this statement explicitly refers to the
faith of the Coptic Orthodox Church. So,
the Lord Himself says that the
Coptic Orthodox Church has and it will continue to have the authentic faith
until the second coming of our Lord.[hgby2]
What a powerful
statement! A statement never said about
any other church in the world.
Dear reader who is seeking the authentic faith in the
Twenty-First century where there are thousands of Christian denominations, each
claims to have the true faith, you have heard it from the mouth of the Lord
Himself. Do I need to add any more to
what the Lord said about the Coptic Orthodox Church? If it comes from Him, then this is the full
truth, and in it there are full directions to everyone who listens.
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After this wonderful journey
from the Old Testament to the New Testament and to the history of
He
planted the seeds for establishing the Coptic Orthodox Church, which started in
The
distribution of wheat by the Egyptians to the hungry world by Joseph in the
past, it was repeated over and again in distributing the food of the deep
spirituality of the Coptic Church. It
happened, for example, when St. Anthony, an Egyptian hermit, started monasticism
in the
The
great altar of the Coptic Orthodox characterized with its deep spirituality and
heavenly worship that attracted the whole world in the past & will attract
more in the future.
Thanks to God for all
the blessings He gave to the Coptic Orthodox Church, and for His promise that
this church will keep the faith until His second coming, the faith ‘ which was once for all delivered to the
saints’ (Jude 1:3).
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All the blessings
mentioned about
Search for the closest
Coptic Orthodox Church near you. To
experience the depth of its spirituality, before you join its Sunday worship,
ask to learn about the church. Once you
are ready, you will discover the
“And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely” (Revelation
[1] Palladius, the
[2] Nicene
& Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series, book 2, pages 342, 343
[3] The word
‘Legend’ is used to tell ‘a story of the life of a saint, or a collection of
such stories,’ as explained by the New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of
the English Language, 1993
[4] The consecration of this altar mentioned in
the following references:
Many Coptic Synxariums, and other
ecclesiastical books, the Patrologia
Orientalis in
the third volume under the translation of the Arabic Synxarium
done by RENE BASSET, AMELINEAU in his French
book about Geography of Egypt, ABU EL-MAKARAM
in his book, 'The History of Egyptian Churches & Monasteries', and Meinardus in his book, Monks and Monasteries.