Coptic courses at AUC
Next week the American University in Cairo will be offering one-year courses on Coptic Monasticism. Jill Kamil discusses the syllabus with Gawdat Gabra
Gawdat Gabra, chief editor of the St Mark Foundation for Coptic History Studies at the patriarchate in Cairo, director of the Coptic Museum in Cairo for many years, active participant at international congresses on Coptology, and the author of several books (including the newly- published Coptic Monasteries: Egypt's Monastic Art and Architecture) is well equipped to face the formidable task of taking the chair of Coptic Studies in the American University in Cairo (AUC), the first such department in Egypt. "We hope that other universities will follow," he said.
In the belief that the richness of Egyptian Christian (Coptic) culture should be conveyed to a wider public, Gabra has long been convinced that the interested lay public in Egypt, the student, and the scholar should know more about this important segment of their heritage.
"Egypt is the birthplace of communal monasticism," Gabra says, "but Coptology is relatively new -- compared with other disciplines, that is." It became an independent discipline only in 1971 when a professor of Coptology was appointed at Munster University in West Germany. At other universities, notably Rome, Geneva, and Paris, Coptic studies were limited to the teaching of language and literature.
"Fortunately, during the past half a century the general public has become more aware of Egypt's Christian heritage," Gabra says. "Art exhibitions abroad have aroused a great deal of interest to know more about this Christian institution."
He said the first exhibition of Coptic art opened at the Brooklyn Museum in the United States in 1941. In 1963 another was held in Essen in West Germany. "But by far the most comprehensive and successful was the exhibition entitled 'Two thousand years of Christianity in Egypt', which opened at the Institute du Monde Arabe in Paris in June 2000. The 350 unique artefacts on display were chosen from collections of Coptic antiquities around the world, including the Coptic and Islamic Museums in Cairo, as well as from museums in France, Italy, and Russia's Hermitage. This exhibition did a great deal to help promote an understanding of the distinctive art of the Copts and its place in the Christian world," Gabra says.
The course being offered at AUC is comprehensive. Students will first be introduced to Egypt's research tools (libraries on Christian heritage in Cairo), the range of inscriptions, and the strong monastic traditions from the fourth through to the 13th centuries.
"The importance of monasticism for the study of Coptic culture is of vital importance, and to this end problems in the study of monastic art -- its discovery, conservation and publication, as well as themes, function, style, dating, and identification -- will be covered in the course, not to mention recognisable ancient Egyptian, Graeco-Roman and Byzantine influences," Gabra said. "Christian-Muslim relations in paintings between the 11th and the 13th centuries will come in the tenth week of the course when the wall paintings in Naqlun (Fayoum), and the Monastery of St Hatre (Simeon) at Awan will be covered, to mention but a few".
Registration will continue until the end of January 2003, although classes begin next Sunday, 26 January. Regular attendance in class, two-and-a-half hours per week, is essential. "It will be considered a form of participation," Gawdat says.
C a p t i o n :
Gawdat Gabra
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 23 - 29 January 2003 (Issue No. 622)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/622/he1.htm