An account while I was in Jordan in October 2012
The other night a group of me and a few other BYU students decided to go to a Coptic church. There was a rumor that they were having a service on Thursday night. Fridays are the day for Sabbath day worship so I thought this was a bit odd but I decided to go either way.
I had ever been to a Coptic church
before but I have heard much and studied very little about them. As one of my
bosses is Coptic, I hear things periodically but she is not a strong Coptic in
the sense of actual practice. I also had read much about them in the news
regarding Egypt. Often times it is about the Coptic’s events dealing with
Muslims in Egypt; most of the time they are not good events. The Coptic
religion originates and is mostly found in Egypt. Regarding the Arab Spring, Christians and
Muslims united together to overthrow the Mubarak Regime. There was peace and
alliance but just a few weeks prior to the beginning of the Arab Spring there were
bombings in Coptic churches to probably incite revolts and a battle for a sense
of control. Now, almost 2 years after the fall of Mubarak, Christians and
Muslims are back at it with each other. The Coptic Church has many similarities
with other churches. It has its own pope, the Coptic language is used during
services and they can claim origin to the early apostles of the New Testament.
As we arrived to the Coptic church
building I noticed that it was near the brand new, almost multiplex style,
mosque. The mosque was beautiful, across the street from it was a large but
simple church. The church building stood about 40-50 feet tall with a Christmas
light lit up cross on the top of its highest point. We walked around the street
trying to find a gate to get into the church grounds. I thought it was odd the
church had walls around it but then I realized the mosque across the street had
walls and that most of my own church buildings in the in the States had walls.
It took a few Muslims who were crossing the street from the mosque to tell us
where the gate was to get in. Turned out there was a little slot you can put
your hand in to pull the lever to open the door but we didn’t realize this
until after we had to call over for a person to open the door for us. This individual
that opened the door was fully robed in priest clothes and had salt and pepper
colored beard. The beard probably was a foot long and a half foot cap topped
his head. He didn’t seem to want to say much to us at this time because he
pointed us in the direction where we should go and then went back to sit on his
chair. On our way out, we saw him sitting next to a younger male member and
seemed to be speaking Coptic to him, almost like bestowing a blessing upon the
young man.
As we walked closer to the main
door, you could look inside and see lights and even candles lit inside. We were
pretty nervous at first, we weren’t sure if we should knock or just open the
door. Out of our group I decided to just open the door and walk in. As soon as
I opened the door you could feel like you stepped back about 1000 years. The
church, though had modern paintings, it was filled with cascade windows and
arches. The doors were of the finest large wood carvings I have ever seen. The
pews of the church were more modern, you could see scriptures written in Arabic
from the New Testament written on the back side. Each pew had its own
scripture. There was about a group of 20
people listening to a man sit in the front dressed in business casual. It
seemed all of the others there were dressed in business casual attire,
including the women. The women were not veiled and even spoke more openly than
I’ve seen Muslim women in social settings. The person giving the sermon we
later found out was a visitor from Egypt, we could tell he was from Egypt
because of his Egyptian Arabic dialect. It was kind of refreshing to hear it
because that was the dialect I was taught in school. I sat down behind the
others listening in and I found myself not paying too much attention to the
sermon being given but more rather to the art work. It seemed that there were
pictures of many of the notable prophets in the bible everywhere they could
find a place to paint. Each prophet seemed to look about the same, white
beards, old looking (some young), and carrying a scroll (probably scripture). A
few had certain key symbols with them, for example, Moses was carrying a staff
and two tablets. In the front, there was a pew and a wood wall that didn’t
reach the top (the vaulted ceilings were about 40-50 feet high). On this wood
wall was a spot for each of the twelve apostles and in the center top was a
large wooden statue of Jesus Christ. There also was a miniature statue of Jesus
Christ in the center of the priest’s area and then on the left side of the wood
wall. Overall, the church was very beautiful with amazing artwork all around.
We were obviously late to the
sermon but we weren’t the only ones. Two young Arabs came walking in down one
of the aisles between the pews. They walked up where the priest’s area begins
and took their sandals off where the step begins. They stepped up and began to
cross themselves which I thought was the normal but then they knelt and began
to pray similar to how a Muslims prays in the mosque. I was really confused
because I thought for a moment that these were Muslims coming to pray in the
church, almost to make a point against the Christians but this was not the case
at all. After kneeling and putting their heads to ground for a few seconds,
they got back up and crossed themselves again. Then they went and kissed both
of the smaller statues of Jesus Christ and then each chose a picture of an
apostle and kissed that. I think one kissed Paul and the other kissed Thomas.
They then went near the entrance and each lit a candle and placed it in the
appropriate spot of sand located at just below eye level in a circular tub.
Another member who was observing
the sermon then handed us envelopes with the church’s name on the envelope. We
of course took them but then after it was handed to us, we noticed that this
was for the sake of paying offerings. One of the military guys with us paid
five dinar but the rest of us did not.
The sermon was done (finally), it
seemed to have lasted a total of two hours, an hour before and after we
arrived. After the sermon, each of the members there were so anxious to speak
to us! They wanted to ask us where we were from, why we’re in Jordan, and most
importantly, to have us over for coffee and tea for next week’s sermon. The
fellowship they were lending us reminded me of the type of fellowship we as
Latter-day Saints had done. It was quite interesting to see how much they
similar to us in this aspect. Coptics are primarily from Egypt so most of the
people there were from Egypt but a small hand few were from Armenia. Most
Armenians will say they go to the Armenian Church and never anything else so it
makes me wonder if these Armenians were going for another reason.
This was my first experience with a
Christian church in the Middle East. It was interesting to see another
Christian church in a different culture where Christianity isn’t the most
practiced religion. The Christians seemed to mix a lot of their practices with
the Muslims. The act of prayer that the two young Arab men did at the beginning
seemed too similar to what a Muslim would do when he first enters a mosque and
begins to pray. Christianity was fairly established in the Holy Land when Islam
came around and I wonder if maybe Islam took similar practices from
Christianity. The idea of respect for the sacred area seems to be universal
between the two religions. It also seemed that being a Christian, no matter
what sect you were, was just as good as any other sect.
