St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society

Sixth St. Shenouda Annual Coptic Conference Registration Form

August 13-14, 2004

Presentations @ UCLA, Royce Hall Room 314, Los Angeles California 90024

• Fees
• Schedule (periodically updated)
• Location
• Directions & Parking
• Abstracts

Registration Fee (Suggested Contributions):

• Members: $20
• Non-Member : $25
• Students: $10
• UCLA Students/Faculty: Free

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Schedule:

Schedule: The following is a tentative schedule for the conference:

Friday, August 13, 2004

Saturday, August 14, 2004

• Note: For e-mail registration, the registration fee will be collected at the first day of attendance and will cover entrance fees, program packet, and lunches.

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Location:

The Conference will be located on the Campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Royce Hall, Room 314.

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Directions and Parking:

Coming from the south or from the Santa Monica Freeway:
Take the 405 N, Exit Wilshire East (Bear to the right at the exit)
Turn Right on Wilshire Blvd.
Turn Left on Westwood Ave. (the 3rd traffic light after exiting the fwy)
Turn Right on Leconte Ave
then turn Left on Hilgard Ave (the second light after turning into Le Conte
Turn Left on Westholme Drive, then turn right immediately in a driveway to the information booth.
Request parking in Lot #2, parking is $7 per day and mention that you attending the St Shenouda Coptic Conference at Royce Hall.
The attendant at the booth can direct you to Royce Hall.
Enter in the left-most door of Royce Hall and take the elevator up to the third floor (Room #314).

Coming from the north (The San Fernando Valley):
Take the 405 S, Exit Sunset East
Turn Left on Sunset Blvd.
Turn Right on Hilgard Ave.
Turn Right on Westholme Drive, then turn right immediately in a driveway to the information booth.
Request parking in Lot #2, parking is $7 per day.
The attendant at the booth can direct you to Royce Hall.
Enter in the left-most door of Royce Hall and take the elevator up to the third floor (Room #314).

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Abstracts:

Title: Pharaonic Inscriptions of the White Monastery

Presenter: Dr. Monica Bontty (Los Angeles)

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the origin of an ancient Egyptian stone relief found at the White Monastery based on a comparison of other pharaonic artifacts of the same period. In addition it will offer a translation and philological commentary of the hieroglyphic inscription.

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Title: “An Archaeological Mission for the White Monastery”

Presenter: Dr. Darlene Brooke-Hedstrom (Wittenberg University, Ohio)

Abstract:

The early history of Coptic archaeology in Egypt is a story shaped by individuals seeking texts for collections and pharaonic artifacts for patrons. Scant attention was paid to documentation or to preserving monuments of the Byzantine period in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. A few sites do serve as exceptions, however even these were excavated at a time when archaeology, as a discipline, was making a slow transition from an amateur study to a scientific field as represented by Sir William Flinders Petrie.

Coptic archaeology, as a distinct field, witnessed its turning point in the last quarter of the 20 th century when scholars considered systematic excavation of Byzantine and Coptic sites essential for reframing earlier historical questions. Separated now from a secondary or tertiary position in archaeological projects, Coptic archaeology has become a field of inquiry worthy of independent analysis. Additionally, the subfield of monastic archaeology is proving to be of particular interest to archaeologists, papyrologists and historians both in Coptic Studies and in the fields of Byzantine and Islamic Studies.

In response to a desire to preserve and study Coptic sites before more information is lost, a group of scholars has formed an international consortium to study and preserve the sites of Dayr al-Abyad and Dayr al-Ahmar in Sohag. This presentation will examine the current condition of the site of Dayr al-Abyad, the factors for considering the site a candidate for salvage archaeology , and the proposed research goals of full scale excavations planned to begin in 2005.

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Title: The Impact of Apa Shenoute on the Egyptian Church after Chalcedon

Presenter: Prof. Fr. David W. Johnson (Berkeley, CA)

Abstract:

The paper will examine the evidence for the impact of Apa Shenoute of Atripe and his followers on Egyptian anti-Chalcedonian theology and ecclesiastical politics in the century and a half following the Synod of 451.  Since the scholarly editing and evaluation of Apa Shenoute's writings are still in their infancy, all conclusions drawn from those sources must for the present be tentative and open to revision.

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Title: Coptic Magic and Ritual Power in the World of Shenoute

Presenter: Dr. Marvin Meyer (Orange County, California)

Abstract:

This illustrated presentation will introduce the place of magic and ritual power in the years around the time of Shenoute by focusing upon the figure of Mary dissolving chains in magic and religion. The presentation will raise issues of the relationship between magic and ritual in Shenoute's day as well as our own.
 

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Title: "Bound by the Canons": The Monastic Vow and its Promotion in Shenoute's Discourses

Presenter: Mr. Mark R. Moussa (Washington, D.C.)

Abstract:

Shenoute's corpus is a treasure trove of monastic ideology and asceticism, and a rich source for examining the monastic project of an abbot and his community in the mid-fifth century. While the section of the corpus known as the Canons deals primarily with matters internal to the White Monastery federation, Shenoute's Discourses discuss many more issues related to monasticism and Christianity at large in the surrounding region. One such issue was the promotion and implementation of the monastic vow, an act hitherto seemingly secondary in the monastic literature of Late Antique Egypt. My purpose is to examine Shenoute's rhetoric of the vow and its critical importance for the life of the monk and the community as a whole, and I shall do so principally on the basis of texts from Discourses 5 and 8.

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Title: Sinuthiana Arabica : Two Shenoute Lectionaries (Paris, B.N. ar. 4761 and 4796)

Presenter: Dr. Mark Swanson (Saint Paul, MN)

Abstract:

There is a surprising paucity of Shenoute material preserved in Arabic. However, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris preserves two collections of homilies attributed to the Archimandrite, the “chief of the hermits”: nine homilies for the Sundays of Lent (ar. 4761), and twenty-six homilies for the evening raising of incense on Sundays throughout the first half of the year (ar. 4796). The latter will be presented briefly (and participants in the conference invited to search for parallels!). Most of the paper will be devoted to the Lenten collection and the various popular traditions upon which it draws.

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Title: The Ancient Library of St. Shenouda's Monastery (White Monastery)

Presenter: Hany N. Takla, (Los Angeles, CA)

Abstract:

The Monastery of St. Shenouda in Sohag, known as the White Monastery, is the greatest and most ancient survivying monument of Coptic Egypt. Its greatness is derived mainly from its founder, St. Shenouda the Archimandrite. As reflection to his literary greatness, the monastery possessed what can be called the largest and most valuable ancient Coptic Library that ever survived in Christian Egypt. All of its dismembered and fragmentary codices are now adorning the collections of major libraries and private collections in Egypt, Europe, North America, and even Australia.

The dismembered pages of this library made their way to the Vatican as early as the late 18 th Century. They contined to stream slowely to other libraries and museums, until the renowned French scholars in Egypt; Amelineau, Bouriant, and Maspero; prevailed upon the French government to negotiate the purchase of all the remaining folios that were left the monastery. This occurred more than a century after the first ones appeared in Europe. Now these bound fragments are chief glory of the Coptic Collection of the now Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

This paper will attempt to give a historical account of the dispersement of the library as well as an overview and assessment of its orginal contents, on the basis of the great work that Coptic scholars have done for over a century. This presentation is based primarily on Prof. Tito Orlandi's Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari , Prof. Stephen Emmel's Monumental Shenoute's Literary Corpus , and Prof Karlheinz Schüssler's Biblia Coptica .

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Title: The Current Manuscript collection of the monastery of Anba Bishay (Red Monastery)

Presenter: Hany N. Takla, (Los Angeles, CA)

Abstract:

Despite the antiquity and the beauty of Anba Bishay Monastery in Sohag, known as the Red Monastery, it lives in the shadow of its colossal neighbor, the Monastery of Anba Shenouda, known as the White Monastery. Its manuscript collection in the old days would also have been dwarfed by that of the White Monastery. At the present time, however, it can boast of having a manuscript collection in contrast to non-existant, totally stripped-down one of the White Monastery.

This modest collection was taken from the monastery during the transition to its current administration. They were subsequently returned, and are now preserved at the residence of the monk-priest of the Monastery. This paper will attempt for the first time to shed light on these manuscripts and describe briefly their contents.

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Title: The State of Research on the Career of Shenoute of Atripe 2004: What Have I Learned in 20 Years?

Presenter: Dr. Janet Timbie, (, MD)

Abstract:

I read and published a paper on this topic in the 1980s and since then there have been several scholarly achievements that have opened up the possibility of a full description and evaluation of the career of Shenoute. I will review the work of the last 20 years, with emphasis on the most important achievements (the work of Emmel, Layton, and others). In 1983, Johannes Leipoldt's Schenute von Atripe (1903) was the benchmark against which subsequent work was measured. In 2004, with greater access to the works of Shenoute, Leipoldt is less important and his judgment that “Shenoute signifies nothing for world history, everything for the Copts” (Leipoldt, p, 191) should be permanently set aside. Certain areas of current research on Shenoute demonstrate his importance to the development of monasticism and patristic exegesis.

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Title: Those Whom God Made Famous Throughout The World":Holy Men From Middle And Lower Egypt In The Writings Of Saint Shenoute The Great .

Presenter: Fr. Tim Vivian, (Los Angeles, CA)

Abstract:

At the Monastery of Saint Antony, in the patron saint's church, when one walks from the western portion of the nave to the eastern, one passes under an arch; on this arch, full-size paintings of Saints Shenoute and Pachomius look down. These two great monastic saints stand guard--and offer benediction--as one passes into the eastern nave with its glorious program of monastic saints. The saints depicted in the eastern nave include Antony and Paul, of course, but also numerous luminaries from Scetis (the Wadi al-Natrun): Macarius the Great, John Kolobos, Pishoi, Moses the Black.

These paintings make it clear that the fourteenth-century monks of Saint Antony's revered monastic forebears from all of Egypt. But what relationship did the monks of Scetis and Shenoute's White Monastery have with each other? Shenoute appears rarely in surviving Coptic sources from Scetis. What about the sources from the White Monastery? This paper will examine references in Shenoute's writings and related documents to see how famous monks were portrayed at the White Monastery.

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Title: The Literary Corpus of Shenoute

Presenter: Prof Dwight W. Young (Chicago, IL)

Abstract:

Shenoute's vast literary output first came to the attention of western scholars in the 1770s when numerous fragments of his works were acquired in Egypt and brought to Europe and England for conservation in various collections. Still, what the texts were about was scarcely known prior to 1810, at which time lengthy excerpts were published by a Danish scholar in a catalogue of an important Italian collection. Thereafter, little was added to the published texts for almost one hundred years. But just before World War I two important contributions brought a fuller realization of the nature of Shenoute's literary works. However, both publications, each appearing in two volumes, had drawbacks that hindered a proper understanding of the material. A major flaw was that a reader could not ascertain how all the texts fit together in a comprehensive view of the holdings in the monastic library whence they had come.

After the upheaval of the First World War, the study of Shenoute's writings languished, nowhere more so than in America. This was the situation when in 1953 I undertook a study of the texts for my doctoral dissertation. Because of other demands put upon me in an academic career not devoted to Coptic matters, I made little progress for three decades. In 1983 what had seemed a deplorable condition began to change. In the spring of that year Stephen Emmel, a younger Copticist showing great promise, and I independently went to Rome to utilize assembled photographic fascimiles of many of the surviving manuscripts. There the two of us shared a growing perception of the scope of the codices to which the fragmentary manuscripts belonged. At the time I was preparing for publication a volume of selected Shenoutean fragments. Emmel was laying the groundwork for a doctoral dissertation at Yale University. A full decade went by before the results of our respective projects saw the light of day in 1993.

What I achieved was the first presentation of an extensive array of Shenoutean texts in eighty years. What Emmel accomplished was of great significance. He demonstrated that the great Shenoute, apparently in the fifth century during his own lifetime, had his writings gathered into seventeen distinct volumes. Nine of these tomes were given to monastic rules and exhortations, and eight were devoted to homilies he had preached from time to time. As a consequence of this dramatic breakthrough, a few years later Emmel organized an editorial project designed to set forth comprehensive scholarly editions of all works by Shenoute. The first part of this endeavor, which an international team of Coptic scholars has now undertaken, focuses on an edition of the nine volumes of rules and instructions for those living in Shenoute's monastic communities. The present paper reviews what is presently known about the main features of all seventeen volumes.

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Title: Between Saint Shenute and Saint Macarius

Presenter: Dr. Youhanna N. Youssef, (Melbourne, Australia)

Abstract:

It is noteworthy to mention that the monastery of Saint Shenute was the stronghold of the Coptic Orthodoxy in Upper-Egypt and the Monastery of saint Macarius played the same role in Lower-Egypt.

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Prepared by Hany N. Takla, July 30, 2004

For more information contact: htakla@stshenouda.com, mmoussa@stshenouda.com