Coptic Orthodox Part 1

Through my research, I decided that I would check out Coptic Orthodox first. Coptic is the Greek word for Egyptian.

Nah...

To be honest, it was pure curiosity which started about a year ago when I looked into the meaning behind the wedding ceremony of Coptic Christians. Heck, my initial reactions were "Dang, there's a crown and they wear a robe???" But as I read further the beauty and symbolism behind the pomp and circumstance spoke to me. However, I told myself "No, your curiosity is because you're dating someone of this faith." And I left it at that for the longest time because I felt the integrity of my curiosity would be seen as someone who was purely infatuated with her dating prospects. (That whole dating subject and person matter is to be left in God's hands and will no longer be discussed on a public forum).

In any case, I was still very curious several months down the road, so I began my online search for information about Coptic Christians and how they differed from the other orthodox branches. I quickly learned that divisions amongst the church were mainly politicalish. Coptic Christians (Oriental Orthodox) branched off of Eastern Orthodox due to a misunderstanding in the theological nature of Christ. Basically, they were arguing whether Christ embodied a human aspect or a divine aspect and whether those two co-existed or were separated. Theology gets kinda crazy here, so I won't go in depth.

Then I began to read liturgy ( Greek term for public worship; sermons); more specifically St. Basil's Liturgy which does an amazing job at explaining the symbolism and meaning behind each service that is given on Sabbath (Sunday). I fell in love with the faith as I turned the pages and discovered more about a religion that dates back to the 2nd century when Saint Mark brought Christianity to Egypt.

I still have a lot of learn and play catch up with. I have yet to read the Bible from cover to cover. Hopefully, I get to that one day.

Moving forward, my biggest hurtle is the cultural and language barrier this religion presents. I'm very Asian in my features and I don't know a lick of Arabic other than the very bad word I learned and habibi (which means darling/ sweetie/ ect ). So I set out to look for an English Liturgy Service. I found a church in North East LA area called Holy Virgin Mary.

My next entry will be about my experience there, so stay tuned. I need to get back to studying. :)

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