From the land of the great ancient Egypt­ian civ­i­liza­tion, the land vis­ited by Our Lord and the Holy Fam­ily, and from the line of renowned pre­de­ces­sors such as St. Mark the Apos­tle, St. Athana­sius the Apos­tolic, and St. Cyril the Great, comes the author of the renais­sance of the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church: H.H. Pope Shenouda III.

A dis­tin­guished and promi­nent reli­gious leader, a pro­found theologian,

a gifted preacher, a tal­ented author, a spir­i­tual father, a man of God his entire life. His Holi­ness was born Nazeer Gayed on August 3, 1923, to a pious Chris­t­ian fam­ily in Egypt. By the age of 16, H.H. was active in the Sun­day School move­ment, which wrought to enrich Chris­t­ian Edu­ca­tion in the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church.

When H.H. grad­u­ated from Cairo Uni­ver­sity, he joined the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Sem­i­nary, and upon grad­u­a­tion, joined the fac­ulty of the sem­i­nary. On July 18, 1954, H.H. chose the soli­tude of the Egypt­ian desert and the angelic life of monas­ti­cism over every­thing else, tak­ing the exam­ple of St. Anthony the Great. As a monk, and later a monk priest, H.H. car­ried the name of the Chris­t­ian monk and was know as Fr. Anto­nious El-​Syriani. Wish­ing to live in com­plete soli­tude and devo­tion to our Lord, he became a her­mit and lived in a cave that he had carved out him­self for a period of six years. On Sep­tem­ber 30, 1962, he was called by the late H.H. Pope Cyril VI to be con­se­crated Bishop of Chris­t­ian Edu­ca­tion and Pres­i­dent of the Cop­tic Ortho­dox The­o­log­i­cal sem­i­nary. He was known as His Grace Bishop Shenouda. Through his lead­er­ship of the sem­i­nary, the num­ber of stu­dents tripled.

On Novem­ber 14, 1971, His Grace Bishop Shenouda was con­se­crated as His Holi­ness Pope Shenouda III, the 117^th Pope of Alexan­dria and Patri­arch of the See of St. Mark. Since that blessed day, the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church has wit­nessed a remark­able revival through the guid­ance of the Holy Spirit and the pas­toral care of H.H. Pope Shenouda III. H.H. con­ducts a weekly meet­ing, which is attended by over seven thou­sand of the faith­ful at the Cathe­dral of St. Mark in Cairo.

His Holi­ness has been the editor-​in-​chief of El-​Keraza Mag­a­zine, the offi­cial pub­li­ca­tion of the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church, since 1962. He became the first patri­arch of Alexan­dria since the Fifth Cen­tury to have been Dean of the The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary and con­tin­ues to lec­ture at the branches of the Sem­i­nary in Cairo, Alexan­dria, and abroad and the Higher Insti­tute of Cop­tic Stud­ies. He also estab­lished other branches of the Sem­i­nary in Egypt as well as in Amer­ica, Aus­tralia, and the United King­dom. His Holi­ness is the author of 101 books on a vari­ety of sub­jects, over half of which have been trans­lated into Eng­lish, French, Ger­man, Ital­ian, and other lan­guages. He has ordained more than eighty Met­ro­pol­i­tans and Bish­ops and over 600 priests since 1971. He gives spe­cial atten­tion to the youth of the church. H.H. has said many times, “A church with­out youth is a church with­out a future.” And one of our youth once replied to H.H., “And youth with­out the church are youth with­out a future.”

H.H. also gives spe­cial atten­tion to the ser­vice of women in the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church. H.H. said, and I quote, “We felt a great need of the work of women and we wanted women to have a cer­tain order and ser­vice in the church, not only to have girls as Sun­day School teacher who give a part of their time when­ever they can, but we want girls and women to give their whole life to God and serve the Church.”

Despite his many respon­si­bil­i­ties, H.H. usu­ally man­ages to spend three days a week in the monastery. His love of monas­ti­cism has led a monas­tic revival in the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church. He has ordained hun­dreds of monks and nuns and reestab­lished many monas­ter­ies and con­vents. He is the first pope to estab­lish Cop­tic monas­ter­ies out­side of Egypt, which presently num­ber nine.One of the most remark­able things about the growth of the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church is her expan­sion world­wide. When H.H. became pope in 1971, there were only four churches in North Amer­ica. Today, there are over 100.

His Holi­ness Pope Shenouda III is well known for his deep com­mit­ment to Chris­t­ian Unity. In an address he gave at an ecu­meni­cal forum dur­ing the Inter­na­tional Week of Prayer in 1974, he declared, “The whole Chris­t­ian world is anx­ious to see the church unite. Chris­t­ian peo­ple, being fed up with divi­sions, are push­ing their church lead­ers to do some­thing about church unity and I am sure that the Holy Spirit is inspir­ing us.”

H.H. has empha­sized that Chris­t­ian Unity must be found upon a unity of faith and not a unity of juris­dic­tion. As a result, H.H. has paid many vis­its to the var­i­ous sis­ter Ortho­dox churches and their patri­archs, such as those of Con­stan­tino­ple, Moscow, Roma­nia, and Anti­och. A full com­mu­nion of these churches with the Ori­en­tal Ortho­dox Churches is very close.

In 1973, H.H. was the first Cop­tic Ortho­dox pope to visit the Vat­i­can in over 1500 years. In this visit, both H.H. Pope Shenouda III and H.H. Pope Paul VI signed a com­mon dec­la­ra­tion on the issue of Chris­tol­ogy and agreed to estab­lish joint com­mis­sions for dia­logue on unity. There have also been dia­logues with var­i­ous Protes­tant churches world­wide. Under the lead­er­ship of H.H., the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church is a full mem­ber of the World Coun­cil of Churches, the Mid­dle East Coun­cil of Church, the All-​African Coun­cil of Churches, the National Coun­cil of the Churches in Christ in the U.S.A., the Cana­dian Coun­cil of Churches, and the Aus­tralian Coun­cil of Churches. In May 2000, he estab­lished the first ecu­meni­cal office, in the Arch­dio­cese of North America.

By: Father Mikhail E. Mikhail

St. Mark Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church Cleve­land, Ohio