Ecclesial Education, Authority, and Spiritual Discernment: Reconsidering Qualification and Service in Contemporary Coptic Ecclesial Life

For well over a century, the Coptic Orthodox Church has undergone a remarkable internal renewal — one centered firmly on education. The revitalization of catechetical life, the expansion of theological instruction, and the establishment of seminaries both within Egypt and throughout the diaspora have together produced several generations of believers who are in many ways more actively engaged in ecclesial life and familiar to teaching than their predecessors — a transformation that stands among the most significant ecclesial developments in modern Coptic history.

With this, however, new demands on ecclesial governance and pastoral care have arisen. The Church now finds herself in a position unforeseen by earlier generations, with a believing community stretching across the globe and in which theological awareness is widespread, access to teaching is immediate, and platforms of influence extend far beyond the boundaries of parish life. In this context, the question is no longer simply how to educate, or how to maintain extant ecclesial operations, but how to engage in healthy spiritual discernment in the sphere of ecclesial administration by identifying, forming, and entrusting those with the requisite intellectual, theological, and spiritual gifts and qualifications so as to ensure that the integrity of ecclesial instruction and governance is preserved.

The roots of the present situation lie in the early twentieth century, in the movement associated with Saint Archdeacon Habib Girgis.[1] Confronted with widespread illiteracy, a dearth of theological instruction, and other similar problems, Saint Archdeacon Habib Girgis and his collaborators initiated what would become the Sunday School movement — a sustained effort to educate the laity and re-anchor the life of the Church in its theological tradition and liturgical life. Over time, this movement came to reshape the ecclesial landscape in its entirety. Under the leadership of Pope Shenouda III, education became a defining characteristic of Coptic identity, as His Holiness held robust and immensely popular weekly lectures, structured educational curricula, insisted to personally oversee the affairs of the Theological Seminary, and authored a staggering number of published theological works. Under his leadership, the Seminary further expanded its reach, extending beyond Egypt to the diaspora, to serve the Coptic communities that had come to be established in North America, Europe, and Australia.

The success of this effort is evident. The average Coptic layperson today possesses a level of theological awareness that would have been exceptional a century ago. Doctrinal questions are more readily engaged, interest in theological subjects and facility with theological terminology are generally more prevalent, and the writings of the Fathers are more accessible than they have ever been.

This ecclesial elevation in theological interest and literacy has unfolded alongside another development: a marked rise in general education among Copts, especially in the West. As immigrant communities established themselves across the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, they came to be disproportionately represented in highly skilled professions.[2] This was driven by cultural priorities, migration patterns favoring the educated, and the demands of minority perseverance.[3] Thus, the Coptic faithful — particularly in the diaspora — are now among the most highly educated and professionally accomplished cohorts in their respective societies. Over the past sixty to seventy years, this combination of factors has come to produce a community whose members are not only religiously engaged, but also intellectually rigorous. They are trained to evaluate arguments, to demand coherence, to recognize depth, and to expect a high degree of operational clarity and systemic order, consistency, and accountability.  

This reality has implicitly altered the expectations placed upon ecclesial teaching and governance, and indeed all other aspects of the Church’s operations. Instruction that may have sufficed in a previous generation — informal, loosely structured, or merely contemplative — now often proves inadequate for an audience accustomed to disciplined inquiry and intellectual precision[4], and leadership characterized by assumptions of total trust, reverence for clerical authority, a cultural aversion to or lack of concern for transparency, and ambiguous or unpredictable operating philosophies represents not only a disconnect from modern communal realities and expectations, but also breeding grounds for suspicion and distrust, malpractice, and unfortunately, as has been seen with increasing frequency in recent years, scandal. In this milieu, the Church has come to be confronted not only with the task of preserving doctrinal and administrative integrity, but also of doing so at a level of intellectual and procedural seriousness commensurate with the formation of her people and the grave entrustment imparted to her by God.[5] In this respect, the challenge facing the Church today is not a dearth of members capable of rising to meet the demands of the time, as it was in the early days of Saint Habib Girgis, for instance, but is precisely that the rise in the general level of competence — both theological and professional — urgently necessitates a commensurate sharpening of the criteria for teaching and spiritual leadership along with its careful articulation and faithful application.

Alongside this dual elevation — theological specifically and intellectual more generally — came geographic expansion. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century and accelerating thereafter, the Coptic Church established a global presence. Parishes that once numbered in the dozens grew into communities of hundreds or thousands. Dioceses expanded across entire regions and continents. This growth introduced structural challenges that bear directly on administrative practice, and most specifically on the question of qualification for teaching and shepherding the flock of Christ. 

In smaller communities, discernment of qualification and fitness for ordination and institutional empowerment was largely personal. Clergy and senior servants knew their congregants intimately, and so, barring instances of administrative malpractice or deception, the recognition of spiritual gifts and ecclesial qualification ordinarily occurred within the context of lived relations, and under ordinary circumstances, assuming pious intent and godly disposition, led to the sponsorship and empowerment of qualified individuals in the service of the Church. But in larger and more dispersed communities, this immediacy becomes difficult to sustain — interpersonal relations exist at further distance and with less intimate familiarity such that decisions regarding ordination and ecclesial sponsorship are made with less investigatory insight and firsthand information and educational and administrative responsibilities are delegated across broader networks. In such circumstances, discernment tends to rely more heavily on observable indicators such as level of secular education, apparent degree of ecclesial activity, reported reliability, and, increasingly, unexamined optics and mere communal visibility.

The introduction of digital media has intensified this dynamic. Platforms such as Instagram, Youtube, SoundCloud, and Facebook have created new spaces of ecclesial engagement, assessment, and interaction. While these platforms have facilitated the spread of sound instruction and helpful information, and fostered community among the believers not only within their parishes and local communities, but also across continents and cultural barriers, they have also in many ways altered the conditions in which spiritual and doctrinal authority is perceived, and, by extension, who receives institutional sponsorship, deference, and legitimization. 

On such platforms, teaching can easily be disseminated widely and rapidly, with receptivity dictated by following and visual metrics, with little to no regard for the qualifications of the content creator; ecclesial interest and involvement often become a matter of appearances and performative engagement; and perceived reliability, faithfulness, and worthiness to be heeded and revered are dictated by visual markers and algorithmic indicators rather than sound discipleship, discernment of spiritual gifts, ascetical life, scriptural understanding, theological training, or liturgical formation.[6] In this manner, visibility is often accorded precedence over formation, and formal ecclesial recognition and empowerment can be achieved without spiritual struggle, theological examination, the requisite virtuosity, or liturgical experience, and even by those who, in manipulating leaders, cultivating strategic alliances, building brands for themselves, and engaging in other forms of self-furtherance, come to obtain such sponsorship in a manner that directly contradicts such essential and longstanding prerequisites for ecclesial service and legitimization.[7]

Guest speakers at parish meetings and ecclesial conferences, for instance, are in many cases chosen not based on their degree of theological training, or discernment of their spiritual gifts and manner of life,[8] but by their online influence and the “viral” popularity of their social media content; candidates for priesthood often receive consideration and election due to their degree of social presence, communal likability[9], and parish visibility — a troubling concern when taken in the context of priestly ordination now predominantly being carried out in a largely arbitrary manner, absent a uniform, transparent, or theologically concerned process[10], most often by means of a popular vote[11]; and those entrusted and appointed to teach in the parishes often receive that grave responsibility with little to no consideration to their respective spiritual gifts or whether they have undergone formal theological training, but most frequently as a matter of course, as the next step in their expected trajectory of parish involvement, commencing in their childhood in Sunday School and culminating in the completion of some form of parish “pre-servants” curriculum and subsequent appointment to a position of teaching in some form in the Church.

Especially in a time when artificial intelligence has come to be routinely utilized and so occasions significant doubt as to the originality of unreviewed written or published content, the trustworthiness of online material, and the legitimacy and integrity of digital personas and social media contributions, the implications of the foregoing state of affairs cannot be overstated. 

For a highly educated audience, this creates severe tensions, especially as to the integrity of ecclesial leadership, operations, education, discipling, and pastoral care most generally. As accessibility and digital influence increase, discernment becomes more difficult, with the faithful being exposed to a wide range of voices of which not all meet the intellectual or spiritual standards that their formation has conditioned them to expect or that the Church expects for them.

A layered paradox therefore exists in the Church today. She has in many ways succeeded in elevating theological competence while her people have simultaneously attained high levels of general education. Yet these very successes, combined with the social and technological milieu in which the Church finds herself today, have made it more difficult to distinguish those who are truly called to shepherd and prepared to teach, and have heightened the consequentiality of ensuring the soundness of ecclesial operations and the fitness of ecclesial educators and shepherds according to the principles and practices delivered to and long employed by the Church for preserving the integrity of these central pillars of her functioning and wellbeing.

For a community marked by high academic achievement and trained in rigorous disciplines, and for the Church properly understood more generally, the shortcomings of inadequate teaching caused by the promotion of unqualified educators, and of unsound pastoral care caused by the ordination of spiritually unqualified and theologically untrained shepherds[12], are not merely aesthetic, but are rather most substantive and consequential. For this reason, Saint Habib Girgis narrates, as pertains to the experience of the Coptic Church in his own lifetime: “If the leaders [the clergy] are weak, then how will they lead troops more advanced than them in education and knowledge? That resulted in misunderstandings between the two ranks — the clergy and the laity. The effect of this was the weakness of the ranks, and such an obstacle stood in the path of advancement and reform, since each rank did not understand the other.”[13]

Superficiality, inconsistency, and imprecision are readily perceived, especially by a theologically familiar and intellectually sophisticated congregation.[14] Moreover, suspicion as to the integrity of ecclesial administration and disappointment with the quality of religious education carried out in the Church, when repeatedly confirmed in practice, occasions disillusionment by thoughtful believers who earnestly expect more of the Church, and renders religious education in the Church a matter of mere form and custom rather than the compelling and efficacious function it is intended to be to the end of engendering repentance, forming conviction, and inspiring hearers to true conversion of heart for the sake of their salvation. Fr. John A. McGuckin thus opines: “…our educational goals, as Orthodox Church-men and -women, [must] be no less strenuous than the goals of the other learned ones of our age…Mediocrity is not a reverent option, any more than it would be to settle for mediocrity in liturgical celebration: such a settlement becomes, de facto, sacrilegious.”[15]

Consistent failure to meet the requisite standards in ecclesial instruction and leadership therefore risks not only misunderstanding, but also, more dangerously, silent disengagement, implicit distrust, and, most lamentably, outright apostasy, while occasioning a loss of the Church’s legitimacy amidst the many competing institutions and attractions vying for her members’ time and investment in today’s uncompromising marketplace of attention. And with time, what originally constituted the Church’s core functions — teaching and pastoring[16] — come to be viewed not with the reverence or care befitting them, but instead with disinterest, disdain, and even contempt, being trod underfoot, having lost their seriousness and dignity through the absence of a respectable and reverence-inducing standard of practice, to the spiritual and intellectual detriment of both the Church and those within her embrace. 

The irony in this, particularly with respect to education, is that the common justifications proffered for an “inclusive” and informal approach to the function of teaching in the Church produce over time a directly opposite outcome. The desire to maximize youth involvement in ecclesial life by promoting the majority of young men and women to teaching positions, and to facilitate interest and participation among them by building educative settings on guest-speaker or informal fellowship models, ultimately results in teaching that is substantively diluted, uncompelling, and often, by the very nature of the approach, unorthodox. In time, this leads to less involvement, conviction, and theological competence by the very people the system seeks to serve by conducting education in such a manner. This is not due to any scarcity of theologically trained and ecclesially qualified teachers, but instead an administrative philosophy that fails to appreciate the already perceptible longterm consequences of a well-intentioned innovation to the traditional practice of teaching in the Church. 

Needless to say, the Church possesses both a wealth of spiritually and theologically capable individuals and a sincere and demanding congregation, yet the structures for identifying and empowering the truly qualified have not always kept pace with the developments discussed thus far.[17] In such a context, the necessity of formal and sound theological formation, and of possessing a willingness to reevaluate and modify the Church’s present practices, becomes all the more pronounced. 

To the end of restoring seriousness and integrity to the office of the priest, and to religious education as it is carried out in the Church, especially at the parish level, the Church must look firstly to her formal educating institution — the seminary — as the proper starting point to addressing today’s pedagogical and pastoral needs. For this reason, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III writes: “it is necessary for the fathers, the priests, to be graduates of theological colleges, so that they may be knowledgeable in religious sciences. The priest must be a student of the Holy Scripture, studying it deeply with interpretation — especially from the sayings of the holy fathers — and a student of theological and liturgical sciences and Church history, from trusted sources.”[18] His teacher, Saint Habib Girgis, states the same with added force: “There is a grave danger in the ordination of someone who has not graduated from the Theological College. It is an impudence against truth that is illaudable, a resistance to religious reform and a blatant violation of divine laws that oblige a priest to be an erudite scholar in religious subjects, as well as other subjects—in order to perform his divine duty in a perfect way, and to perform his duty toward God and the community in the best way.”[19]

The seminary is specifically designed to prepare ecclesial educators and shepherds for the requirements and expectations of those ministries[20], and when properly envisioned, supported, and operated, it is entirely unparalleled in its ability to accomplish those ends. This insistence arises from two converging needs: first, the internal need of the Church to preserve the integrity of her teaching and pastoring through structured, accountable formation, and second, the external need of meeting the intellectual standards of a highly educated laity who rightly expect clarity, coherence, and depth. The seminary exists precisely to address both goals. It forms its students according to the mind of the Church, grounding them in Scripture, patristics, liturgy, doctrine, and all other disciplines and concerns required by the ministry of the Church, while also cultivating within them habits of disciplined thought and careful expression. It provides not only information, but, more importantly, orientation — training to think, see, and understand ecclesially, with the proper framework for doctrinal instruction and pastoral practice, rather than in a merely analytical, or academic, fashion.

For this reason, those who have undergone such formation ought to be afforded proper empowerment and deference. Where the Church has established means of preparation, it is only right that those who have submitted to and faithfully completed that preparation be enabled to put into practice, for the benefit of the Church, their training and preparation, being entrusted with corresponding responsibilities. To fail in this regard is to undermine not only the very existence and mission of the seminary, through the practical elimination of its central function in the life of the Church and her service, but also, tragically, even the very integrity and efficacy of the Church’s educative and convicting power.

At the same time, in accordance with the scriptural mandate, not many among the flock should become teachers.[21] The increase in general competence — both theological and professional — does not imply a universal vocation to instruction. Rather, it intensifies the need to identify those who are specifically called and equipped to engage in the sensitive and consequential task of Christian education and ecclesial instruction for the doctrinal and spiritual formation of the believers.[22]

Indeed, the more educated a community becomes, the more pressing it is that its teachers and leaders be duly qualified. A well-formed audience is not best served by a multiplicity of voices, but by clarity and singularity of spirit — by those who have received the spirit and teaching of Christ in discipleship and formal ecclesial training and who can therefore deliver and teach these with precision, depth, honesty, and humility, in wholehearted submission to and out of their personal, firsthand immersion in the teaching and life of the Church.

Yet even as the necessity of proper seminary formation is affirmed, it must be equally emphasized that formal training alone is insufficient. The possession of a degree — even in theology — does not automatically render one fit to teach within the Church. And here the distinction between seminary training and academic study must clearly be understood.[23]

The work of a seminary is to transmit to its students the spirit and substance of the Christian faith and to train them to serve God in the Church by teaching and discipling in accordance with that spirit and substance. On the other hand, the work of a theological school or college — academic theological institutions — is to train academically, that is, to deliver a certain caliber of knowledge and methodology to its students. Thus, while a theological school or college must operate with special consideration to higher degrees and for the purpose of graduating those students who meet certain academic competencies, a seminary operates toward different ends and with different considerations — namely, with consideration to the spiritual and theological integrity of its students and professors, the spirit which they possess, and their God-given gifts and talents, toward the end of preparing men and women to serve, in the capacities of teaching and pastoral care, in their respective churches, and to do so well, according to the mind and spirit of Christ.[24]

For these reasons, while education is central in both sorts of institutions, its purposes, methods, and emphases vary according to the type of institution in which it is employed. The ethos of a theological school or college is thoroughly academic, while that of a seminary is thoroughly pastoral. One is informational, the other formational. One intends to graduate its students with certain tangible qualifications, appreciated and conferred in the form of academic degrees; the other intends to graduate its students with certain largely intangible qualifications — piety, theological soundness, intellectual humility, selflessness, wisdom in ecclesial administration, scriptural familiarity, liturgical and hymnological competency, homiletic proficiency, and other such qualities. The students of one maintain their relationship with their institution for the sole purpose of attaining the degree towards which they work, and that relationship therefore naturally ceases when the aim of their enrollment is accomplished by their attainment of that degree; the students of the other maintain a lifelong relationship of discipleship and sonship to their institution, as both a seminary and its students understand that the seminary is best served when its students remain involved in its operations, and its students are best served in maintaining their relationship with their seminary.[25] One seeks its students’ intellectual and academic advancement; the other, its students’ salvation and that of those whom they will serve.[26]

It is therefore not higher theological education generally, but precisely seminary training, that is a necessary prerequisite for those who are called to teach in the Church and to shepherd the flock of Christ. But knowledge alone, and even formal seminary training, divorced from piety and virtue, remains vastly incomplete, and is quite prone to misleading and misguiding both its possessor and the one who is subjected to its influence. Any consideration of qualification must therefore give due and even superseding weight to the spiritual gift imparted upon the person by God, and to the life and understanding of the individual.[27] In this regard, discipleship, manner of life[28], submission to the sacramental and ascetical life of the Church, and adherence to sound doctrine are foundational, not secondary, considerations. Thus the believers generally, and those who administer the affairs of the Church particularly, must recognize that ecclesial qualification lies in the convergence of formation, faithfulness, virtue, and gift, while resisting two equal and opposite reductions: the elevation of appearances and visibility above substance, whether on the individual or institutional level[29], and the concern with credentials at the expense of doctrine and manner of life.

In this light, the way forward in ecclesial governance and pedagogy requires the intentional refinement, and not the abandonment, of the structures that have brought the Church to this point. 

On the part of ecclesial leadership, spiritual discernment must be proactively and formally restored as a central practice, shaping how individuals are recognized, formed, and utilized in the service of the Church[30], and official, transparent ecclesial procedures, borne out of the Church’s tradition, history, and divine mission, must be reinstated and faithfully adhered to in the Church’s operations, particularly, insofar as this paper is concerned, in the areas of education and pastoral care. This entails both a renewed attentiveness on the part of clergy and servant leaders, in looking beyond visibility and activity to the deeper realities of life, doctrine, and character, and a recommitment to the empowerment and full integration of seminaries in the operations and administrative processes of the Church, both by properly funding seminary operations and by facilitating for their alumni meaningful opportunities and deference in the pastoral and educative functions of the Church. 

This further necessitates reconsideration of the way education is carried out at the parish level today, particularly in the West. What may have worked in times past in many ways no longer succeeds today. This is not to be interpreted as advocacy for shortened lectures, the utilization of artificial intelligence or other tools of attraction, or any other superficial means. Rather, the necessary correctives must arise at the methodological level, with the aim of facilitating the caliber of education and preaching[31] in the parish that convicts hearers, responds convincingly to inquirers and to contemporary challenges to the Faith, fierce and unrelenting as they are, sparks interest in the matters and substance of the belief in Christ, and inspires generation after generation to love the Lord with the whole heart and follow Him at any cost.[32]

When now, in most instances, an impersonal conveyor-belt model governs qualification for teaching in Sunday School in most parishes, the implementation of effective and ecclesially-appropriate methods of instruction must involve a return to personal discipleship and formal theological formation for educators, with “pre-servants”  programs being housed in the Seminary, ensuring that all parish educators throughout the diocese complete a single curriculum of education and receive a consistent spirit and teaching through the Seminary, such that they are able to deliver these to those they teach in a consistent, spiritually sound, and doctrinally respectable manner steeped in the life and tradition of the Church. 

When now teaching takes place by means of tens or even hundreds of teachers dispersed amongst a myriad of classrooms — or by rotating guest speakers or an informal discussion format in youth meeting settings — often utilizing curricula which employ outdated, uninformed, and culturally foreign educational models, a restructuring of Sunday School and educative settings more generally is necessary such that duly qualified teachers are granted to educate, whether within one parish or across parishes — eliminating resource and quality disparities between parishes — while complementary small-group activities, interpersonal mentorship programs, and smaller-scale educative dynamics led by those who do not formally teach are maintained so as to preserve their integral involvement in intergenerational parish relationships and active participation in the ministries of the Church.

These recommendations are far from a novel idea for the Coptic Church, but instead represent a fundamental return to the original vision and model of the Sunday School movement as established by Saint Archdeacon Habib Girgis, who headquartered Sunday School in the Seminary[33] and operated it such that those seminarians who possessed the requisite gifts, qualifications, ecclesial life, and moral uprightness were either appointed as professors in the Seminary or commissioned to teach in the churches throughout Egypt, ensuring uniformity of sound doctrine and equal access by all to sound religious education regardless of each community’s resources or extent of educative capability. 

The operational modifications recommended herein are not impossible — for an intellectually and professionally eminent community such as is found in the Coptic Orthodox Church in the West, these recommendations are entirely feasible, merely requiring commitment, competent leadership, and coordinated execution at the diocesan level. 

On the part of the believers personally, moreover, a cultural shift is similarly necessary, wherein the faithful must learn to value intentional depth over immediacy, formation over social or online prominence, and faithfulness over familiarity, while holding their teachers and leaders accountable to the spirit and mandates of the Gospel and the tradition of the Church.[34] In a highly educated community, this is not an unreasonable expectation, but a natural extension of the intellectual seriousness and proven capabilities of the Church’s members.[35]

Finally, on the part of those who are called to be ordained or to teach in any capacity in the Church, these must recognize the gravity of the work for which they are being considered, know themselves well, and possess the courage to, at the very least, submit to the necessary means of preparation prior to accepting the responsibility presented to them.[36] It is not sufficient to merely possess purity of intention or sincerity of heart when undertaking the ministry of Christ — indeed, throughout her history, the Church has suffered much from good intentions. Wisdom, discernment, courage, and humility are therefore uncompromisable prerequisites for the one who is to serve well the household of God. For this reason, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III asserts: “Many churches appoint people to ministry who were never prepared, and the result is that some of them fall into mistakes that are subject to reproach…If the servants are only good-hearted, but lack knowledge and wisdom, their preparation is not sound…they may fall into mistakes that trouble the ministry later on.”[37]

In a world which struggles to maintain definitional truth and paradigmatic soundness amidst the proliferation of technological advances and digital life, the Church therefore stands at a critical nexus, with her ability to carry out her mission gravely requiring careful reexamination. The fruits of her educational revival, the intellectual maturation of her people and their rapid dispersion throughout the world, and the technological and societal realities of the day, have collectively engendered a context of both opportunity and challenge — a Church capable of engaging her tradition with depth, clarity, and confidence, but one which is called to recommit to ensuring that those entrusted with teaching and shepherding are prepared for the task not only in knowledge, but also in formation, calling, and life.

If robust administrative processes and proper spiritual discernment are instituted and maintained in her governance and by her members, including seminary training being rightly upheld as a normative foundation for teaching and pastoring, teachers being selected not as a matter of routine but carefully, and appearances and accomplishments being consistently subordinated to spiritual authenticity, then the Church will both preserve the integrity of her teaching and life while meeting her people where they are, not by lowering expectations, but by fulfilling them through offering instruction, leadership, and operations that are at once intellectually rigorous, theologically faithful, and spiritually vivifying, to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

—

[1] For a discussion of the origins of, and the challenges and circumstances encountered by, the Sunday School Movement in Egypt, see, generally Bishop Suriel, Habib Girgis: Coptic Orthodox Educator and a Light in the Darkness. St. Habib Girgis, in characteristic humility, pointed yet further back, to Pope Cyril IV, the Father of Reform, when discussing the educational reawakening of the Copts, yet lamented the unsatisfactory spiritual fruits that ultimately resulted from that initial undertaking: “The reform movement was begun by Pope Cyril IV, who was truly called the Father of Reform. When this great man sat on the patriarchal throne, he was full of zeal, enthusiasm and a strong resolve; he greatly desired to promote his people and achieve their advancement. He believed that the only way to achieve his goals was through learning…We have seen many of those who filled the highest positions, such as ministers, judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, school principals, and others who know nothing about their religion or history, who perceive the characters of their language as cryptic signs. The result of all this is a loosening of the bonds — the loss of Coptic unity and the weakening of the Coptic spirit.” (Practical Methods of Coptic Reform, 7-8 (tentative English translation)).

[2] See, e.g., Alber Fares, Exploring Coptic Heritage, Religion, Genetics, and the Genetic Influences on Educational Outcomes: A Study of Their Interconnections. Biomed J Sci & Tech Res 61(1)-2025. BJSTR. MS.ID.009543 (https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.009543.pdf) (stating: “In Egypt and various locations with Coptic communities, such as Australia, Sudan, Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and several European countries including Germany and Austria…Copts tend to have higher educational achievements, a greater wealth index, and more vigorous representation in white-collar professions;” “The percentage of young Coptic students enrolling in graduate programs in the USA for healthcare professions, including medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry, has soared to an unprecedented 90% of the total Coptic student population. Other popular fields among these students are engineering, teaching, law, and psychology, which account for 9% of all young Copts. The remaining professions comprise just 1%.”).  See also Migration Policy Institute, The Egyptian Diaspora in the United States (Revised May 2015) (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/RAD-EgyptII.pdf) (finding, as to Egyptian immigrants in the United States generally: “Immigrants from Egypt in the United States and their children were substantially more likely than the U.S. general public to have completed a university degree, be employed, and have a professional or managerial occupation;” “Members of the Egyptian diaspora in the United States were more than twice as likely as the U.S. population to have earned a degree above a bachelor's. Among those in the U.S.-based Egyptian diaspora population age 25 and older, 26 percent held a master's degree, PhD, or an advanced professional degree compared to 11 percent of the U.S. general public. Another 38 percent of Egyptian diaspora members age 25 and older held a bachelor's degree as their highest academic credential versus 20 percent of the U.S. national population. Moreover, the Egyptian diaspora shows increasing educational attainment across generations, with a greater share of the second generation having bachelor's and advanced degrees than the first generation;” “Fifty percent of Egyptian diaspora members in the United States were in professional or managerial occupations, compared to 31 percent of the U.S. general public. These occupations include specialized fields (e.g. engineering, science, law, or education) as well as administrative and managerial jobs (e.g. finance or human resources). Although they were not the largest occupational group, physicians were overrepresented in the Egyptian diaspora compared to the U.S. labor force: 5 percent versus 0.5 percent.”). See also Jennifer M Brinkerhoff and Liesl Riddle, Coptic Diaspora Survey Project. General Findings: Coptic Diaspora Survey. ResearchGate, 3 June 2015. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.1.1729.8082 (https://www.copticorphans.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CopticSurveyWhitePaperReport2-2012.pdf) (reporting: “The findings suggest Coptic diasporans are relatively well-educated, with a wide range of occupations, a high percentage of professionals, and, on average, a fairly high household income. Eighty-nine percent of the sample completed a bachelor’s degree or higher (44% bachelor’s, 21% master’s, and 24% doctoral). The high education rates within the Coptic diaspora are not representative of the Coptic population remaining in Egypt, suggesting that many of those who could emigrate chose to do so;” “The sample represents a wide variety of occupations, with substantial proportions from the legal, medical, engineering and academic professions (51% combined). Over 53% of the sample reports annual household incomes of over $100,000, with 17% earning over $200,000 annually;” “51% of respondents are in the legal, medical, engineering, or academic professions. 19% are in the business professions, including 7% who are business owners or entrepreneurs;” “90% of respondents are college-educated, with 45% holding advanced degrees.”). 

[3] See, e.g. Fares, supra: “Copts have relatively higher educational attainment and wealth index due to Coptic Christianity’s emphasis on literacy and the fact that Coptic Christianity encouraged the accumulation of human capital. According to a 2016 Pew Center study on religion and education worldwide, approximately 26% of Copts earn a university degree from higher education institutions” (citing Cooperman A, Hackett C, Schiller A., Religion and Education Around the World. Pew Research Center (2016). 

[4] “It is a lamentable case, that in a message from the God of heaven, of everlasting moment to the souls of men, we should behave ourselves so weakly, so unhandsomely, so imprudently, or so slightly, that the whole business should miscarry in our hands, and God should be dishonoured, and his work disgraced, and sinners rather hardened than converted; and all this through our weakness or neglect! How often have carnal hearings gone home jeering at the palpable and dishonourable failings of the preacher!” (Richard Baxter, RP, 70-71).

[5] See, e.g., Pope Shenouda III, The Work of the Priest from a Cultural, Doctrinal, and Theological Perspective, Public Lecture (February 24, 1997) (https://popeshenouda.org.eg/en/the-work-of-the-priest-from-a-cultural-doctrinal-and-theological-perspective/) (wherein His Holiness emphasizes that the rise in the believers’ degree of information necessitates a commensurate rise in the readiness of their leaders to address their questions and satisfy their intellectual standards). 

[6] “The Church cannot present us true leaders, counselors and reformers unless her leaders and pastors are specially trained to practice their lofty and critical roles…An engineer cannot take on this role without proper training in the faculty of engineering. The physician cannot be trusted over people’s bodies and souls unless he receives both theoretical and practical education in his faculty. The situation is similar also for a judge, lawyer, teacher, farmer and mechanic, as well as others who are comparable…Hence, a religious [educator] is not exempt from this….” (Habib Girgis, “al-Madrasah al-Iklīrīkiyah: Māḍīhā wa-ḥāḍirhā wa-mustaqbalahā” [The Clerical School: Its Past, Present and Future], al-Karmah [The Vine] 9.9 (1923): 464). Similarly, Saint John Chrysostom asserts: “People who are keen for athletic fitness need doctors and trainers and a careful diet and continual exercise and any amount of precautions. For the neglect of a small detail in these matters upsets and spoils the whole scheme. Then what about those whose vocation is to look after this Body which has to contend, not against flesh and blood, but against the unseen powers” (On the Priesthood, IV.2).

[7] Hence His Holiness Pope Shenouda III insists: “The Church does not compete with the world in its projects, nor does it resemble the world in its methods. It places before itself the Apostle’s saying: 'Do not be conformed to this world’ (Romans 12:2).” The Priest Must Be Spiritual in His Goals and in His Style, published in Watani, September 24, 2006. As to the sorts of ambitious strategies employed by some, as described herein, Amma Theodora warns: “a teacher ought to be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle and humble as far as possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern, and a lover of souls” (Saying 5), and Amma Syncletica similarly advises: “It is dangerous for anyone to teach who has not first been trained in the ‘practical’ life. For if someone who owns a ruined house receives guests there, he does them harm because of the dilapidation of his dwelling. It is the same in the case someone who has not first built an interior dwelling; he causes loss to those who come. By words one may convert them to salvation, but by evil behaviour, one injures them” (Saying 12). John Cassian also writes that while such people “are eager to be set over their brethren, they are never subject to their elders themselves, and, with pride for their starting point, while they are quite ready to teach others they take no trouble to learn themselves or to practise what they are to teach: and so it is sure to end in their becoming, as the Saviour said, ‘blind leaders of the blind’ so that ‘both fall into the ditch’” (Conferences, 4.20). 

[8] As regards the moral uprightness required of the one who teaches the household of God, Saint Jerome illustratively insists that such a person be “blameless in life and lip. For a teacher loses all his influence whose words are rendered null by his deeds” (Letter to Oceanus, in NPNF Second Series, Vol. 6, p. 363). 

[9] “When teaching in church seek to call forth not plaudits but groans. Let the tears of your hearers be your glory” (Jerome, Letter to Nepotian, in NPNF Second Series, Vol. 6, p. 250). 

[10] “…the priesthood may justly accuse us if we do not rightly handle it. For it is not itself a cause of the evils already mentioned, but we, who as far as lies in our power have defiled it with so many pollutions, by entrusting it to commonplace men who readily accept what is offered them, without having first acquired a knowledge of their own souls, or considered the gravity of the office, and when they have entered on the work, being blinded by inexperience, overwhelm with innumerable evils the people who have been committed to their care” (Chrysostom, On the Priesthood III.10); “[N]one shall be made a priest but those of understanding, loving God, loving others, such as are able worthily to stand before the altar” (Athanasian Canons, sec. 4, p. 8). “You are to ordain bishops worthy of the Lord, and presbyters and deacons who are prayerful, righteous, meek, free from the love of money, lovers of truth, approved, holy, who do not discriminate among persons, who are able to teach religious truth and rightly divide the doctrines of the Lord.” (The Apostolic Constitutions, VII.II). “Let examination also be made whether he be unblameable as to the concerns of this life; for it is written: 'Search diligently for all the faults of him who is to be ordained for the priesthood’” (The Apostolic Constitutions, II.I.ii).

[11] “…the majority of those who are under the preachers' charge are not minded to behave towards them as towards teachers, but disdaining the part of learners, they assume instead the attitude of those who sit and look on at the public games; and just as the multitude there is separated into parties, and some attach themselves to one, and some to another, so here also men are divided, and become the partisans now of this teacher, now of that, listening to them with a view to favor or spite…For the public are accustomed to listen not for profit, but for pleasure, sitting like critics of tragedies, and of musical entertainments…A preacher then should have loftiness of mind, far exceeding my own littleness of spirit, that he may correct this disorderly and unprofitable pleasure on the part of the multitude, and be able to lead them over to a more useful way of hearing, that his people may follow and yield to him, and that he may not be led away by their own humors, and this it is not possible to arrive at, except by two means: indifference to their praise, and the power of preaching well” (Chrysostom, On the Priesthood V.1). 

[12] “Tell me, where do you think all the disorders in the churches originate? I think their only origin is in the careless and random way in which the prelates are chosen and appointed” (John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, III.10).

[13] al-Wasă'il al-amaliyah lil-işlahat al-Qibțiyah [The Practical Means Toward Coptic Reform: Hopes and Dreams], 2nd ed. (Cairo: Dãr Madăris al-Ahhad al-Qibțiyah, 1993), 10, in Bishop Suriel, Habib Girgis, 62. 

[14] Fr. John A. McGuckin, Education (Paideia) as Kerygmatic Value in the Orthodox Tradition, in Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides and Elizabeth H. Prodromou, eds., Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education: Theological, Historical, and Contemporary Reflections, 58: “what being ‘learned’ means implies that our educational goals, as Orthodox Church-men and -women, will be no less strenuous than the goals of the other learned ones of our age — people who…set standards that we ought to look to constantly to see whether we are in the same league or not, whether we have sufficient resources to justify our claim to offer a serious high-quality educational experience wherever we are located on the educational horizon…”

[15] Fr. John A. McGuckin, Education (Paideia) as Kerygmatic Value in the Orthodox Tradition, in Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides and Elizabeth H. Prodromou, eds., Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education: Theological, Historical, and Contemporary Reflections, 58. 

[16] See Matthew 28:16-20; See also Malachi 2:7; See also His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, Comparative Theology 12-13 (stating: “Faith and doctrine were the task of the Church, represented by her councils and bishops, and were interpreted by the clergymen to the people. Preachers are not entitled to teach their own opinions on the subjects of faith and doctrine, but they must teach what is recorded in the Church doctrine entrusted to them…The Church, [which] has been alert over the faith, to maintain it, does not…give the authority of teaching to everyone, but examines the sayings of the teachers against the faith entrusted to the saints. Thus the saying of St. Paul the Apostle (Gal. 1:9) remains a fixed criterion. Sometimes the reason for an error in faith or teaching is due to mixing with different dogmas, or being influenced by them and their teachers, or by being disciples of such teachers or their writings. Sometimes the reason for an error in faith is due to one's sticking to one's own opinion, neither accepting any change nor obeying the Church.”

[17] “Now formerly I used to deride secular rulers, because in the distribution of their honors they are not guided by considerations of moral excellence, but of wealth, and seniority, and human distinction; but when I heard that this kind of folly had forced its way into our affairs also, I no longer regarded their conduct as so atrocious. For what wonder is it that worldly men, who love the praise of the multitude, and do everything for the sake of gain, should commit these sins, when those who affect at least to be free from all these influences are in no wise better disposed than they, but although engaged in a contest for heavenly things, act as if the question submitted for decision was one which concerned acres of land, or something else of that kind? For they take commonplace men off-hand, and set them to preside over those things, for the sake of which the only begotten Son of God did not refuse to empty Himself of His glory and become man, and take the form of a servant, and be spat upon, and buffeted, and die a death of reproach in the flesh. Nor do they stop even here, but add to these offenses others still more monstrous; for not only do they elect unworthy men, but actually expel those who are well qualified. As if it were necessary to ruin the safety of the Church on both sides, or as if the former provocation were not sufficient to kindle the wrath of God, they have contrived yet another not less pernicious. For I consider it as atrocious to expel the useful men as to force in the useless. And this in fact takes place, so that the flock of Christ is unable to find consolation in any direction, or draw its breath freely” (Chrysostom, On the Priesthood III.15). 

[18] Among the Attributes of the Priest: Knowledge, published in El-Keraza Magazine, April 26, 2002. See also John Earle, Micro-cosmography, sec. 3, pp. 5-7 (“The good pastor is one that knows the burden of his calling and has studied to make his shoulders sufficient.”). 

[19] The Coptic Orthodox Seminary, 103, in Bishop Suriel, Habib Girgis, 168. 

[20] “Preparation for ministry is crucial because so many souls hang in the balance of its effectiveness” (Thomas Oden, Becoming a Minister, 150). 

[21] See James 3:1. Indeed, in light of the fearful and awesome work of the teacher of the Church, His Grace Bishop Gregorios of Higher Theological Studies was fond of saying: “The fire of persecution is, to me, preferable to the fire of the pulpit.”

[22] “Glory be to You, O Lord! Glory to You! How vast is the depth of Your lovingkindness! How great the riches of Your forbearance! Men who on account of Your name have risen from insignificance and obscurity to positions of honor and distinction, use the honor they enjoy against Him who has bestowed it, do deeds of outrageous audacity, and insult holy things, rejecting and expelling men of zeal in order that the wicked may ruin everything at their pleasure in much security, and with the utmost fearlessness. And if you would know the causes of this dreadful evil, you will find that they are similar to those which were mentioned before; for they have one root and mother, so to say — namely, envy; but this is manifested in several different forms. For one we are told is to be struck out of the list of candidates, because he is young; another because he does not know how to flatter; a third because he has offended such and such a person; a fourth lest such and such a man should be pained at seeing one whom he has presented rejected, and this man elected; a fifth because he is kind and gentle; a sixth because he is formidable to the sinful; a seventh for some other like reason; for they are at no loss to find as many pretexts as they want, and can even make the abundance of a man's wealth an objection when they have no other” (Chrysostom, On the Priesthood III.15). 

[23] For a helpful discussion, see Lawrence P. DeBoer, Seminary and University: Two Approaches to Theology and Religion, in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XXXII, Issue 4, October 1964, Pages 342–349. See also John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University. See also Downs, David J., Tina Houston-Armstrong, and Amos Yong, eds., Vocation, Formation, and Theological Education. Fuller Seminary Press, 2021.

[24] “…it is no sufficient security for the Catholicity of a University, even that the whole of Catholic theology should be professed in it, unless the Church breathes her own pure and unearthly spirit into it, and fashions and moulds its organization, and watches over its teaching, and knits together its pupils, and superintends its action” (John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, Discourse IX.2).

[25] This was the model expertly employed by the Seminary in the time of St. Habib Girgis, whether with respect to his own initial appointment as lecturer there while still a student of the Seminary, or thereafter when he came to hold a leadership position therein and would routinely appoint alumni to various educative functions, whether within the Seminary or in associated positions in the Sunday School ministry, which was headquartered in the Seminary. See Bishop Suriel, Habib Girgis, 64. This approach was continued by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, in faithful discipleship to St. Habib Girgis. 

[26] “Education for the ministry of the church is done by and within the church as a worshiping, obedient, and redemptive community with an over-all evangelical purpose. When the scholarly study of religion takes place within the university it takes its place within a community dedicated to the expansion of knowledge and critical understanding. It needs no further justification or end” (Lawrence P. DeBoer, “Seminary and University: Two Approaches to Theology and Religion,” in the Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct. 1964), p. 344 — Oxford University Press).

[27] “…it is assumed that the shepherd be good in administration and wise, able to manage the affairs of the Church with wisdom, to manage each soul with wisdom, and to manage relationships with outsiders and non-Christians with wisdom…it is not sufficient for the priest merely to be educated, but he must be apt to teach, capable of guiding others…” (His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, Among the Qualities of the Priest, published in Watani, June 25, 2006). 

[28] “…every prophet that speaks in the Spirit you shall neither try nor judge; for every sin shall be forgiven, but this sin shall not be forgiven. But not every one that speaks in the Spirit is a prophet; but only if he hold the ways of the Lord. Therefore from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known.” (Didache, 11.8). Saint John Chrysostom further comments: “…the mass of people under government are generally inclined to regard the manners of those who govern as a kind of model type, and to assimilate themselves to them. How then could any one put a stop to their fury when he is swelling himself with rage? And who among the multitude would straightway desire to become moderate when he sees the ruler irritable? For it is quite impossible for the defects of priests to be concealed, but even trifling ones speedily become manifest. So an athlete, as long as he remains at home, and contends with no one, can dissemble his weakness even if it be very great, but when he strips for the contest he is easily detected. And thus for some who live this private and inactive life, their isolation serves as a veil to hide their defects; but when they have been brought into public they are compelled to divest themselves of this mantle of seclusion, and to lay bare their souls to all through their visible movements. As therefore their right deeds profit many, by provoking them to equal zeal, so their shortcomings make men more indifferent to the practice of virtue, and encourage them to indolence in their endeavours after what is excellent. Wherefore his soul ought to gleam with beauty on every side, that it may be able to gladden and to enlighten the souls of those who behold it. For the faults of ordinary men, being committed as it were in the dark, ruin only those who practise them: but the errors of a man in a conspicuous position, and known to many, inflicts a common injury upon all, rendering those who have fallen more supine in their efforts for good, and driving to desperation those who wish to take heed to themselves. And apart from these things, the faults of insignificant men, even if they are exposed, inflict no injury worth speaking of upon any one: but they who occupy the highest seat of honor are in the first place plainly visible to all, and if they err in the smallest matters these trifles seem great to others: for all men measure the sin, not by the magnitude of the offense, but by the rank of the offender. Thus the priest ought to be protected on all sides by a kind of adamantine armour, by intense earnestness, and perpetual watchfulness concerning his manner of life, lest some one discovering an exposed and neglected spot should inflict a deadly wound: for all who surround him are ready to smite and overthrow him: not enemies only and adversaries, but many even of those who profess friendship” (On the Priesthood III.14). 

[29] “Each man’s actual life, therefore, is that which decides what are his morals: for it is not by mere outside adornments, and fictitious virtues that the beauty of the truly honourable life is delineated, but by the deeds a man does: for they are the fruits of a mind that for the love of piety chooses a blameless life. It is by deeds, therefore, and not by outside shew, that we must see who is the man truly approved, and who is not so…We must decide, then, the character of the teacher, not by appearances, but by the acts of each one’s life” (Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Sermon XXXIII.9).

[30] “To those, then, who are not gifted with the power of discernment, and are not inclined to knowledge, the word is not entrusted. Otherwise it would be like the ravens who imitate human voices, yet have not the slightest understanding of what they say” (Saint Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata (Miscellanies), VI.XII). 

[31] “[T]he priest [must] be satisfying to his people in terms of knowledge, with depth and spirituality in his sermons [and] richness and breadth of his information, so that they gather around him feeling that they benefit from him. Thus was the Lord Christ, the High Priest, thus were our fathers the apostles, and thus were the early bishops, the teachers of the Church” (His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, Among the Qualities of the Priest, published in Watani, June 25, 2006). Saint Cyril likewise states: “The Saviour has ordained as stewards, so to speak, over his servants — that is, over those who have been won by faith to the acknowledgment of His glory — men faithful and of great understanding, and well instructed in the sacred doctrines. And He has ordained them, commanding them to give their fellow-servants their allowance of food; and that not simply and without distinction, but rather at its proper season: by which is meant such food, I mean spiritual food, as is sufficient and fitting for each individual…Whoever therefore shall wisely in due season, and according to their need, divide to his fellow-servants their portion, that is, their food, very blessed shall he be…But if, He says, neglecting the duty of being diligent and faithful, and despising watchfulness in these things as superfluous, he let his mind grow intoxicated with worldly cares, and is seduced into improper courses, dragging by force, and oppressing those who are subject to him, and not giving them their portion, in utter wretchedness shall he be…For whosoever has done wrong to the glory of Christ, or ventured to think slightingly of the flock entrusted to his charge, differs in no respect whatsoever from those who know Him not: and all such persons will justly be counted among those who have no love for Him…If therefore he who feeds his flock loves it, then of course he that neglects it, and leaves the flock that has been entrusted to him without oversight, hates it: and if he hate it he will be punished, and be liable to the condemnation pronounced upon the unbelievers, as being convicted by the very facts of being negligent and contemptuous” (Sermon XCIII). Thus, ensuring the doctrinal and spiritual fitness and preparation of those who shepherd and teach the flock is not merely necessary out of concern for the Church, or for the believers, but also for the shepherd and teacher himself, lest he be found unable to perform well the functions entrusted to him by God through the Church, or unequipped to nurture and safeguard the sheep of Christ from the wolves of error, sin, and spiritual laxity that constantly assail them, to his own spiritual endangerment. Thus Saint John Chrysostom recommends: “Certainly anyone who is going to confer an appointment should make a careful inquiry; but the one who is to be appointed should be more careful still” (On the Priesthood, IV.1), and Pseudo-Clement warns: “Let us, therefore, fear the judgment which awaits teachers. For a severe judgment will those teachers receive ‘who teach, but do not’ (Matt. 23:3)…These, moreover, are like ‘the blind man who leads the blind man, and they both fall into the ditch’ (Matt. 15:14). And they will receive judgment, because in their talkativeness and their frivolous teaching they teach natural wisdom, and the ‘frivolous error of the plausible words of the wisdom of men’ (cf. Col. 2:8)” (Two Epistles Concerning Virginity, XI).

[32] “…being faithful to our educational mission means that we see the pressing need today to tell the church's story afresh, tell it truly and energetically, tell it so that its living truth penetrates the surface sophistication of a highly literate contemporary audience, but one (sad to say perhaps unmatched in its illiteracy regarding religion. We do not need to worry about whether the message is relevant, or whether it still carries any power. These are the "things of the Spirit" that the Lord takes care of himself. We just have to tell the story faithfully and wisely. Then the Orthodox will shine again, not just as the "world's best-kept secret," and not as liturgically exotic blooms, but rather as the world's well of clean water. We need the passion of faith to tell the story energetically and prophetically, but we so very much need a lively domain of Orthodox higher education to be able to nurture storytellers who can recite the tale skillfully, evangelically, convincingly, and in ways that truly advance the church's kerygmatic mission, its Great Commission” (Fr. John A. McGuckin, Education (Paideia) as Kerygmatic Value in the Orthodox Tradition, in Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides and Elizabeth H. Prodromou, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education: Theological, Historical, and Contemporary Reflections, 76). 

[33] “Basing the formative work of the Sunday Schools at the seminary was a strategic move on Girgis’ part. The seminary was the heart of education in the Church, the place where future Coptic leaders — priests, deacons, and lay leaders — were formed” (Bishop Suriel, Habib Girgis, 64).

[34] “…the church's record throughout its two millennia of history can show that it has always been (at least in the cases of its greatest and most spiritual teachers) one of the most profound forces for the education of a deep human civilization. It has loved learning. It has wanted to educate its people. It has told them luminous stories. It has produced countless books, at great cost of labor. It has loved (and invented) the codex. It has delighted in men and women of learning. But always, it has known where its learning was looking” (Fr. John A. McGuckin, Education (Paideia) as Kerygmatic Value in the Orthodox Tradition, in Ann Mitsakos Bezzerides and Elizabeth H. Prodromou, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education: Theological, Historical, and Contemporary Reflections, 61). 

[35] His Holiness Pope Shenouda III therefore advises: “In order for the priest to be able to satisfy his people with knowledge, he must first be filled with this knowledge…And in order to be filled, he must read much and study, and he must also have times for contemplation, so that from both he can offer spiritual nourishment to the people who listen to him…Coptic libraries are currently filled with books, and people read and their knowledge increases. The priest’s knowledge should be much greater than that of his people, and his level higher than their level, so that they may receive from him” (The Priest and Teaching, in al-Keraza Magazine, August 14, 1981). 

[36] “The duties of his office [Athanasius] discharged in the same spirit as that in which he had been preferred to it. For he did not at once, after taking possession of his throne, like men who have unexpectedly seized upon some sovereignty or inheritance, grow insolent from intoxication. This is the conduct of illegitimate and intrusive priests, who are unworthy of their vocation; whose preparation for the priesthood has cost them nothing, who have endured no inconvenience for the sake of virtue, who only begin to study religion when appointed to teach it” (Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 21.9). In light of the requirement of not only prerequisite theological study, but also the lifelong continuation of such study in the one ordained to the priesthood, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III teaches that “the priest must continually engage in study and research in all areas of religious sciences. For he is no longer responsible only for educating himself, but he is responsible for the entire people of his church — positively, to fill them with all knowledge, and negatively, to keep all doubts away from them…Do not think that theological study is required only as a qualification for the priesthood; rather, it is required even more after priestly ordination. What is required of the priest is far broader than the limits of academic curricula in theological colleges. Study in religious sciences has no end. What the priest encounters in questions may be something he never studied in his theological education, or something he once heard and forgot. Therefore, the priest must continue in a life of discipleship and never stop, but rather increase in knowledge day after day, especially since many servants in the Church are constant readers, and books have become very numerous. Some of what is written may raise many questions that require answers…He cannot fulfill this duty unless he is trusted regarding religious knowledge, is a servant of the word, and is able to satisfy his children with every kind of knowledge, answering every question convincingly. He also knows how to speak to each group of his people in the language that suits them, and becomes a sweet spring that overflows upon all…Such a priest, by his teaching, calls people to trust him and to respect his opinion and thought. They see that his teaching is not empty, but is based on the teaching of Scripture and the teaching of the great Fathers recognized in the Church as teachers” (The Priest as a Teacher and Preacher, in Watani, July 16, 2006). 

[37] His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, The Priest and Church Leadership, in al-Keraza Magazine, February 14, 1997. Further, His Holiness laments: “Believe me, the most dangerous thing confronting us now is Protestantism donning black turbans [i.e., appearing in the garb of Orthodox clergy] and working from within the Church. If a Protestant person came to you in an ordinary shirt and suit, perhaps you would not accept his words. But if he comes to you wearing a black turban, you say, ‘No, this is a priest.’ This is the most difficult thing we are facing right now — the people who adopt Western ideas and spread them inside the Church, and you find the same principles and the same ideas spreading within the Church” (Communion with God, Public Lecture, April 24, 1991, (Translation original)).

—