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)). — This publication complies with Doss Press' Original Human Authorship Policy, established on August 5, 2026.

[Scroll to the Original Arabic — انتقل إلى العربية الأصلية] In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — the One God. Amen. The Homily for the Feast of Nayrouz by Father Šams al-Ri’āsa Abū al-Barakāt, known as Ibn Kabar, Priest of the Hanging Church.[1] Glory be to God, to whom belongs glory and majesty, greatness and perfection, and eternity without end; who created the ages and the days, ordered the months and the years, appointed the luminaries for their orbits, and made the moon for the nighttimes, and the sun for dominion over the daytime. He inspires humanity with wisdom, bestows upon man the gifts of grace, embraces him with the hand of compassion, love, and mercy, and guides him to the paths of righteousness. He teaches him the sciences and literature, and grants him lofty knowledge — the least of which is the knowledge of arithmetic — as a perfection of his kind, demonstration of the aptitude of his nature, and confirmation of the exquisiteness of his creation and workmanship. Him we glorify with a glorification befitting His majesty, and we thank Him for the multitude of His favors, despite our thanksgiving being inadequate in comparison to the abundance of His generosity and gifts. We ask Him to guide our words according to the righteousness of his works for the preparation of His ultimate end — to aid the whole Christian people to reach the best of goals and obtain the utmost of their requests, and to spare them the afflictions of trials, according to His mercy, compassion, kindness, and favor, through the intercession of His saints and martyrs, righteous and chosen ones, and Apostles and Prophets. Amen. O righteous masters and honorable leaders, may God grant you many days such as this blessed day — having your sins forgiven, your benefactions overflowing with divine graces, and hastening on your steeds in the paths of righteous works. Know that the year which has passed from you has left you its treasures and taken leave of you in peace; the coming year has arrived bearing gladness and uprightness. The Nayrouz which has come upon you has arrived heralding for you prosperity, the excellence of works, and the attainment of the best hopes. It has prepared for you the removal of grievous calamities, the approaching of serene and joyful days, and your protection from the afflictions which, if not for the mercies of the Lord, would have brought destruction upon all creatures. So rejoice in the acceptable year of the Lord. Be glad for sight, O blind and captives of sin, and rejoice in healing, O brokenhearted. We must welcome this year with joy and gladness, by abandoning evil, cleansing ourselves from sin, sprinkling our hearts with the water of repentance before sprinkling our bodies. Let us emulate the patience and faith of Job and the integrity of his inner and outer life. Just as we have adopted his practice of sprinkling water upon the bodies, so also let us renew for ourselves the garments of virtue before renewing our outer garments, and let us be freed from all vices throughout the days, weeks, and months of this year. Let us offer to God — according to the measure of our ability — our firstfruits, tithes, and vows. Let us transfer our provisions to the eternal dwelling place, which is our final destination and place of return, by placing them in the hands of the needy and the palms of the poor, for through such hands we are assured of their arrival to that place and we see them laid up in the treasures of the Kingdom, where they are secure from the assaults of aggressors, the seizures of thieves and evildoers, the corruption of moths and rust, and the plundering of the oppressors and enemies, for where our treasures are, there also let our hearts be, as our Lord has commanded us. Such treasures increase our days and provisions; they obtain for us mercy beyond what we deserve. We reap the fruits of their planting speedily, and we shall find them stored up for us in the end. Let us join all this with thanksgiving, which preserves these blessings and spares us from that which provokes wrath. And what blessing is greater than steadfastness in the Faith, safety and bodily health, and our gathering together on this day in the holy Church of God to receive the oblation and be renewed in Jesus Christ, who has delivered us from the bondage of Satan! This is the joy befitting a Christian community, and in this manner ought the seasons of the faithful be received. *[2] So we are obliged to draw near to Him as much as we are able to offer Him praise and thanksgiving, and let each one of us turn toward Him with a sound heart and pure mind, for God Most High does not lay upon any of us a burden beyond our strength and ability, and does not desire anything except that we labor for our eternal life in all the days of our lives. Therefore, do works that are pleasing to Him, by which you may bring the ships of your souls safely to the shores of the seas of Paradise and its harbor, and through which your souls may attain to their fullest purpose and utmost desire, and He will shine upon you like the full moon and as the radiant sun and will cause you to dwell in holy dwellings which the Most High has founded and built. Receive, then, this year with the purest thoughts and desires, and offer within it the truest words and most righteous works. Persist in it with almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Avoid in it everything which causes reproach: hatred, foolishness, and evil conditions that incur reproach. Acquire throughout its days the knowledge by which you may enlighten your inner sight, and gather in its weeks the various acts of worship by which you may distinguish your inner selves. As you love your own souls, so love those who are near and far from you. Mend the heart of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Receive the commands of your priests in God with hearing and obedience, and serve them with your souls and most precious possessions, for their service is the most profitable of all work. Deal with all people alike in justice and truth, with good deeds that are complete in their excellence. Seek your livelihood through lawful means, and avoid unlawful ways, for their fire is unquenchable and their fuel burns fiercely, but lawful provisions grow, thrive, and enable you to reach your goal. How joyful, then, is the one who prepares himself to receive these divine commandments with their overflowing blessings! And how wretched is he who transgresses them and prepares himself as fuel for that fire! How blessed is he who joins the righteous in beholding godly visions! And what perdition awaits him who sells himself for the unlawful dirham and dinar! Woe to him who breaks the covenants of God and his vows to Him; lamentation to him who neglects to present tithes and firstfruits. Fortunate is the one who prepares his table to feed the hungry and break his fast. What punishment awaits the one who does not love his brother as his own self and body! What torment awaits the one who does not believe the words of God Most High, but denies and rejects Him! Woe to the one who gives his body over to fornication and debauchery! How worthless is the portion of the one who bears false witness! Shame upon the one who scorns the rights of his parents, on the day of rising and resurrection! What sorrow awaits the one who dares to utter false oaths in his words! What trembling awaits the one who neglects repentance until the Angel of Death takes his soul! May God preserve you from being among such people, and far be it from you to walk these paths that lead to the most grievous perils. * May God Most High purify your days from every impurity, renew your years with gladness, multiply His blessings upon you, and continue His goodness towards you. May He grant you the safety of your lands and the increase of your provisions, complete for you the benefit of the flowing of your rivers, grant you long lives and the attainment of your highest aspirations, make prices affordable for you, and grant you the enjoyment of temperate air and fruitful harvests and crops. May He bless the crown of the year, fill the regions and lands with His blessing, and make every year that comes better for you than the one before it. * May He allow you to see many years like this glorious year and bring you to the fulfillment of your ultimate ends. May He preserve your memory within it as a good example, renowned in all places and lands and as a glorious history which surpasses the finest histories and the most excellent reports. * May He preserve for us the life of our father, the honored master and patriarch, Anba Kyrillos, who by the grace of God sits upon the throne of St. Mark. May the Lord God preserve him from enemies and adversaries, and have mercy upon us through the acceptance of his supplications, by the prayers of the saints and the entreaties of those who are pleasing to Him. Praise is due to God forever and unto the age of ages. Amen. — بسم الآب و الابن و الروح القدس الإله الواحد آمين. خطبة عيد النيروز للقس شمس الرئاسة أبو البركات الشهير بابن كبر كاهن الكنيسة المعلقة. المجد لله ذى المجد و الجلال. و العظمة و الكمال. و الديمومة بلا زوال. الذي خلق الدهور و الأيام. و رتَّب الشهور و الأعوام. و قرر الأنوار للأدوار. و جعل القمر لمواقيت الليل و الشمس لسلطان النهار.مُلهِم الإنسان الحكمة. و مُخصصه مواهب النعمة. و مكتنفه بكف التحنن و المحبة و الرحمة. و مرشده إلى طرق الصواب. و مثقفه بالعلوم و الآداب. و مفيده المعارف الجليلة التى من أدناها معرفة الحساب. تكميلاً لنوعه. و تبييناً لقبول طبعه. و تثبيتاً للطيف خَلقه و صُنعه. نمجده تمجيداً يليق بجلاله. و نشكره على عميم أفضاله. و إن قصّر شكرنا عن مزيد طوله و نواله. و نسأله أن يلهم كلامنا صلاح أعماله. و الإستعداد لمآله. و يبلّغ سائر الشعب المسيحي أفضل المآرب. و ينيلهم أقصى المطالب. و يكفيهم نوائب التجارب. برحمته و رأفته. و لطفه و منته. بشفاعة قديسيه و شهدائه. و أبراره و أصفيائه. و رسله و أنبيائه آمين. أيها السادة الأبرار. و الرؤساء الأخيار. بلّغكم الله أمثال هذا اليوم المبارك مغفورة خطاياكم. موفورة من النعم الإلهية عطاياكم. مسرعة فى سبل الأعمال البارة مطاياكم. إعلموا أن حولكم المتحوّل عنكم قد أودعكم نفائسه و ودعّكم بالسلامة. و عامكم المقبل قد وافاكم بالمسرة و الإستقامة. و نيروزكم القادم عليكم قد أقبل مبشراً لكم بالإقبال. و برِّ الأعمال. و بلوغ أفضل الآمال. و مهيئاً لكم بزوال الحوادث الشديدة. و دنوّ الأيام الصافية السعيدة. و حراستكم من العوارض التى لولا مراحم الرب لكانت للخلائق مبيدة. فأبشروا بهذه السنة المقبولة للرب. و أجذلوا أيها العميان بالنظر و المأسورين بالخطية و ابتهجوا بالشفاء يا كل منكسري القلب. و يجب علينا أن نتلقاه بالفرح و السرور. و الإقلاع عن الشرور. و التطهير من الآثام. و نَضْح القلوب ماء التوبة قبل رش الأجسام. و نتشبه بصبر أيوب و إيمانه. و إستقامة سره و إعلانه. كما أخذنا سُنَته فى نضح الماء على الأبدان. و نجدد فيه ملابس الفضائل قبل تجديد الأردان [3]. و نبرَر من الرذائل فى أيام هذا العام و أسابيعه و شهوره. و نقرّب إلى الله ما تصل إليه القدرة من بكوره و عشوره و نذوره. و ننقل فيه أزوادنا إلى دار المقام التي قصارانا [4] إليها. و مرجعنا إليها. و نرسلها على أيدي المحتاجين. و أكفِّ المساكين. فإنها على يد مثل هؤلاء نتحقق وصولها. و نتبيّن في كنوز الملكوت حصولها. و نأمن عليها من اعتداء المعتدين. و اختطاف السرَّاق و المفسدين. و فساد الأَرَضة و الصداء. و سلب المتغلبين و الأعداء. و حيث تكون كنوزنا. فلتكن هناك قلوبنا. كما أمرنا ربنا. فإنها تزيد في الأعمار و الأرزاق. و تنوّلنا من الرحمة فوق الإستحقاق. و نجتني ثمار غرسها في العاجل. و نجدها مذخورة لنا في الآجل. و نقرن ذلك بالشكر الذى يستديم هذه النعم. و يكفينا حدوث باعث النقم. و أية نعمة أعظم من الثبوت على الإيمان. و حصول الأمن و صحة الأبدان. و اجتماعنا فى مثل هذا اليوم في بيعة الله المقدسة لنوال القربان. و تجديدنا بيسوع المسيح الذى اعتقنا من عبودية الشيطان. فهذا هو الفرح اللائق بجماعة المسيحيين. و بمثله يجب أن تلقى مواسم المؤمنين. *[5] فعلينا أن نتقرّب إليه بما تصل قدرتنا إليه من حمده و شكره. و يتوجه إليه كل إنسان منا بسلامة صدره و طهارة فكره. فالله تعالى لا يكلّف أحداً منا فوق طاقته و قدره. ولا يريد منه سوى العمل لآخرته في جميع عمره. فاعملوا أعملاً مرضية توصل سفن أرواحكم إلى برور بحار الفراديس و ميناها. و تبلغ نفوسكم فيها أبلغ مقاصدها و أقصى مناها. و يشرق عليكم كالأقمار في كمالها و الشموس في سناها. و يسكنكم منازل مقدسة أسسها العليُّ و بناها. فتلقّوا هذا العام بأطهر الأفكار و الآمال. و قدموا فيه أصدق الأقوال و أبرَّ الأعمال. و واصلوه بالصِلات [6] و الصلوات و الصيام. و تجنبوا فيه كل ما يوجب التعنيف من الحقد و الغباوة و الأحوال الرديئة التي فيها الملام. و حصلوا في أيامه العلوم التي تنيرون بها بصائركم. و اجمعوا في جمعه متفرقات العبادات التي تميزون بها سرائركم. و كما تحبون نفوسكم فأحبوا البعيد و القريب. و اجبروا قلب الأرملة و اليتيم و الغريب. و قابلوا أوامر كهنتكم في الله بالسمع و الطاعة. و اخدموهم بنفوسكم و نفائسكم فخدمتهم أكسب البضاعة. و عاملوا الناس طرَّاً [7] بالحق و الإنصاف. و افعلوا معهم الأفعال الحسنة الكاملة الأوصاف. و استرزقوا من وجوه الحلال و تجنبوا جهات الحرام. فإن نارها لا تُطفَأ و حطبها شديد الإضطرام. و أما الرزق الحلال فينمو و يُمري و يخصكم ببلوغ المرام. فيا سعادة مَن استعد لقبول هذه الوصايا الربانية الزائدة النعم الغزار. و يا شقاوة مَن خالف و اعدَّ نفسه حطباً لتلك النار. و يا نعيم مَن لحق فى مشاهدة المناظر الإلهية بالأبرار. و يا جحيم مَن باع نفسه بالدرهم الحرام و الدينار. و يا ويل مَن أضلَّ بالقيام بعهود الله و نذوره. و يا عويل مَن اهمل إخراج عشوره و بكوره. و هنيئاً لمَن أعدَّ مائدته لاطعام الجائع و فطوره. و أي عقاب لمَن لم يحب أخاه مثل نفسه و جسده. و أي عذاب لمَن لم يؤمن بأقوال الله تعالى و كفر به و جحده. و الويل لمَن سلم جسده للدعارة و الفجور. و ما أبخس حظ مَن شهد شهادة الزور. و خزياً لمَن استخف بحق والديه في يوم البعث و النشور. و يا حسرة مَن تجرأ على الايمان الكاذبة في كلامه. و يا رجفة مَن غفل عن نفسه بالتوبة حتى قبضها ملك حمامه. أعاذكم الله من أن تكونوا من أولئك. و حاشاكم من سلوك هذه المسالك المؤدية إلى أشد المهالك. * فالله تعالى يصفي من الشوائب أيامكم. و يجدد بالمسرات أعوامكم. و يضاعف لديكم بركاته. و يتابع عليكم خيراته. و ينعم لكم بصيانة أوطانكم. و ازدياد أرزاقكم. و يكمل لكم المنفعة بجريان أنيالكم [8]. و يعطيكم أطول الأعمار. و يبلغكم أفضل الأوطار. و يرخص لكم الأسعار. و يمتعكم باعتدال الهواء و خصب الزروع و الثمار. و يبارك إكليل السنة و يملأ من بركته البقاع و الأراضي. و يجعل كل عام يأتي خيراً لكم من الماضي. * و يريكم أمثال هذه السنة السنية و يبلغكم فيها نهاية الأوطار [9]. و يُبقِى ذكركم فيها مثلاً حسناً مشهوراً في الآفاق و الأقطار. و تاريخاً مجيداً يتأرج [10] به أحسن التواريخ و أطيب الأخبار. * و يديم لنا حيوة أبينا السيد الأب البطريرك المعظم أنبا كيرلس. الجالس بنعمة الله على كرسي مار مرقس. الرب الإله يحفظه من الأعداء و المعاندين. و يرحمنا بمقبول دعواته بصلوات القديسين و طلبات المقبولين.و السبح لله إلى ابد الآبدين و دهر الداهرين آمين. — [1] (Tr.) مطبعة الكرمة بمصر، الجوهرة النفيسة في خطب الكنيسة (١٩١٤). The following is an original preliminary translation of Ibn Kabar’s homily on the feast of the Coptic New Year, as set forth in the cited publication at pages 1-6. It is presented here for the first time in English, along with the original Arabic text digitized and scanned for reference. The remaining footnotes hereafter are original to the source publication. [2] (Ed.) What is written here between the two asterisks is copied from the book of homilies which was printed by the old Coptic printing press. [3] (Ed.) جمع ردن و هو الكُم [4] (Ed.) غايتنا [5] (Ed.) ما ورد هنا بين نجمتين منقول من كتاب الخطب المطبوع بالمطبعة القبطية القديمة [6] (Ed.) العطايا [7] (Ed.) أجمعين [8] (Ed.) جمع النيل [9] (Ed.) المقاصد [10] (Ed.) الأرج توهج بريح الطيب — — Cover Image: 2H Media, The Hanging Church (2023). This publication complies with Doss Press' Original Human Authorship Policy, established on August 5, 2026.

There is a word carved within the history of the Egyptian desert: Ϣⲓϩⲏⲧ (Shiheet). The great basin that would become the heartland of Christian monasticism carried this profound name given to it by the early Coptic monks — Shiheet, known in Greek as Scetis, and today as Wadi El-Natrun. The Arabic translation of this name primarily reflects the physical landscape: a valley rich in natron, the salt that the ancient Egyptians used to preserve the dead. Yet, the older Coptic name reveals something far more striking. Shiheet means “the measure of the heart.”[1] Shiheet appears often in the Coptic Orthodox Church’s Synaxarium and is even mentioned in the Divine Liturgy, the central liturgical celebration of the Coptic Church, in connection to many saints, including, prominently, the Forty-Nine Martyrs, the elders of Shiheet (444 AD), who were massacred during a Berber raid on the monastic settlements of Scetis. As such, Scetis, or Shiheet, is situated not merely as a geographical location but as a theological landscape shaped by martyrdom, asceticism, and prayer. Few names capture the purpose of the desert movement more fittingly than Shiheet. Long before modern psychology developed its own language for studying the inner life, the Egyptian desert became one of Christianity’s earliest and most sustained traditions of systematic inward reflection. What the Desert Fathers built across three centuries of monastic silence and extraordinary discipline was one of the most rigorous cultivations of the human interior life the ancient world had ever attempted. What they built was a living school for the soul, sustained not primarily by abstract speculation, but by decades of disciplined prayer, ascetic practice, self-examination, and communal spiritual guidance. They went to the desert to find God. What they discovered along the way, and through that very pursuit, was the human person — thought by thought, temptation by temptation, struggle by struggle, and prayer by prayer. This is the very conviction with which St. Antony opens his third Letter, describing the soul made free through Christ as one that comes to know itself, “in its intellectual substance,” and insisting that self-knowledge leads directly to knowledge of the Creator’s workings: “The rational man who has prepared himself to be set free through the advent of Jesus, knows himself in his intellectual substance. For he who knows himself knows the dispensations of the Creator and all that He does among His creatures.”[2] The Desert Fathers were not constructing a theory of the mind in the modern scientific sense. Rather, they were engaged in a sustained phenomenology of the spiritual life: carefully observing how thoughts arise, how attention shifts, how desires mature into habits, and how the heart is gradually transformed. Their observations were theological in purpose and experiential in method, emerging from decades of disciplined self-examination within the unique environment of the desert. In this sense, the desert functioned not simply as a place of withdrawal but as a school of the soul, where the conditions of silence, solitude, and prayer made the hidden movements of the heart manifest. While they lacked the refinement of modern academic research, their words and examples nevertheless remain a clear and deeply relevant teaching about the interior life. If one wishes to take up the journey of Shiheet — that is, the true measuring, or balancing, of the heart — then the centuries of careful insights left by those men and women who abandoned ordinary pursuits to devote their lives to exactly that task deserve to be among his primary sources. In this series, therefore, the intersection of Coptic desert spirituality and modern understandings of the human mind will be explored. This first entry will introduce the significance of exploring Coptic desert spirituality in relation to the human person and why the wisdom of the desert remains invaluable today. Having this foundation, the specific insights of these teachers will then be explored further in relation to contemporary approaches to the study of psychology, in subsequent entries. Unlike the Desert Fathers and Mothers[3], whose goal was primarily and ultimately union and relation with God, the study and practice of psychology today is concerned with understanding the human mind and behavior through empirical observation and scientific inquiry. Although their aims are fundamentally different, both traditions approach the same human person from distinct vantage points. Bringing the two into conversation does not diminish either discipline, but rather allows each to illuminate dimensions of the human experience that the other, by its very nature, does not seek to address. Why did Christians go to the deserts of Egypt? The third century was a period of profound suffering for Christians in Egypt. The persecutions under Roman Emperors Decius (249-251 AD) and Diocletian (303-311 AD) devastated Christian communities, destroyed many churches and their liturgical and scriptural books, and claimed the lives of countless faithful.[4] Yet, while this red martyrdom of blood — the witness of those who confessed Christ until their death — became part of the identity of the early Egyptian Church, another form of martyrdom had always constituted the Christian tradition: the white martyrdom of ascetical life.[5] In one instance, the Apostle Paul exhorts the Hebrews, writing: “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:4). Elsewhere, he advises the Corinthians with the imagery of asceticism — here, the exercise and training of athletes — by saying: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:24-27). Among those who heeded this scriptural advice and sought to practice it with complete devotion was a young Coptic Egyptian man, born around 251 AD in the village of Qiman al-‘Arus near modern-day Beni Suef, Egypt, named Antony. As he grew and became renowned for his asceticism, St. Antony quickly became regarded as the Father of Christian Monasticism, as countless men and women flocked to the desert to imitate his life through his guidance and teaching. In a remarkably short period of time, the life, teaching, and example of St. Antony deeply shaped generations of monks in both Egypt and beyond, even until today. St. Athanasius the Apostolic, the twentieth Patriarch of Alexandria and chief defender of Nicene Orthodoxy, knew Antony personally and later recorded his life in the Life of Antony, which he wrote shortly after St. Antony’s death in 356 AD.[6] This work quickly became one of the most influential writings in Christian history, spreading rapidly beyond Egypt and being translated into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Georgian, and Armenian within generations of its composition. Its account of St. Antony’s pursuit of God even affected Augustine of Hippo, who described, in his Confessions, the story of the Egyptian monk as being one of the influences that led to his conversion.[7] What made the Life of Antony so compelling to its diverse readers was not necessarily its descriptions of angelic encounters and demonic battles, though these appear in abundance throughout the work, but more importantly, its beautiful and gravitating portrait of an ordinary man who devoted his entire life to the pursuit of God and, through that pursuit, underwent a most profound transformation and gained an intimate understanding of God, and through Him, the human heart. St. Antony did not simply withdraw from the world; in the wilderness, he remained deeply concerned with the salvation of the world. The desert became for him the battlefield of interior warfare where he would struggle against the desires of the flesh and the movements of the mind and work towards the soul’s longing for God. St. Athanasius records that it was a dictum of St. Antony’s that “the soul’s energy thrives when the body’s desires are feeblest.”[8] This was not merely some rule of ascetic practice or a rejection of the body itself. Rather, it reflected decades of spiritual experience and watchfulness: an understanding that the state of the body, the discipline of desire, and the attention of the mind all shape the condition of the heart. St. Antony came to see how human desires and thoughts could either be purified and directed toward God or become obstacles that separate the soul from Him. From the very beginning, St. Antony’s journey into the desert unfolded through stages of deeper commitment and solitude. He first placed himself under the guidance of an experienced elder near his village, from whom he learned the basic principles and foundations of the ascetical life. He then gradually withdrew further into solitude, first to abandoned tombs on the outskirts of the inhabited world, then to an abandoned Roman fort where he remained enclosed for twenty years, and finally into the inner desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, near what is now the Monastery of St. Antony at Mount Colzim.[9] What may seem to be a gradual departure and withdrawal from society was in fact a deeper entry into the struggle of the heart. The silence of the desert enabled St. Antony to confront his thoughts, purify his desires, and seek restoration in undistracted communion with God. St. Athanasius notably records that when St. Antony finally emerged from his twenty-year enclosure, those who saw him were astonished; rather than appearing weakened or broken, he appeared renewed, “as Adam in Paradise, a man restored to his original glory.”[10] The Geography of the Heart St. Antony’s life inspired a movement of extraordinary scale and geographical scope. By the time he died, the desert surrounding the Nile valley had become a landscape of organized ascetic settlement. St. Athanasius memorably writes that St. Antony had made “the desert a city.”[11] Three locations in the Egyptian desert became the principal centers of this movement: Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis (Shiheet). Nitria, situated roughly sixty kilometers south of Alexandria, was the most accessible of the three and served as an entry point for new monastics. John Cassian, the monastic writer who transmitted much of Egyptian ascetic wisdom to the West, describes Nitria as containing at its height around 5,000 monks, with a bakery, physicians, and craftsmen operating alongside the cells of the solitary monks in a semi-organized settlement.[12] From Nitria, monks seeking greater solitude could withdraw another eighteen kilometers into the desert to Kellia, which translates literally to “the Cells.” At the deepest point of withdrawal lay Scetis, a full day’s journey from Nitria into the trackless Libyan wilderness, where the silence was almost absolute and only the most committed and capable of monastics ventured. It was in Scetis that St. Macarius the Great established his community around 330 AD, after perceiving the will of God and receiving the blessing of St. Antony. St. Macarius was born around 300 AD in the village of Shanshur in Lower Egypt to faithful parents, who instilled in him the virtues of the Christian way of life. He entered the monastic life as a young man, receiving the guidance of an elder, much like the experience of St. Antony, and eventually had the opportunity to become a direct disciple of St. Antony.[13] The two men met when St. Macarius made the arduous journey to St. Antony’s cell in the mountain. St. Athanasius records that when St. Antony first saw St. Macarius approaching, he welcomed him with great praise, saying to him: “Macarius, my child, you are blessed, just as your name means ‘blessed.’”[14] Recognizing St. Macarius’ maturity in the ascetical life, St. Antony placed the Great Schema upon him, the highest and most austere rank of monasticism, and entrusted him with greater responsibility before sending him back to Scetis. What St. Macarius built there would, over the next several decades, become one of the most influential spiritual schools in early Christian monasticism. St. Macarius served as spiritual father to over 4,000 monks drawn from Egypt, Greece, Ethiopia, Armenia, Nubia, Palestine, Gaul, and Rome. His community was international before the concept existed. The desert drew a remarkably diverse community from every corner of civilization and every walk of life: philosophers, peasants, princes, and even former bandits.[15] The monasteries he founded in Wadi El-Natrun stand to this day, continuously inhabited by Coptic monks for over sixteen centuries, and the Monastery of St. Macarius the Great remains one of the great living centers of Coptic monastic life. Among the great sayings and teachings of Abba Macarius, often repeated for its remarkable depth beyond its apparent simplicity, is his guidance to his disciples at the dismissal of the liturgy: “Flee, brothers!” One of the elders, puzzled, asked him: “Where can we flee to that is more remote than this desert?” St. Macarius placed his finger to his lips, then went into his cell, shut the door, and stayed there.[16] The flight he was prescribing was primarily of an inward character. What is the human person according to the Desert Fathers? Before one can approach the discoveries of the Desert Fathers about the interior condition, one must first understand how they viewed the human person more generally. The Coptic Orthodox Church, rooted in its Alexandrian theological heritage, understands the human person as a unity of body, soul, and spirit, which carries Trinitarian semblance as it appears in St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians: “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[17] These are not independent components of the person but inseparable dimensions of a single human being, each ordered toward communion with God. St. Athanasius, in his treatise, On the Incarnation, emphasizes that the human person was created in the Image and Likeness of God (eikōn kai homoisōsi), and that this Image was located not in the physical body but in the rational soul and its spiritual capacities (i.e., the capacity to know God, to participate in His life, and to grow into communion with Him).[18] St. Cyril of Alexandria, the great fifth-century patriarch, follows his predecessor closely, locating man’s true likeness to God not in his earthly form but in the rational and spiritual nature breathed into him: “Having sculpted man out of the soil, he made him into a rational creature, and, in order that he might replicate the rationality of his own nature, he immediately implanted within him an immortal, life-giving Spirit.”[19] The dignity of the human person, within the Coptic theological framework, is inseparable from the Divine Image after which he is made and to which he is called for relation and communion — the Creator Himself. This marks one of the most important differences between the Desert Fathers and modern psychology. Modern psychology often begins by asking how the mind works: how thoughts, emotions, memory, and behavior arise and interact. The Desert Fathers began with a different question altogether: what is the human person? Only after answering that question — understanding humanity’s origin, purpose, and calling in relation to God — did they then ask how the inner life functions. Within this theological framework, the Desert Fathers worked with a more precise vocabulary drawn from the Scriptures and from centuries of interior observation. Their writings were not attempts to construct an abstract theory of the human person, but efforts to understand how every dimension of human existence (e.g., body, soul, mind, desire, memory, and will) could be restored to its proper harmony in God. Unlike many modern approaches that examine cognition, emotion, and behavior as distinct domains of inquiry, the Desert Fathers approached the human person holistically. A thought could not be separated from desire, nor could desire be separated from the heart, nor the heart from one’s relationship with God. Every individual faculty of a person was understood in perfect relation with all the others. Their anthropology was therefore fundamentally integrative rather than compartmentalized. Important Terminology As this series ventures deeper into the interaction of the patristic tradition with modern psychology, three terms become important to define at the outset. The first is psyche, the “soul.” In the patristic tradition, psyche refers broadly to the animating principle of the person, encompassing the full range of human faculties: intellect, will, emotion, memory, and desire. John of Damascus, writing in the eighth century, defines it precisely in these terms: “The soul, accordingly, is a living essence, simple, incorporeal, invisible in its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and intelligent, formless, making use of an organized body, and being the source of its powers of life, and growth, and sensation, and generation…”[20] Therefore, the soul is not understood as a separate substance imprisoned within the body, but as the animating principle of the whole person. The human person ultimately exists as a unity, where the spiritual and physical dimensions are deeply connected. The second, and perhaps most significant term, is nous, translated variously as “intellect,” “mind,” or “spirit,” though inadequately captured by any of these English terms. The compilers of the Philokalia, the great collection of patristic ascetic texts spanning the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, defined the nous as “the highest faculty in man, through which — provided it is purified — he knows God or the inner essences of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception.”[21] The nous is not the discursive, analytical mind that reasons, compares, and draws conclusions. Rather, it is the faculty of directing spiritual intuition, which the patristic tradition frequently describes as the “eye of the soul.”[22] Because the nous is the faculty by which the person perceives God, much of the ascetical life is directed not toward acquiring new knowledge, but toward purifying perception itself. In its healthy state, it perceives and turns toward God. In its disordered state, clouded by passions and desires, it perceives only the noise of its own distraction and loses this clarity. The third term is kardia, the “heart.” In the patristic and biblical tradition, the heart is not merely the seat of emotion. The heart is the center of a person, the place where nous and psyche meet, and the deepest point of the self where thought, desire, will, and spiritual life converge. This is the very point Nikiphoros the Monk draws out in his Philokalic treatise On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart, turning to St. Antony the Great as his proof: when St. Antony perceived in prayer, from his mountain, that two traveling monks were dying of thirst far away, Nikiphoros explains that this was revealed to St. Antony alone because he kept his heart watchful — “Do you see how through watchfulness of heart St. Antony was able to perceive God and to acquire the power of clairvoyance? For it is in the heart that God manifests Himself to the intellect, first — according to St John Klimakos — as fire that purifies the lover and then as light that illumines the intellect and renders it godlike.”[23] When the Desert Fathers speak of “guarding the heart,” rooted in the scriptural command to “keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23)[24], they therefore mean something deeper and more comprehensive than emotional management. They mean attending to the source from which all thought, desire, and action flow, as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).[25] More than mere theological terminology, this vocabulary provides the conceptual framework through which the Desert Fathers interpreted every movement of the interior life. Thoughts, emotions, desires, temptations, virtues, and even suffering were not isolated experiences, but expressions of the condition of the whole person. Without this groundwork, many of the Fathers’ observations about the spiritual life become difficult to understand. With it, their later discussions of watchfulness, temptation, and healing emerge as parts of a coherent vision of what it means to be “human” altogether. Why the Fathers Studied Thoughts With this theological framework in view, one can begin to understand why the Desert Fathers developed such an intense, systematic focus on thoughts. The word they used to describe these interior movements was logismoi (λογισμοί). This term refers to the interior movements of the mind that arise before becoming explicit desires, decisions, or actions. The Desert Fathers observed, with remarkable precision, that the interior life does not simply happen to a person, but unfolds according to patterns and within the hidden places of the heart. For this reason, they did not treat thoughts as isolated mental events, but understood them as the beginning of a process that gradually shapes the whole person: A thought arrives. It lingers. It is either dismissed or entertained. If entertained, it provokes an emotional response. If the response is indulged, it leads to action. If the action is repeated, it forms a habit. If the habit is deepened, it shapes character. And character, for good or ill, is what a person becomes. Although separated from modern psychology by more than fifteen centuries, this sequence bears striking similarities to contemporary accounts of how repeated patterns of thought influence emotion, behavior, and habit.[26] It was an experiential observation, tested in the “laboratory” of the monastic cell, where silence and solitude removed many of the distractions that ordinarily conceal the movements of the heart. St. Antony is said to have known the condition of visiting monks’ souls before they spoke a word, having learned to read the movements of the inner life with extraordinary precision through years of vigilant self-observation.[27] The Fathers’ concern, therefore, was not simply the content of thoughts, but also the direction of attention. A passing thought held little significance unless it was received, entertained, and allowed to shape the heart. The ascetical life was consequently less about suppressing thought than about learning where to direct one’s attention. This is why watchfulness, nepsis, became central to the ascetic tradition. The monastic fathers were not attempting to eliminate every thought that entered the mind, nor did they believe that each carried the same weight. They instead sought to develop the discernment necessary to recognize what draws the person closer to God and what pulls the heart away from Him. Isaiah the Solitary, one of the earliest figures of the Philokalia, instructs the monk with characteristic directness that echoes Christ’s own teachings about the abundance of the heart in Matthew 12:34: “Stand guard, then, over your heart and keep a watch on your senses; and if the remembrance of God dwells peaceably within you, you will catch the thieves when they try to deprive you of it.”[28] The image of thieves is powerful in reflecting the subtle nature of inner struggles: the danger is not simply that destructive thoughts exist, but that, in the undiscerning person, they gradually become welcomed guests, entering quietly and deepening their hold when they are left unexamined. The Philokalia, which literally translates to “love of the beautiful” in Greek, was compiled precisely to transmit this tradition of interior watchfulness. Its editors, Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth, gathered texts spanning twelve centuries of ascetic wisdom, “collected with a view to purification, illumination, and perfection,” with the explicit goal of helping the reader “awaken and develop attention and consciousness, to attain that state of watchfulness which is the hallmark of sanctity.”[29] The Desert Fathers did not develop this interior science as an end in itself. They studied thoughts because they understood that the human person is transformed from the inside out. In other words, what one repeatedly attends to shapes what he desires, what he desires shapes what he practices, and what he repeatedly practices shapes the kind of person he ultimately becomes. For a tradition that understood the goal of human life as union with God, the interior life thus became the primary arena of both struggle and grace. The Ancient Desert and the Modern Mind At this point, one may wonder what relevance a fourth-century monastic community has for the modern person. The relevance, however, is much greater than one might anticipate. The Desert Fathers approached the same human reality from a different starting point. Before they were concerned with such questions as how the mind works or how suffering can be relieved, which comprise the common starting points for modern psychology, the Desert Fathers first contemplated and sought to discern the purpose for which the human person was created and what may prevent that person from becoming what God intended for them. The modern sciences of psychology and psychiatry have, in the last century, developed sophisticated tools for understanding the human interior, such as cognitive models of thought, neurobiological accounts of emotion, and behavioral frameworks for habit formation. These are real achievements which must be seriously considered and engaged with. At the same time, they do not address certain questions which are outside of their primary scope. While these disciplines might describe mechanisms, they struggle with meanings. By design, they primarily seek to explain how human beings think, feel, and behave, while largely excluding from their scope of concern questions of ultimate meaning, purpose, and destiny. The Desert Fathers began from the opposite end. Their lives were grounded in a clear sense of purpose and teleology. In other words, they began from the place of unwavering belief regarding what the human person was made for and where his journey ought to ultimately lead. Many of the practices they cultivated, such as watchfulness, discernment, self-examination, and the careful observation of thoughts, remain striking because they arose from centuries of sustained reflection on the human person through the lens of their spiritual and doctrinal convictions. Although these practices were developed within a theological framework, they reveal enduring insights into the patterns through which thoughts, desires, and habits shape human life. This does not mean the wisdom of the Desert Fathers should replace modern medicine or psychology. Human suffering exists on multiple levels, and physical, psychological, social, and spiritual realities cannot be isolated from each other. No single discipline is sufficient to account for every dimension of one’s suffering. A person struggling with depression, addiction, trauma, or mental illness may require clinical care, medical treatment, and professional support. Yet the desert tradition raises questions that remain deeply relevant. Beyond symptom relief, what does healing mean? What kind of person is one becoming? How do one’s repeated thoughts, desires, and choices shape their lived experience? As this series continues to unfold, the disciplines of theology and psychology will not be collapsed into one another. To do so would diminish both. Rather, it will place two rich traditions of reflection, practice, and study — one grounded in divine revelation, the practice of faith, and the ascetical experience, and the other in scientific investigation, academic rigor, and clinical observation — in conversation with each other. Where they converge, the convergence is illuminating. Where they differ, those differences are equally instructive and noteworthy. The Desert Fathers offer a vision of the human person grounded in meaning, purpose, and communion with God. Contemporary psychology offers increasingly sophisticated methods for understanding the mechanisms through which human beings think, feel, and behave. These traditions are not competitors. They ask different questions, employ different methods, and pursue different ends. Precisely because of those differences, however, each has something to illuminate in the other. The clinician does not render the Fathers obsolete. Contrarily, in and through the Coptic Orthodox tradition, within which the Desert Fathers are prominently found, one has access to a wealth of material that remains instructive, illuminating, and deeply relevant, though overlooked in today’s world — a heritage of profound reflection on the human heart. — [1] Wadi El Natrun, Wikipedia. The Coptic name for Scetis, Ϣⲓϩⲏⲧ (Šihēt), carries the meaning “measure of the heart” in Coptic etymology. The Arabic name Wadi El-Natrun, meaning “Valley of Natron,” reflects the geological significance of the region to ancient Egyptian embalming practice. [2] Antony the Great, Letter III, in The Letters of Saint Antony the Great, trans. Derwas J. Chitty (Oxford: SLG Press, 1975). [3] Throughout this series, the term “Desert Fathers” will be used as the conventional shorthand for this movement. Though grammatically masculine, the term is used here in its traditional, generic sense, encompassing the Desert Mothers (Ammas) as well, whose sayings and ascetic witness are preserved alongside those of their male counterparts in the tradition. [4] The Diocletianic Persecution (303–311 AD) was particularly severe in Egypt. The Coptic Orthodox Church numbers its calendar from 284 AD, the year of Diocletian’s accession, calling it the “Year of the Martyrs” (Anno Martyrum). See Aziz S. Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity (London: Methuen, 1968), 25–29. [5] For the Egyptian monastic understanding of asceticism as a continuation of martyrdom, see Athanasius, The Life of Antony, trans. Robert C. Gregg (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), §§46–47. The terminology of “red martyrdom” and “white martyrdom” developed later in Christian tradition; see Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 23, where Ware describes “white martyrdom” as “a man’s abandoning everything he loves for God’s sake” and “red martyrdom” as “the endurance of a Cross or death for Christ’s sake,” quoting J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism (London, 1931), 197. [6] Athanasius composed the Life of Antony around 356–360 AD, during one of his periods of exile from Alexandria. See Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Early Church Fathers (New York: Routledge, 2004), 1, 24. [7] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), Book VIII.6. [8] Athanasius of Alexandria, The Life of Antony, trans. Robert C. Gregg (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), Section 45. [9] The Monastery of St. Antony at Mount Colzim, in the Eastern Desert near the Red Sea, is the oldest Christian monastery in the world still in continuous operation. [10] Athanasius, Life of Antony, Section 14. [11] Ibid. “From then on there were monasteries in the mountains and the desert was made a city by monks, who left their own people and registered themselves for the citizenship in the heavens.” [12] John Cassian, The Conferences of the Desert Fathers, trans. Edgar C. S. Gibson (Aeterna Press, 2015), Conference 18. See also Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 8–10. [13] Macarius the Great (c. 300–391 AD). See Tim Vivian, Saint Macarius the Spiritbearer: Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great; for his birthplace in Shanshur, Menufiya, see the Coptic Orthodox Synaxarium entry for 27 Baramhat (April 5). [14] See Tim Vivian, Saint Macarius the Spiritbearer: Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great, 162-172 (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011). [15] Monastery of St. Macarius the Great, Wadi Natrun, stmacariusmonastery.org, historical overview. [16] Apophthegmata Patrum, Macarius the Great, 16, trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1975). [17] 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (RSVCE). [18] Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione), trans. John Behr (Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), Section 3. [19] Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Volume 1: Genesis, trans. Nicholas P. Lunn, intro. Gregory K. Hillis, Fathers of the Church 137 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 56. [20] John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II, Chapter 12, trans. S. D. F. Salmond, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 9, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1899). [21] The Philokalia, vol. 1, ed. and trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), 362. [22] See, e.g., Diadochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination 71, in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 1, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber & Faber, 1979), where he writes, “The eye of the soul cannot be led astray...”; and Symeon the New Theologian, One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts 22–23, in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber & Faber, 1995), who refers to the “mind, or eye of the soul” and the “soul’s eye.” [23] Nikiphoros the Monk, On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart, in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), 194–197. Nikiphoros draws his account from Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Antony, ch. 59. [24] Proverbs 4:23 (OSB). [25] Matthew 12:34 (OSB). [26] This parallel should not be understood as an equivalence between patristic ascetic theology and modern psychological theory, but as a similarity in their observations of the relationship between cognition, emotion, and behavior. See, for example, Aaron T. Beck, Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (New York: International Universities Press, 1976), 5: “the way people construe themselves and their experiences determines their feelings and behavior.” Similarly, Albert Ellis opens his account of Rational Emotive Therapy by invoking the Stoic maxim of Epictetus, “Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views which they take of them,” a principle he takes as foundational to his own approach; see Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1962), 54. For contemporary habit research, see Wendy Wood and David T. Neal, “A New Look at Habits and the Habit-Goal Interface,” Psychological Review 114, no. 4 (2007): 843–863, which describes habits as “learned dispositions to repeat past responses” (843). More recently, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Judson Brewer has described the same trigger-behavior-reward mechanism underlying the formation of addictive patterns and habits; see The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love—Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). [27] Athanasius, Life of Antony, Section 38. [28] Isaiah the Solitary, “On Guarding the Intellect: Twenty-Seven Texts,” in The Philokalia, vol. 1, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), Text 22. [29] The Philokalia, vol. 1, Introduction, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), 13–14. — Bibliography Primary Sources Antony the Great. The Letters of Saint Antony the Great. Translated by Derwas J. Chitty. Oxford: SLG Press, 1975. Apophthegmata Patrum. Translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1975. Athanasius of Alexandria. On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione). Translated by John Behr. Yonkers: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011. Athanasius of Alexandria, and Robert C. Gregg. The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus. The Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1980. Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Cassian, John. The Conferences of the Desert Fathers. Translated by Edgar C. S. Gibson. Aeterna Press, 2015. Kindle. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Volume 1: Genesis. Translated by Nicholas P. Lunn. Introduction by Gregory K. Hillis. Fathers of the Church 137. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018. Diadochos of Photiki, St. “On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination.” In The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 1. Translated by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1979. Isaiah the Solitary. “On Guarding the Intellect: Twenty-Seven Texts.” In The Philokalia, vol. 1. Translated by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1979. John of Damascus, St. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Translated by S. D. F. Salmond. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 9, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1899. Nikiphoros the Monk. “On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart.” In The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4. Translated by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1995. The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 1. Edited and translated by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1979. The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 4. Edited and translated by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1995. Symeon the New Theologian, St. “One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts.” In The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4. London: Faber and Faber, 1995. Secondary Sources Anatolios, Khaled. Athanasius: The Early Church Fathers. New York: Routledge, 2004. Atiya, Aziz S. A History of Eastern Christianity. London: Methuen, 1968. Beck, Aaron T. Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. New York: International Universities Press, 1976. Brewer, Judson. The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love—Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. Ellis, Albert. Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1962. Stewart, Columba. Cassian the Monk. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Vivian, Tim. Saint Macarius the Spiritbearer: Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great. Ware, Timothy. The Orthodox Church. London: Penguin Books, 1993. Wood, Wendy, and David T. Neal. “A New Look at Habits and the Habit-Goal Interface.” Psychological Review 114, no. 4 (2007): 843–863. Websites Used “Wadi El Natrun.” Wikipedia. Monastery of St. Macarius the Great, Wadi Natrun. stmacariusmonastery.org — Bavly Halaka is a Coptic Orthodox Christian and a second-year medical student at Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine, where he is pursuing a career in addiction psychiatry. He holds an interest in the intersection of Coptic patristic theology and the modern sciences of the mind. This series explores how the Egyptian Desert Fathers understood the human person and what their insights continue to offer to contemporary disciplines of mental and behavioral health. Cover Art: Icon of the Forty-Nine Martyrs, the Elders of Shiheet at the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi El-Natrun, Egypt — Photographed by Berthold Werner. 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