Topic: Sources for Oriental Orthodox Studies

[CoptoGeek]

I haven't read this book, but I heard it's chock full of pastoral wisdom and spirituality.  The late bishop HG Bishop Youannis of Gharbia wrote "Paradise of the Spirit" that I've been told by many Copts of old times was an excellent piece of writing, now translated in English:

http://youanis.wordpress.com

Enjoy!

Thank you, Mina!

[Salpy]

The Oriental Orthodox Library has works from various Oriental Orthodox Church Fathers:

http://www.orthodox-library.com/catalogue.htm

It also has Fr. V.C.Samuel's The Council of Chalcedon Re-Examined, which is an excellent resource for understanding the Council of Chalcedon, and the various Christological issues involved, from an Oriental Orthodox point of view.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-council-of-chalcedon-re-examined/194480


Another excellent book about the Christology of the Oriental Orthodox is Fr. Peter's new book, Orthodox Christology:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/orthodox-christology/10969273

There is now a second edition of Fr. Peter's Orthodox Christology, with additional articles in it:

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,60101.msg1168911.html#msg1168911

[Brigidsboy]

Fr Athanasius Iskander serves in Canada. His website has lots of good material in English.
http://www.stmaryscopticorthodox.ca/index.php/english/publications

[Salpy]

http://narekatsi.agnian.com/en

The above site translates some of the works of St. Gregory of Nareg, and links to translations of others.  It would be a good resource for those interested in this saint.

[minasoliman]

Scholarly articles are available here, a lot of them in English written by Dr. Youhanna Nessim Youssef on various Coptic studies.

There are some other pdf's scattered around if you google his name and do a thorough search.  I am trying to save all his pdf's and collect them together.

[seekeroftruth777]

Ok say your on a shoe string budget what is is 1 book on the Coptic church any of you gentlemen and ladies would recommend? Any Syriac Orthodox books one would recommend too? there a Syriac Orthodox Church about a 1 and 15 minutes or so away from me I can't make it anytime soon but I would to visit sometime when I have better transportation(other than the bus) If I haven't decided to convert to E.O. or Coptic by then.

[Asteriktos]

https://www.academia.edu/

"Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. The company's mission is to accelerate the world's research. Academics use Academia.edu to share their research, monitor deep analytics around the impact of their research, and track the research of academics they follow. 23,327,267 academics have signed up to Academia.edu, adding 6,215,283 papers and 1,594,800 research interests. Academia.edu attracts over 36 million unique visitors a month."

[PeterA]

Here's a nice little site/blog that's still under construction but it attempts to compile notable Oriental orthodox saints contemporary and ancient..

Orthokairos.weebly.com

They have much of abouna Matta el meskeen and Fr tadros malaty's writings, Ragheb Mofta7, etc

Looks like they're about to add Sts Dioscorus and Severus with a few others.

It looks interesting and informative.

[Severian]

An excellent resource, thank you for posting^

[PeterA]

No prob. I was particularly impressed with their Paulos Mar Gregorious section. We Oriental Orthodox don't know the treasures we have and sadly someone as prolific as Shenoute the archmandrite goes untranslated..His works are extraordinary

[minasoliman]

This is a translated document written by a 13th Century Muslim Historian "Al Maqrizi", where he explains all the feasts of the Coptic Church and what happens in those feasts:

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2015/09/22/al-maqrizis-account-of-coptic-feast-days-online-in-english-by-anthony-alcock/comment-page-1/#comment-1569183

[SherryTX]

I just got "The Coptic Christian Heritage" book in the mail today - its by Lois M. Farag. Super excited to start reading it! =)

[biro]

I just got "The Coptic Christian Heritage" book in the mail today - its by Lois M. Farag. Super excited to start reading it! =)

Cool! Sounds very good. I hope I can find something like that at the library.

[minasoliman]

I am currently reading the article, "Aspects of Witness in the Coptic Liturgical Tradition" by Ramez Mikhail

Looks like a good read!  I look forward for anything else this good author will publish

[Egyptian]

1.
http://orthokairos.weebly.com

"The aim of this site is to compile all the Oriental Orthodox literature in existence in one place for the enjoyment and edification of all. Since Oriental Orthodox Christian literature isn't as widely disseminated in English, it is our aim to provide all extant sources, whether professionally or unprofessionally translated, so that all may enjoy the wealthy tradition of the Coptic, Indian, Armenian, Syrian, Ethipian & Eritrean Orthodox churches. Please pray for this project and offer your support, if you're able, by visiting our 'contact' page."

2.
http://www.stmark.com.au/sermons/
http://www.stmark.com.au/sermons/music/
http://www.stmark.com.au/sermons/blog/


St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Sydney, Australia
The first link above link is for sermons mainly from St Mark's parish itself, and several other parishes from across the diocese.
The second link is for the music website presenting productions from the youth of the parish with contemporary songs and traditional Coptic hymns in English - depending which album you choose to listen to.
The third link is a blog with posts from the parish fathers and laymen or youth.

[Seraffa]

I know that those at Ancient Faith would be open and interested (I know the founders personally).  IIRC one obstacle was copyright on the materials they were trying to gather, as they looked at Syriac and Coptic CDs I had.

AFR seemed quite open to the OO at first, but I feel like that's changed over time; one can assume why.

Dunno about the Syriacs, but as for the Copts, there's no real concept of "intellectual property" for Church produced material.  They could probably contact Bishop David to get some guidance and/or permission. I can try to help get them in touch with him, if needed.

I am not understanding what you are saying. Why would their openness be changed?

[Salpy]

Not specifically an OO site, but it's an excellent source for information about the Septuagint:

http://www.geocities.ws/r_grant_jones/Rick/Septuagint/spindex.htm

[CoptoGeek]

I pray this gets translated to English one day soon.

Le monophysisme Severien (1909)
By Fr. Joseph Lebon

https://archive.org/details/Lebon1909LeMonophysismeSeverien

[Salpy]

An amazing Armenian booklinks library:

http://grahavak.blogspot.am/p/blog-page_22.html

[Mor Ephrem]

A Treatise of Dionysius Bar Salibhi on Differences with Chalcedonians, by Metropolitan Dr Paulos Mor Gregorios. 

[Alpha60]

I should have posted this stuff here:

https://ia800300.us.archive.org/22/items/ABriefOutlineOfSyriacLiterature/BrockABriefOutlineOfSyriacLiterature1997noSamplePassages1_text.pdf

Those interested in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as those interested in the other Syriac communities (the Maronites, Assyrians, the Chalcedonians, and the extinct Gnostics such as the Tatianists and the author of The Acts of Thomas, etc) might find this work rather useful.

This by the way is my favorite work of Syriac Orthodox literature:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/lsbh/lsbh26.htm

Comtaining amusing and profitable sayings and legends, it concludes with a most pious set of momento mori, ending with a mourning elegy of grief the compiler, Mar Bar Hebraeus, the Maphrian or Catholicos of the Syriac Orthodox Church in what is now Iraq and Iran, for his beloved Patriarch who had reposed in the Lord.

[Asteriktos]

To what extent have Oriental Orthodox churches received attention from people writing in French, German, and English? How far have things gone in not only translating primary sources, but also fairly understanding the historical and ecclesiastical context of those texts?

[minasoliman]

To what extent have Oriental Orthodox churches received attention from people writing in French, German, and English? How far have things gone in not only translating primary sources, but also fairly understanding the historical and ecclesiastical context of those texts?

French and German have been very interested in OO sources...English is just starting to catch up.  But if you can read French, most of St. Severus’ important writings have been translated into French.  You can even buy them from amazon

[Asteriktos]

Would you say that the scholarship and translations are fair and accurate? I guess one of the things I'm thinking of when I ask about that is because of how often Eastern Christianity in general was misrepresented up through the 20th century because of various prejudices (along with Buddhism, Taoism, and most other religions I suppose).

[minasoliman]

Would you say that the scholarship and translations are fair and accurate? I guess one of the things I'm thinking of when I ask about that is because of how often Eastern Christianity in general was misrepresented up through the 20th century because of various prejudices (along with Buddhism, Taoism, and most other religions I suppose).

From what I read, I think this is relatively recent scholarship that started at the turn of the 20th century which tended to be a reexamination of the beliefs of anti-Chalcedonian fathers who had a traditionally bad rap from Chalcedonian scholars.  So I would say it sounds fair, but this is only from reading those who have recapped some of those sources.  I have not or really cannot read them myself.  For instance, Rene Draguet, Martin Jugie, Rubens Duval, Joseph Lebon all wrote between 1900 and 1930, all seem to be pioneers in OO research that went against the status quo of Chalcedonian charges of heresy, all floated as recommended reading especially when it come to St. Severus, but all in French.  Hespel translated a lot of good primary sources of Severus but only in French.  So I heard good things about them, but alas je ne parle pas francais, et c’est la vie.

[Asteriktos]

Thanks