On specil ocasions, while the Byzantine Church uses that of St. Basil, the Coptic Church has the Liturgy of St. Gregory (for Christmas, Resurrection, etc).
We also use St. Cyril's Liturgy during Lent. St. Cyril's Liturgy is the translation and rearrangement of St. Mark's Liturgy.
However I came across the site of the British Orthodox Church which is a diocese of the Coptic Church in Britain and they say that their liturgy is the Divine Liturgy of St. James.
Can someone explain me where this liturgy came from? Maybe all what I wrote before is wrong as I don't know very much about Oriental Orthodoxy.
The British Orthodox Church has revised thier Liturgy a few times... I can't remember exactly what they were using but I think it was a western Mass (anglican I think) heavily modified to be suitable to Orthodoxy... They described it as too ornate and ceremonious and disorganized with everything mixed together, so they eventually adopted the Liturgy of St. James, I believe after they were received into the Coptic Orthodox Church. I don't know the exact reason for chosing that over St. Basil's that we use... I think they wanted to go a little shorter, but I believe there was also some connection there that I can't remember.
I alays thought that Copts celebrated Christmas on January 7 according to the Julian Calendar but the French site as well as the British site say it's celebrated on 25th december.
We celebrate Christmas on Jan 7 (on leap years our calander is out of synch and we actually should celebrate on Jan 8th, but we stay on the 7th to avoid confusion...), but the British and I guess also the French celebrate it on the 25, as they did before coming into the Coptic Church.
The Coptic Church has a mission near my Mexican town (unbelievable) and there are some contradictions. They received some Mexican converts by Baptism (Byzantine Orthodox here do not re-baptize or re-chrismate people who received these mysteries at the Roman Church). However, the Egyptians before they had their church, attended Roman parishes regularly and even took communion there as the Egyptian Church permits this (they did not go to the Eastern Orthodox parishes though).
Those not Baptised by tripple-immersion are received by Baptism, not as a statement that their Baptism was invalid, but kind of a better safe than sorry approach... We are not allowed to receive Communion at a Roman Catholic Church. We're not strictly allowed to receive Communion at an Eastern Orthodox Church, but if it's the only option often there "silent approval" from the bishops... I've never head of anything like that with Catholics though. Doesn't mean people won't do it though, and how people who chose to do so are dealt with would be up to the pastoral discretion of their father in confession.
The fact that they are performing public conversions will probably get them in trouble with the Roman Church.
What do you mean public? Converts won't be turned away because of their background for political safety, but do you mean they were making a big show of it or something?
Does the Ethiopian Church use the same liturgies of the Coptic Church in Egypt???
Yes, same Liturgy. It's hard to recognize it as such because their tunes are different and they're a lot more animated (and I think they use a drum instead of cymbols), but it's the same. I'm not sure about St. Gregory's & St. Cyrils, but I know normally they use St. Basil's Liturgy anyways.
