The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Activities and Schedule

Wednesday
9:00-11:00 A.M.: Divine Liturgy
11:15-1:00 P.M.: Women's Bible Study

Thursday
7:30-9:00 P.M.: Arabic Youth Meeting

Friday
9:00-11:00 A.M.: Divine Liturgy
8:00-9:30 P.M.: College & Graduate Youth Meeting
8:00-9:30 P.M.: High School Meeting & Activities
8:00-9:30 P.M.: Middle School Meeting & Activities
8:00-9:30 P.M.: Parents' Bible Study (childcare available)

Saturday
3:30-7:00 P.M.: Children's Activities (2nd & 4th Saturdays)
7:00-9:00 P.M.: Vespers, Midnight Prayers, & Bible Study
9:00-11:00 P.M.: Midnight Praises & Confession

Sunday
8:45-11:50 A.M.: English Divine Liturgy (St. Mary's Church)
8:45-11:50 A.M.: Arabic Divine Liturgy (St. Paul's Church - lower floor)
12:15-1:00 P.M.: Sunday School Service
12:15-1:00 P.M.: Sunday School Servants Preparatory Class
1:30-2:30 P.M.: Sunday School Servants Meeting

History

St. Mary Coptic Orthodox Church began in Atlanta in the late 1970s with no more than four or five families. At the time they had neither a priest nor a building of their own. Instead, they met once a month--sometimes in a room rented from Emory University, at other times in a local Byzantine Catholic Church--to celebrate liturgy with visiting priests from established Coptic churches in New Jersey and Florida. By the time the community had grown to about twenty or thirty families, they began to think about building their own church. In 1989 they completed work on a modest chapel located on their present land in Roswell, Georgia. This original chapel, dedicated to St. Paul, is still used for services; it is at the basement level, beneath a larger church that was completed in 1996 and consecrated by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, the current patriarch of Alexandria and head of the Coptic Church.

Since the building of the new church, the parish has quickly grown. In 1996 the community numbered about one hundred twenty-five families; today they have around three hundred and are beginning to think about constructing an additional building at a location with more convenient interstate access. The community has two priests: Fr. Luka Wassif, who has served the church since 1993, and Fr. Eleia Eskander, who was ordained in late 2000. St. Mary Church has now become the mother parish for several other mission churches in the Southeast. Both Fr. Luka and Fr. Eleia regularly travel to celebrate liturgy with small Coptic communities in Augusta, Savannah, Birmingham, and Chattanooga.

The Church and Its Liturgy

The church is beautifully adorned with icons painted by an Egyptian master who was brought to the United States for three months in 1999. They are displayed on the left- and right-hand walls of the church and across an ornate iconostasis that separates the altar from the nave. Men stand on the left and women on the right. The men wear slacks and collared shirts; the women wear modest dresses and cover their heads. The congregation stands for most of the service, though there are also designated times for kneeling and sitting. The languages used in the liturgy testify to the diverse heritage of the Coptic Church in America: the main, upstairs church holds liturgy in English and in Coptic, the traditional but no longer spoken language of Christian Egypt; the smaller, downstairs chapel uses Coptic and Arabic.

In each pew is a liturgy book with the text of the service in Coptic, Arabic, and English. There is much skipping from section to section, but the congregation is guided by two digital page-counters, placed at the top of either side of the iconostasis. The liturgy books have only text, no music, but the faithful are nonetheless able to sing along with most of the hymns, even the more intricate, melismatic passages. During certain parts of the service, the chants are accompanied by the lively rhythms of a cymbal and triangle. Together with the offering of the incense and the morning prayers that precede the Divine Liturgy proper, the Sunday service lasts a little more than three hours. The liturgy is followed by a short sermon in English or in Arabic.