ርሑስ በዓል ልደትን ሓድሽ ዓመትን። Flight into Egypt (coptic icon from the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga) in Cairo) Smells and bells, indeed! The semi-dismissive and half-affectionate description of high ritual churches came unbidden to mind as I stepped into the sanctuary at St Mark’s Coptic Church for the Feast of the Nativity, known in Winnipeg as Ukrainian Christmas. We were a few minutes late for the beginning of the service, but so were the majority of the other worshippers, and the room was already filled with a haze of incense. Stand, sit (mostly stand), while a crowd of male persons of all ages chant liturgy from the front. TV screens mounted at intervals around the sanctuary present the text in English, Coptic, and Arabic. (Or they try to. The person running the display seemed a bit lost for the first hour when perhaps he or she was replaced with someone better acquainted with the liturgy.) I’m unfamiliar with the extra letters Coptic added to their use...
a smattering of brain droppings from a self-styled writer