Encyclopedia of Pastoral Theology

News and Comments

News – and Comments (1)

On the occasion of handing over the pastoral staff from the Coptic Church to the Archbishop of Finland, who believes in the excommunicated Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo which produced the heresy of the two natures, we had written an article in which we said: It is not permissible to hand over the pastoral staff to a bishop who differs from us in faith…

We wished to conclude this matter and not return to speaking about it. However, some have continued to publish successive articles in Coptic newspapers and magazines, attempting to make readers believe that the matter is sound from an ecclesiastical point of view. We can forgive any mistake that is acknowledged, for we are all liable to error. But we can never allow portraying error as though it were truth!!

They said that the staff is received by the bishop through a special rite, whereby the staff is placed on the altar, and the Pope hands it to him while the deacon cries out: “Receive the pastoral staff from the hand of our father the Patriarch Anba …” They also said that many heads of churches have exchanged pastoral staffs as a kind of friendship or courtesy. And they said that it is like a distinguished guest who visits our country, to whom we hand over the key of the city… The response to all of this is simple:

1. The rite mentioned takes place at the ordination of a new bishop. But in the case of the Archbishop of Finland, the matter is different, because we were not in the process of ordaining him as a bishop so that he would receive the staff while the deacon calls out. Rather, we received him as an archbishop.

2. If this rite had taken place and we had said to him, “Receive the pastoral staff from the hand of the Pope…,” he would thereby have become subject to us, under our authority, and the matter did not reach that extent.

3. As for the claim that this matter has occurred frequently among heads of churches, let them tell us the name of a single Pope of Alexandria who previously presented a pastoral staff to one of the Chalcedonians.

4. As for the comparison with the “key of the city,” it does not apply. We do not hand over the key of the city to a guest unless he is in complete agreement with us politically. It is as though we are thereby saying to him: “Consider yourself exactly as if you were in your own country.” And this is what we do with regard to any bishop who agrees with us in faith: if he visits us, we hand over the church to him—he presides over the prayer, offers the sacrifice, gives the blessing, and gives the absolution—as though he were entirely in his own church, like the guest who receives the key of the city. But with a bishop who differs from us in faith, none of this is permissible at all.

5. An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Three – Issue One and Two, January and February 1967.

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