A Project for Collecting Coptic Manuscripts and Establishing Comprehensive Coptic Libraries
A Project for Collecting Coptic Manuscripts and Establishing Comprehensive Coptic Libraries
We have many Coptic manuscripts scattered throughout our libraries:
Whether in the libraries of the monasteries, or the Patriarchal Library in Cairo and Alexandria, or in the libraries of some old churches, or in the Coptic Museum… all of this needs to be gathered together and given special care, and some of it needs restoration….
There are also many Coptic manuscripts in Western libraries.
Some of them are in the British Museum Library, some in the Vatican Library, some in the Louvre Museum, and some in Louvain…. How many of our manuscripts are in Austria, in Germany, in some European countries, and even in America as well.
The manuscripts that are in the West may not be recoverable, but….
We can obtain some of them on microfilm or microfiche, and it may be possible through exchange, if we can gather our manuscripts and prepare Photo Copies of them.
Some of these manuscripts in the West have been published, studied, and annotated by Coptologists, either in special books or in certain scholarly collections, such as those published by Patrologia Orientalis (Writings of the Eastern Fathers), which is issued in Paris.
The Pope has already begun the microfilm and microfiche project.
We previously published the agreements in this regard between the Pope and Al-Ahram Foundation, for establishing a microfilm center, supplying it with equipment, preparing the specialists needed to manage it, and training them professionally.
Working in this field at the Patriarchate is the monk Silvanus Ava Mina, who carried out a similar effort at the Monastery of St. Mina in Mariut. The specialists will soon be prepared, God willing.
The first step is to prepare the original Silver Master copies from which copies can be made for distribution to subsidiary libraries.
Thus, all Coptic churches in the diaspora can be supplied with copies of our Coptic manuscripts, as well as the libraries of the Clerical College and its branches and religious institutes, and, if possible, all dioceses as well, with a complete Coptic library containing images of all the manuscripts.
The same situation applies to the important manuscripts of the writings of the Fathers in the Arabic language. The scholar Graf exerted a great effort in the history of Christian literature in the Arabic language, which was published in four large volumes under the title:
Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literatur — Graf
Scholarship must be supplied with libraries…
And there is not a single complete library anywhere.
The new project is to strive toward this completeness and to review the cataloging of all manuscripts in all monasteries, churches, and libraries, here and abroad…
The project will be a great blessing for the churches of the diaspora.
These churches are seeking ways to connect themselves with their glorious ancient heritage, in language, culture, doctrine, and art…
We are beginning, and we ask God to join us in the work.
And the longest journey begins with a single step…
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