Prelate Counsels Flock on Theology, Marriage, End of World

Pope Shenouda III, Patriarch of Alexandria, 117th Successor to the See of St. Mark and cleric with wit to match his piety, communed with his followers in Highland Park last week.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Coptic Christians was stopping off on his way from Alexandria to the World Council of Churches in Australia. On a flurry of visits, Pope Shenouda made two stops last Thursday at St. Mary’s Church at the foot of Mt. Washington, the most central of the nine Coptic churches in Los Angeles.

It was the prelate’s second visit to the new, sparkling-white, copper-domed and cruciform-shaped hall at the corner of Cleland Drive and Terrace 49, the first having been when he dedicated it last year.

Arriving in a white limousine shortly before noon, Shenouda prayed, sang Coptic and Arabic hymns, then discoursed on theological matters with two dozen black-vested priests from several strains of the Orthodox Christian family. From Russian, Greek, Syrian and other Coptic churches, they wore their beards full and covered their heads with tall felt hats, small cloth caps and berets. The pope wore a finely pleated satin turban.

The subject, fresh in his mind from a conference in Geneva, was unification of the Orthodox family. It is a goal that appears just now to be nearing fruition after several centuries of on-and-off deliberation.

The turgid theological distinctions responsible for the split of the Coptic, or Egyptian, Christians go back to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 at which it was decreed that Christ had two natures, one human, one divine, both inseparable.

Pope Shenouda brought the good news that ordinary Christians need no longer worry about the metaphysical nature of Christ.

“When Christianity began, it was a very simple religion, no complication of dogma or theology,” he said in heavy, but distinct English.

Division was brought about by disputes by theologians over Greek terminology, Shenouda said.

“What do the common people know about Greek terminology?”

Some of the priests had practical questions: Could they say prayers together? Honor each other’s baptisms? Raise incense?

The pope shook his head sympathetically. Matters of the sacrament were not yet settled, he counseled.

“If we do it, it is not wrong,” he said. “We believe in our hearts everything is right. But it needs some official steps, only official steps, not theological steps.”

Then the patriarch, the priests and the church lay leaders assembled in the basement for a lunch of Middle Eastern delicacies. To keep his schedule, the patriarch slipped away as honey and wheat pastries were being served for dessert.

More than 1,000 people waited in the sanctuary when his limousine pulled back into the parking lot about 8 that night. They had come from all over the county, bringing infants and teen-agers by the score, to present written questions to their spiritual leader.

He spoke in Arabic, translated for me by an usher who asked to be spared recognition.

First, he reviewed the prerequisites for communion--fasting, repentance, confession; clothing is unimportant.

“You don’t have to dress up because it’s really what’s in your heart that counts,” the young man reported.

The pope then addressed the end of the world, breaking briefly into English: “Don’t fear,” he said. “The end of the world is not at hand. Some people try to frighten others in order to repent.”

When he continued in Arabic again, the crowd laughed.

“He cracked a joke,” my translator said.

The pope had said people say that the Gulf War is a sign that the end of the world is coming and therefore they repent. Then when the war ends, they return to their old ways.

Marriage, fidelity and the discipline of children occupied the remaining time.

His views on marriage were standard.

“Why does divorce happen?” he asked. “For the stupidest reasons. . . . A good marriage is when a husband keeps his wife happy and the wife keeps her husband happy.”

Laughter scattered through the sanctuary again as Shenouda counseled young women to ask whether “her fiance is cheap or not. Does he have a short temper? What things get him mad or don’t?”

He declined to grant parents absolute power over their children’s lives. “It’s important to become friends with your children first,” he said. “If you get into a fight with them, it doesn’t work.” Again in English, he added: “Your responsibility is to teach him, not to oblige him.”

Next came a question about Adam and Eve. “What if Adam didn’t eat the apple? What would happen?”

“God would have punished her by death and created another Eve,” was the answer.

The women in the audience were by no means submissive, though.

One asked her pope to “have a word” with all the men who look like angels in public and turn into monsters at home.

“I just want you to love each other and live a happy life,” he responded. “The lack of love and the selfishness of the egotistical person and the loss of the faith in God results in a bad marriage.”

A Greek theologian couldn’t have made clearer in a thousand years.