The Blessed Theotokos St. Mary on the eve of the feast of her dormition appeared in the church of St. George & St. Paphnutius. The miraculous apparition occurred at the revival (nahda) services – that common in the Coptic church during the period of St. Mary’s Fast – during the performance of of the various choirs in the church. At first doves of light were seen in the church which then flocked togeher over the chorus area in front of the altar. There they then coalesced together and then ever-virgin St. Mary appeared. All the while the choir was singing. Suddenly in a move that has never occurred in her apparitions in the history of our church, she spoke aloud. She said, “Stop”. The choir paused briefly but when she did not say anything else started to sing again. She then spoke again, “No, seriously stop singing.” She then disappeared in a flock of doves of light and a cloud of incense. The dumbstruck choir then went back to their seats and no other choir sang that night.

One Mr. Mohsen Youssef Adly, with tears of joy streaming down his face, exclaimed that now he can depart in peace as Simeon the elder, for God has answered his prayers and brought an end to the signing of the choirs. Choirs that caused the angels to weep and not in a good way. Later he told his friends that these choirs were God-awful and they just kept going year after year just because every parent wanted to see their kids up there and to justify the church expenditure for a Casio keyboard. It was torture. He also doubt the theological soundness of some of the songs they shrieked. When one of the priests of the church were asked their opinion of the matter, confidentially mentioned he wouldn’t mind if she apppeared to a few of the deacons as well.

Apparently this past Saturday for a few hours while His Holiness was in transit to Egypt there were rumors flying about that he had passed away. The confusion arose when someone missed the fact that the word departed more often means “To travel from or leave a location” than to “pass on from this world”. Sad but true.

Coptic News Brief
Local congregant, Mina M. Mina, unaware of how the Coptic leap shifted the date of the Feasts of the Theophany, was rather upset when he found out his mother did not make the traditional ‘ol’ass (colcassia) today on the 19th of January. When he inquired of his mother, with whom he still lives with despite being 45 years old, she told him the feast day was tomorrow. Mina thought his mother was making an excuse not to cook the dish and desired to see him wake up without a head*. Despite the fact that Mina went to church for services the night before and found it locked. He assumed that for security reasons they finished church early. It took his mother showing him each of the dozen church calendars they recieve in the mail to convince him the feast is tomorrow.

* For the unaware there is an Egyptian saying “He who does not ‘ol’ass on the Theophany will wake up with out a head” (it rhymes in Egyptian Arabic)

A local area who wishes to remain anonymous, to protect him from his father of confession, confides to the Coptic News Network that a week into the Advent fast and he has yet to start fasting due to the sheer amount of leftover food from Thanksgiving. This year was unusual in that Thanksgiving Day fell before the start to fast so this man’s family decided to go all out in cooking for it. Not that they did not make turkey and other non-fasting foods during the other years, just in deference to fact they should be fasting they just made less of it. But because of this this man, who claims he desires to fast, feels bad throwing away enough food to feed a small village. He feels that wasting all that food would be the greater sin. So when asked how much longer does he have before he can fast, stated that at his current rate of eating he should be ready in time for Lent.

When the Coptic News Network asked an area priest his opinion on this stated simply that that man should be thankful he does not know who he is and that he is not that man’s father of confession.

Coptic News Network Breaking Story

A gansta rap style East Coast/West Coast turf war has broken out between two churches, St. Matthew’s in Oregon and St. Pavle & St. George in New York. The main protagonists of this turf war are priests of the respective churches, Fr. Damian of the former and Fr. Arsenius of the later. The bone of contention between these two priests are concurrent book fairs each church is running. Despite being on opposite coasts apparently there was friction between the two.

Fr. Damian was surprised and somewhat dismayed when his well advertised book fair had little turn out, when inquiring of congregants whom he was sure would have come. He was shocked to hear many had actually bought books from Fr. Arsenius’ book fair. So he took the logical step of slashing prices sometimes to cost or below to entice people to come. Fr. Arsenius when he heard news of this was outraged, he claimed that this will damage the church reputation with publishers and distributors.

Things took a turn for the ugly when a group of shock trooper deacons stormed the St. Matthew book fair while in chanting “Iudas” over turning tables, rearrange books into the wrong categories and stealing Fr. Damian’s ema. As quickly as they appeared they left leaving chaos in their wake. Fr. Damian was left stunned but quickly pointing the finger at St. Pavle & St. George. When asked how did he know it was them. He responded the lead deacon was horribly off key. Fr. Arsenius denies any knowledge of the attack and when he confronted about the positive identification of his head deacon. He dismissively replied that you can not find a Coptic church where half the deacons were off key, if not just baying like injured wolves.

thanx to m.h. for the idea