Origins of Coptic Sunday School (1970)

Cover Of Sunday School Magazine 1.1
  • Author: Mishil Mahrous

Source:  Sunday School Magazine vol. 2, no. 3 (Jun 1948): 22–24.

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This article from the second volume (1948) of the Sunday School Magazine provides a brief history of the Sunday School movement.

Coptic Orthodox Sunday School: A Brief Look at Its Origin and Growth

“…and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15)

Sunday School is one of the innovations of the early Coptic Church and one of her most important contemporary institutions, if not the most important.  Our Coptic church was the first church to attend to the teaching of Christian truths to her children. Her clergy instructed the people in the principles of the faith by way of questions and answers, which is the method known as catechism.  The renowned Theological School of Alexandria was founded upon this method, and for this reason it was called the Catechetical School.

The Church, through her various institutions, also greatly concerned herself with the instruction of the people in the basic principles and fundamentals of the faith. [This was] until the age of Christian persecution in Egypt, when the church transferred the instruction of her children in the basics of the faith to the katateeb (“elementary schools”)[1]In the 19th century, before the advent of Sunday School, religious education was mostly carried out in a local school called a kuttāb (literally, “scriptorium”), which was generally run by a blind cantor. As described by Soliman Nessim, “Coptic education in the kuttab revolved primarily around religious instruction beginning with readings from the Bible, particularly the Psalms, and church hymnals. However, it was in the secular subjects such as arithmetic and accounting that the Coptic scribes later excelled; they virtually monopolized all the related activities in the Egyptian state, especially in the fields of finance and agriculture.” (S. Nessim, “Coptic Education”, in (ed.) A. S. Atiya, Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia vol. 3 [1991]). which, at that time, were attached to every church.  These katateeb provided a very great service to the people, for every one of their students would graduate knowing the Book of the Psalms by heart, as well as all the prayers and praises of the Church in both Arabic and Coptic, and many texts from the Gospels and Epistles.With the establishment of modern schools, the Copts took care to teach their children Bible lessons and, through them, the principles of the faith. Initially, the reading books issued to the young comprised of the four Gospels as well as contemporary spiritual books. But towards the end of the last century,[2]i.e. in the late 1800s. the curriculum was changed, and those in authority overemphasised the study of the sciences and reduced the religious curriculum, and its teaching. This occurred in both public and private schools, and it resulted in voices being raised from every side, demanding that this danger be hastily prevented from [harming] the faithful and their children.

When these efforts proved futile, there arose a young man full of fervour and zeal. Around the year 1898, while he was a student at the Theological College, he gathered a number of young children — no more than a handful — in the Church of Faggalah, [where] he taught them religious lessons he had been writing himself. This young man was Habib Girgis. In his heart though, he felt that this work was as successful as he had hoped, and that this was because it was a purely individual effort. And so, he devoted himself, with some of his zealous brethren, to this endeavour. In 1905 they met and restructured the Society of al-Mahabba

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and dedicated it to the religious instruction of young students. These lessons were also given at the Church of Faggalah.

In 1918, the late Very Rev. Fr. Salama Mansour and the late Mr. Youssef Iskander Grace were planning the establishment of a society called The Society of the Child Jesus. They asked Mr. Habib Girgis, who was appointed Dean of the Theological College in that same year, to join them. And so [Girgis] proposed the Sunday School Project to them, which he had previously taught, and for which he had prepared a schedule. They objected to the name, for the Protestant church in Egypt was already using it, and so they agreed on naming it The Sunday Gospel for Schools, [3]injīl al-aḥad lli-l-madāris and began with the first school at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo. They printed the lessons on four pages, which explained the Sunday Gospel reading, and included teachings and lessons from the reading.  Students of the Theological College taught these lessons in the various Cairo churches, on Sunday to the pupils of the Coptic schools and on Friday to the pupils of the public schools.  These same lessons were also delivered in [other] cities by Theological College graduates and preachers who were in constant contact with, and under the supervision of, the central body in Cairo.  By the grace of God, the work began to grow and develop for about four years, at which point Mr. Habib Girgis changed the original name to Coptic Orthodox Sunday School.  A committee, called The General Committee for the Coptic Orthodox Sunday School, was formed to oversee Sunday School.  Its headquarters were in the Theological College at Mahmasha.  It assumed the responsibility of the care of these schools and the work of accustoming the boys and girls to observing Sundays and attending church as well as teaching them the truths of the Holy Bible and training them in virtues and noble morals.  All this was accomplished, throughout the churches of the Kingdom of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, through the delivery of weekly lessons prepared and printed by the General Committee in Cairo.  The lessons were delivered by competent teachers from among the students and graduates of the Theological College, as well as by those whose competence, knowledge and morals were attested by Orthodox Copts.  Here we make mention of those who have supported Sunday school, including the late Mr. Gobran Nematalla, principal of the schools of the Copts in Alexandria, who is credited with establishing a branch of Sunday school there, and the late Mr. Tadros Ekladios who was among those who took an interest in Sunday school in Assiut – and we all know his support for many of the current Sunday School teachers and custodians throughout the Kingdom of Egypt. Since that time, Sunday School has continued to grow and flourish. The youth of every city

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have taken an interest in it, such that the known number of Sunday Schools in the land of Egypt has reached about four hundred.  Around two years ago, the Sunday School General Committee began to direct all its attention to the work of unifying all the branches of Sunday School throughout the land of Egypt into one unit.

Due to the prime importance of Sunday School in the Church, it has received the attention of Their Graces the patriarchs, since Pope Abba Kyrillos V to the present. His Holiness the honoured Pope Abba Yusab II, also crowned the efforts of Sunday School in the person of our great teacher Habib Bek Girgis, dean of the Theological College and the general secretary of the former Sunday School General Committee, by sending him a letter to effectively place Sunday school under the presidency of His Holiness.  Accompanying this was a copy of his letter to the distinguished priests of Cairo urging them to take an interest in Sunday school (copies of these two letters were published in the last issue of the Sunday School Magazine).[4]These two letters by Pope Yusab II be accessed in Arabic here: Pope Yusab II, Two Letters on Sunday School. His Holiness deigned to assign the post of Vice President to the honourable Habib Bek Girgis and to give the Committee the name The High Committee for Sunday School.

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Notes:

Notes:
↑1 In the 19th century, before the advent of Sunday School, religious education was mostly carried out in a local school called a kuttāb (literally, “scriptorium”), which was generally run by a blind cantor. As described by Soliman Nessim, “Coptic education in the kuttab revolved primarily around religious instruction beginning with readings from the Bible, particularly the Psalms, and church hymnals. However, it was in the secular subjects such as arithmetic and accounting that the Coptic scribes later excelled; they virtually monopolized all the related activities in the Egyptian state, especially in the fields of finance and agriculture.” (S. Nessim, “Coptic Education”, in (ed.) A. S. Atiya, Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia vol. 3 [1991]).
↑2 i.e. in the late 1800s.
↑3 injīl al-aḥad lli-l-madāris
↑4 These two letters by Pope Yusab II be accessed in Arabic here: Pope Yusab II, Two Letters on Sunday School.

How to cite this text (Chicago/Turabian):

Mahrous, Michel. “Sunday School: A Brief Look at its Inception and Growth” [Madāris al-’āḥad al-qibṭiyya al-’urthūdhuksiyya: lamḥa ‘an nasha’at-ha wa numuwwihā], Sunday School Magazine 2, no. 3 (June 1948): 22–24. Translated by Mervat Hanna in Archive of Contemporary Coptic Orthodox Theology. Sydney, NSW: St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College. https://accot.stcyrils.edu.au/mmah-sunday/.

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