The Coptic Liturgy and Its Medieval Symbolic Tradition: A Reading Against the Backdrop of Schmemann’s Liturgical Theology

By far the writings of Fr Alexander Schmemann, archpriest, liturgical theologian, and former dean of St Vladimir Theological Seminary, have been the most influential writings on liturgy in the English-speaking world for decades. This has been true not just among scholars, clergy, and faithful of the Byzantine tradition, but also in other eastern Christian communities, whose members are also in search of English-language theological engagement with liturgy and worship. Among those non-Byzantine eastern churches is the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, the largest Christian community of the Middle East, with numerous diverse communities throughout the English-speaking world flourishing since the 1970s. In this article, I discuss Schmemann’s recurrent critiques of Byzantine liturgical symbolism against the backdrop of the Coptic tradition’s own heritage of Arabic liturgical commentaries. I conclude by highlighting the discrepancy between idealistic conceptions of liturgical theology and the concrete realities of liturgical texts, practices, and their often-shifting meaning throughout history.