A Digital Catalogue and Historical Analysis of Manuscripts of the Bohairic Coptic Euchologion

• Applicant: Professor Arsenius Mikhail, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology ; Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 544528191

The liturgical book known as the Euchologion is the most important witness to the liturgical practices of Egypt’s Coptic Christians. It contains the prayers recited by the bishop or priest in the celebration of the Eucharist, the central religious activity of the Church, and one that represents a mirror of the religious, cultural, and social history of Christianity in Egypt. The overall goal of this project is to prepare a digital catalogue database of the Bohairic manuscripts of the Northern Egyptian Euchologion (ca. 13th- early 20th centuries) preserved in ten major locations worldwide. The project will also lay the groundwork for additional smaller collections of Coptic Euchologia to be catalogued and added to the database in the future. This digital catalogue will lay a reliable foundation for the study of Coptic liturgy as well as serve as an indispensable reference tool for any scholar of History, Religion, and/or Liturgical Studies interested in Coptic worship, thus filling this significant scientific gap. Attention to contents of the Euchologion and their order as well as the choice of optional prayers will also facilitate the development of a typology of Coptic Euchologia based on these textual features, which can be analyzed in terms of the regional and diachronic evolution of Coptic liturgical practice in medieval Egypt. This analysis will appear in a series of seminal articles to be written during the course of the project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants