27th St. Shenouda-UCLA Conference of Coptic Studies July 17-18, 2026

Registration

Schedule

Friday, July 17, 2026

9:30-10:00 a.m.	*Registration*
10:00-10:05a.m.	Opening Remarks by Dr. Luke Yarbrough (NELC-UCLA)
10:05-10:30 a.m.	Hany N. Takla, Manuscripts Acquisition of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society 2026
10:30-11:00 a.m.	Dr. Saad Michael Saad, The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia: A Resource for Coptologists and Transdisciplinary Scholarship
11:00-11:15 a.m.	*Break*
11:15-11:45 a.m.	Ms. Mariam Matta, A Diachronic Ontological Study of Indigeneity: How the Al-Katiba Al-Tibeya Movement Constructed a Coptic Indigenous Identity
11:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.	Dr. Tamara Siuda, Sifting the Ashes: August 2013’s Coptic Church Burnings
12:15-1:00 p.m.	*Lunch Recess*
1:00-1:30 p.m.	Mr. Mena Basta. The Cost of Historicizing the Synaxarium: The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus as a Limit Case
1:30-2:00 p.m.	Mr. Exodus Pyke, The Desert Impulse in Early Coptic Monasticism
2:00-2:30 pm	Prof. Tim Vivian, Abba Agathon: Love in action
2:30-2:45 p.m.	*Break*
2:45-3:15 p.m.	Prof. Ruqayya Yasmine Khan, Representations of Maryam and Birth of Jesus in Select Coptic and Islamic Materials
3:15-3:45 pm.	Prof. Luke Yarborough, Busiri’s Panegyric and Anti-Christian Poetry: A Love-Hate Relationship
3:45-4:15 pm	Dr. A. Josiah Chappell, Basics of Sahidic Coptic

Saturday, July 18, 2026

8:30-9:30 a.m.	*Registration*
9:30-10:00 a.m.	Mr. Hany. N. Takla Annual Report
10:00-10:30 a.m.	Dr. George Ghaly, Apocryphal Texts in the Oldest Known Manuscript Witness of the Bohairic Liturgical Tartīb al-Baī‘a Genre
10:30-10:45 a.m.	*Break*
10:45-11:15 a.m.	Mr. Paul Beniamin, Ministry Through Film: Bringing the 21 Martyrs and Coptic Witness to Screen
11:15–11:45 am	Dr. Mary Ghattas, The Case of Claudia Procula: Martyr or Mere Mention?
11:45 am-12:15 pm	Prof. David Brakke, Athanasius of Alexandria’s Typological Imagination in the ‘Festal Letters’
12:15 - 1:15 p.m.	*Lunch Recess*
1:15-1:45 p.m.	Prof. Salim Faraji, Coptic Hagiography and the Roots of Nubian Christianity
1:45-2:15 p.m.	Dr. Vince Bantu, ‘Egypt will Commend Ethiopia’: The Reception of Coptic Orthodox Christology in Fifteenth-Century Ethiopia
2:15-2:45	Prof. Carrie Schroeder, The State of the Field in Digital Literary Coptic Studies

2:45-3:00 p.m.	*Break*
3:00-3:30 p.m.	Dr. Maged S. A. Mikhail, Medieval Depictions of Women in Copto-Arabic Hagiography.
3:30-4:00 p.m.	Prof. Mark Swanson, Saint Shenouda in Surprising Company: Arabic Shenoutiana in MS.ML.75 and 359

4:00-4:15 p.m.	*Break/Pictures*
4:15-5:00 p.m.	Business Meeting of the Members of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society.

Location

Parking Information

Participants

Abstracts

Title: ‘Egypt will Commend Ethiopia’: The Reception of Coptic Orthodox Christology in Fifteenth-Century Ethiopia.

Presenter: Dr. Vince Bantu (LeMoyne-Owen College, MO)

Abstract:

Giyorgis of Sägla was a fifteenth-century Ethiopian ascetic, hymn writer and theologian who, though he is Ethiopia’s most renowned theologian, still remains relatively unknown to the modern world. Beginning in the fourth century, the Ethiopian Church was an integral part of the Patriarchate of Alexandria for centuries, including following the Christological position of Alexandria following the schism with Constantinople in the fifth century. However, this paper will argue that it was not until the career of Giyorgis—specifically his Mäṣḥäfä Mǝsṭir (“Book of Mystery”)—that a thorough, Ethiopian articulation of Coptic christology emerged. This text laid the foundation for distinctly Geʿez christological terminology that would become normative for successive generations of Ethiopian theologians and raise questions regarding Ethiopian autonomy in communications with Egypt.

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Title: The Cost of Historicizing the Synaxarium: The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus as a Limit Case.

Presenter: Mena Joseph Basta (Claremont Graduate University, CA)

Abstract:

This study argues that the print-era historicizing of the Copto-Arabic Synaxarium was not an editorial improvement but a category error with theological consequences. As a liturgically embedded and doxological act of communal memory rather than a chronicle, the Synaxarium cannot be held to the truth-conditions of history-writing without damage to its function. The problem is not the historical-critical study of the book, which its manuscript tradition rewards, but the historicizing redaction of its contents, which the print editions performed and which a properly historical reading of the witnesses exposes as rupture.

The entry on the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is the limit case. In the manuscript witnesses the sleepers wake and enter a city that had abandoned belief in the resurrection, so that their rising confutes resurrection-denial. The printed editions write the contrary: the sleepers die and are buried, and a soldier records their names over the grave. This is inversion of the narrative’s purpose, standing in continuity with neither recension, nor the legend’s pan-traditional form, nor the Difnar, which still sings the rising the print denies. To historicize the Synaxarium is to mistake what kind of book it is.

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Title: Ministry Through Film: Bringing the 21 Martyrs and Coptic Witness to Screen

Presenter: Mr. Paul Beniamin (Like Father Film)

Abstract:

This session will explore the powerful story of the 21 Martyrs of Libya and its upcoming feature film adaptation set for release in 2027. Writer and director Paul Beniamin will offer an inside look at the making of the film, including insights into casting, production logistics, and the unique challenges and opportunities involved in bringing this sacred and historically significant story to the screen. Drawing from his experience as a filmmaker and storyteller, Beniamin will also discuss the role of Christian ministry through film, highlighting how visual storytelling can elevate awareness of modern day persecution and inspire faith communities. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the film’s anticipated impact both within the United States and across global audiences.

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Title: Athanasius of Alexandria’s Typological Imagination in the ‘Festal Letters’.

Presenter: Prof. David Brakke (Ohio State University, OH)

Abstract:

Typological interpretation treats persons, places, and events in the Old Testament as types (typoi) or patterns that prefigure persons, places, and events in the New Testament or the life of the Christian Church. Its logic is mimetic—that is, an Old Testament character imitates or is similar to another, more authentic character in the New Testament—but typology reverses the normal chronology of imitation, for the true, original event follows rather than precedes its derivative copy. Typological thinking about the Old Testament and exhortations to imitation abound in the Festal Letters of Athanasius of Alexandria, which are preserved primarily in Coptic and Syriac. In the Festal Letters typoi function literarily, exegetically, and ethically. They are both derivative copies and authoritative models; they look both forward and backward in time for their legitimation. Imitation that appears hierarchical, linear, and one-directional is in fact more like a complex web that knits together saints of the past, present, and future in a community defined by the supreme typos, Christ. Athanasius’s typologicalimagination resembles that of Luke-Acts, in which models and their imitators construct a history of salvation with Christ as the fulcrum.

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Title: Basics of Sahidic Coptic

Presenter: Dr. A. Josiah Chappell (UCLA/Azuza Pacific University, CA)

Abstract:

Published in late 2025 by Zondervan Academic as part of the Zondervan Language Basics series, Basics of Sahidic Coptic is a new textbook designed to welcome new generations of students to the world of Sahidic grammar and literature. I will be briefly introducing the book—its origins, structure, and components—and highlighting what makes this new grammar distinctive.

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Title: Coptic Hagiography and the Roots of Nubian Christianity

Presenter: Prof. Salim Faraji (California State University Dominguez Hills, CA)

Abstract:

Archaeological and papyrological evidence indicates that Christianity was present in ancient Nubia at least a century before the arrival of Byzantine missions. Yet, scholarship on the origins of Nubian Christianity has often privileged the ecclesiastical history of John of Ephesus and the imperial chronicle of John of Biclarum as primary points of departure. This paper challenges that historiographical emphasis by foregrounding Coptic missionary stimulus and Nubian agency in the formation of early Christian communities in Nubia. It offers a synopsis of Coptic hagiographical literature that attests to contact between Coptic Christianity and the population of Lower Nubia in the fifth century CE, including Paphnutius’s Histories of the Monks of Upper Egypt, the Life of St. Moses the Ethiopian, and the Lives of the Desert Fathers. Taken together, these texts constitute important documentary evidence for the transmission of both Coptic folk and official Monophysite Christian traditions into ancient Nubia and invite a reconsideration of the religious and cultural dynamics that shaped Nubian Christianity in its formative period.

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Title: The Case of Claudia Procula: Martyr or Mere Mention?

Presenter: Dr. Mary Ghattas (Agora University, VA)

Abstract:

In the intersection between history and tradition, certain Biblical characters are more fully colored. Their identities are expanded, theologically interpreted, and eventually venerated through the exchange of scripture, apocryphal literature, and communal memory. This study explores the evolution from expansion of a brief biblical mention to the development of veneration in the Oriental tradition of both Pontius Pilate and his wife, Claudia Procula. In examining the trajectory of the Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syriac Pilate cycles, this study suggests a distinctly Oriental pattern of reception that does more than merely borrow from the Byzantine tradition. The evolving portrayal of Pilate's household within the Oriental tradition hints at varying theological interests across the sister churches: to first witness to Christ's innocence, to then provide prophetic attestation, and ultimately extend the universal reach of salvation to the Gentiles of the Crucifixion narrative.

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Title: Apocryphal Texts in the Oldest Known Manuscript Witness of the Bohairic Liturgical Tartīb al-Baī‘a Genre.

Presenter: Dr. George Ghaly (Deacon Severus) (ACTS, MA)

Abstract:

This presentation will examine the Tartīb al-Baī‘a Genre and the oldest manuscript witness dated to the 15^th century. Tartīb al-Baī‘a Genre is a Northern (Bohairic) Coptic liturgical genre that compiles hymns and instructional rubrics in a calendar format for liturgical practice. This genre illustrates how liturgical hymnals have changed from the 15^th century to the modern-day liturgical practice. In addition to the genre and hymns changing throughout the centuries, I will present apocryphal texts in the oldest manuscript and how apocryphal texts have changed in modern liturgical practice. This is just one step towards exploring the liturgical development in the Bohairic liturgical practice.

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Title: Representations of Maryam and Birth of Jesus in Select Coptic and Islamic Materials

Presenter: Prof. Ruqayya Khan (CGU, CA)

Abstract:

This paper embraces primarily a literary approach to highlighting certain common themes in the “Life of Mary/Maryam” in both Apocryphal Christian/Coptic accounts of Mary and in the Qur’an. Attention shall be paid to The Protoevangelium of James, and other Apocrypha, as received in Coptic and Copto-Arabic Christianity. The Qur'anic material is found primarily in Surat al-Maryam (chapter 19) in the Qur'an which strikingly describes Maryam's pregnancy and the Birth of Jesus – she is shown giving birth within a setting characterized by palm trees and rivulets. Scholars have drawn attention to this Qur'anic material's indirect (and perhaps direct) engagement with Christian apocryphal traditions, including those from Nestorian and/or Syriac traditions among others. Besides drawing out and examining the Coptic early material that highlights relevant themes, the aim shall be to compare the representations and depictions of Maryam and the Birth of Jesus. If time permits, the paper shall also comment on the Christian Coptic iconic/visual material regarding the motif of Maryam's apparition set within the image of the Burning Bush — for which there is possibly a theological analog in the Islamic doctrinal claims of the 'Illiteracy of the Prophet Muhammad' and the descent of the Qur’anic Revelation.

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Title: A Diachronic Ontological Study of Indigeneity: How the Al-Katiba Al-Tibeya Movement Constructed a Coptic Indigenous Identity

Presenter: Ms. Mariam Habib Matta (Cambridge University, UK)

Abstract:

Whilst the religious, political, and sectarian dimensions of the Coptic identity is often heavily studied in literature, a significant gap exists in the study of Copts as an indigenous group. This research examines how the Coptic revival movement and newspaper Al-Katiba Al-Tibeya (AKAT), constructed and maintained an indigenous Coptic identity in Egypt from 2005-2013. In the absence of both a usable and accessible internationalized-legal definition for indigeneity, this research investigates through discourse analysis of a complete corpus of 171 issues how AKAT developed a time-dimensional indigeneity for identity construction. As a more complex diachronic indigeneity, AKAT repeatedly and intensively utilized an understanding of indigeneity that used a stabilized identification of conqueror and conquered carrying a fast-changing legitimating vocabulary, anchored to an origin-point that is reselected from the present and thattheepens as colonial time lengthens. Unlike many other indigenous groups of the Western/Fourth World, the founding rapture for the Coptic identity is nearly fourteen centuries year old and as such AKAT’s Coptic case represents a stress-test for the modern United Nations concept of indigeneity itself. As such, this research advances four linked contributions. Firstly, the semantic-field thesis, where an indigenous identity is not defined but formed through a vast lexicon of indigenous meanings, and secondly, the perseverance ontology by which authentic continuity is engaged in reviving Coptic indigenous conscious. The final contribution is a Middle-Eastern specific indigenous politics that emerges from a time-dimensional indigeneity. As such, this research proposes a analytic framework for understanding indigenous groups where the point of colonization is extensive, and contributes to Coptic studies’ understanding of the modern Coptic identity by revealing a new dimension of Coptic identity construction.

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Title: Medieval Depictions of Women in Copto-Arabic Hagiography.

Presenter: Prof. Maged S. A. Mikhail (California State University Fullerton/, CA)

Abstract:

This study focuses on identifying the various depictions of female saints and sinners in Coptic and Copto-Arabic hagiographic texts from the fifth to the fifteenth century. It also scrutinizes shifts within those descriptive models over that period.

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Title: The Desert Impulse in Early Coptic Monasticism

Presenter: Mr. Exodus William Pyke (UCLA, CA)

Abstract:

In this essay, I explore the rising sentiment that early Coptic monasticism was mostly located in or near villages. This view dismisses the idea of the monks fleeing to the desert as an imaginative fairy tale and seeks to establish a more moderate, better supported view of the movement. I will offer a counterargument to this position that establishes a desire for withdrawal as one of the key factors for the spread of Egyptian monks. I will then argue that the highest expression of withdrawal is desert solitude. I will use cognitive historical approaches and literary accounts to reveal the presence of a desert impulse in many of the early monks. By establishing clear monastic motivations, I will show that the desert played a fundamental role in shaping the movement.

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Title: The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia: A Resource for Coptologists and Transdisciplinary Scholarship

Presenter: Dr. Saad Michael Saad (CGU, CA)

Abstract:

The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia (CCE) is one of the world’s most comprehensive digital resources for Coptic Studies. Beyond its value to specialists in the field, the CCE serves as an important research tool for a wide range of related disciplines. First, it contributes to the broader humanities, particularly in areas where Coptic traditions constitute an integral component of regional or global historical developments. Such fields include history, theology, art, archaeology, music, and monastic studies. Second, the CCE provides valuable resources for neighboring and overlapping disciplines, including Egyptology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Late Antique Studies, Early Christian Studies, Medieval Art and Literature, Gnostic Studies, Greco-Roman Studies, Islamic Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. This presentation explores the transdisciplinary applications of the CCE, demonstrating how its contents support research across these diverse fields. It will present usage statistics, illustrative case studies, and an overview of the encyclopedia’s continued growth and development. The CCE is available online at: https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce.

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Title: The State of the Field in Digital Literary Coptic Studies

Presenter: Prof. Caroline T. Schroeder (University of Oklahoma, OK)

Abstract:

The past decade has seen a flourishing of digital approaches to Coptic studies, especially Coptic literature. Open access academic resources such as the PATHS atlas of Coptic Literature (Sapienza, Rome) and the Coptic Dictionary Online (a collaboration) have launched. Machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches now inform projects like Coptic Scriptorium (Oklahoma, Georgetown) and Thoth.AI (Tsukuba University). Grass roots and independent applications such as the St. Shenouda Society Coptic Bible and Coptic Literature applications have expanded. This paper will assess the state of the field internationally with a focus on sustainability of projects and research and interoperability and collaborations..

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Title: Sifting the Ashes: August 2013’s Coptic Church Burnings

Presenter: Dr. Tamara Siuda (CGU, CA)

Abstract:

During the week of August 14-22, 2013, more than 100 Christian churches, homes, properties, businesses, and individuals were viciously attacked across Egypt. The victims were not solely Coptic Christians, though Copts suffered the majority of damage; between 55 and 80 distinct, documented attacks were directed at Coptic churches and monasteries alone. Almost 900 people were killed and thousands more were injured during that week of bloodshed, as radical Islamist groups clashed with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF, Egypt’s military interim government), in protest of the coup that toppled President Muhammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-led government. Even as the majority of the week’s death toll represents Islamists killed by SCAF forces, the brunt of property destruction, as well as nearly all violence that occurred outside Cairo, was targeted at Copts specifically as well as at other Christians, both foreign-born and Egyptian, at random.

Because these two violent events happened simultaneously, or perhaps due to less benign reasons this paper attempts to address, the anti-Coptic violence of August 14-22 was generally explained away by both Western media outlets and foreign governments – if it was mentioned at all – as part of an established cycle of mutual, retaliatory violence. Yet this was not the truth of the matter. In reality, Islamists attacked Copts in retaliation for the deaths of their comrades, but the Copts were not the ones who had killed those comrades. Egyptian police and military forces under SCAF control – themselves mostly Muslims – had killed the Islamists. This was a strange case of a third party being punished by a second party, for the actions of a first. Unfortunately, when reviewing the history of events involving power struggles between multiple (and inequal) groups in Egypt, this may not have been so strange after all.

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Title: Saint Shenouda in Surprising Company: Arabic Shenoutiana in MS.ML.75 and 359

Presenter: Professor Mark Swanson (Lutheran School of Theology, IL)

Abstract:

Two manuscripts of the library of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society, numbers 75 and 359, are copies of a text called Nuzhat al-nufūs wa-muzīl al-khaṭāyā wa-l-ʿukūs, which might be translated “The Recreation of Souls: That which removes sins and reversals.” The work was known to Georg Graf (Geschichte der arabischen christlichen Literatur IV: 257) who included it in a list of (anonymous) Catholic missionary works. The oldest dated manuscript of the work is from 1740. (One of the manuscripts in the Society’s collection, MS.ML.75, may be older.)

The work has seven chapters addressing: Baptism; Confession; purity of heart and cleanliness of the soul; repentance, fasting, prayer, and good works; the Mass; death and the day of Resurrection; descriptions of Hell and the eternal Kingdom of God. The Catholic influence on the work is clear: according to it there are seven sacraments, and in it we find, in addition to many quotations from the Bible and from the ecumenically shared Church Fathers, quotations from St. John of Damascus and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as a story from the Dialogues of (Roman Catholic) Pope Gregory the Great (on the virtues of saying Masses for the dead!).

But (to my surprise) the work is nearly bracketed by two lengthy quotations from the corpus of Arabic Shenoutiana. The presentation will identify and describe the Shenoute material found here; and it will offer some reflections about the significance of finding Shenoute in this text, in such surprising company..

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Title: Manuscripts Acquisition of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society 2026

Presenter: Mr. Hany N. Takla (St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society/ACTS, CA/ SAC, AUS)

Abstract:

The Society identified Manuscripts as the basis for recovering our Coptic heritage. We began with the most economical way of obtaining such resources, which was microfilm reels which we converted to microfiche cards and eventually to digital format. In doing so we opened a door to the new generation of Copts in the diaspora and also in Egypt to pursue primary sources research. The verdict on proper methodology is still to be determined. Our next logical step was to acquire original manuscripts that provide a more comprehensive look at these resources. Since we started in 2003, the acquisitions have gone through peaks and valleys with regard to the number of annual acquisitions. In this past year or so, we were able to acquire 25 new manuscripts. This paper will highlight the history as well as share some of the notable acquisitions.

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Title: Abba Agathon: Love in action

Presenter: Prof. Tim Vivian (California State University Bakersfield, CA)

Abstract:

For the early monastics, the key to the Kingdom-Here-and-Now, is “act of love,” an agápē. Love in action. More and more these days, with all the hatred(s) in the United States, I think of this indelible, sarcastic, line from a ’60s anti-war song: “Hate your next door neighbor but don’t forget to say grace.”11 But many stories show that the ideal presented in Acts 4:32 finds incarnation among the first monastics: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” A top-five verse in The Most Ignored Bible Verses (“Love your neighbor as yourself” another one). But for Agathon and many other abbas and ammas, nonpossessing and the giving it allows is routine, the quotidian imbued with grace, and love..

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Title: Busiri’s Panegyric and Anti-Christian Poetry: A Love-Hate Relationship

Presenter: Dr. Luke Yarbrough (UCLA, IL)

Abstract:

The Egyptian Muslim poet al-Busiri (d. ca. 1294–97) authored perhaps the most famous poem in the Arabic language: Qasidat al-Burda, or "The Mantle Ode," which praises the Prophet Muhammad. Less well known, but hardly less prominent in his literary oeuvre, is his polemical poetry, which comprises around a third of his surviving work. Much of that polemic is directed against Christians, and specifically against Copts. I will discuss examples of this anti-Coptic poetry and its relationship to broader anti-Coptic polemical discourses of the era. I argue that polemical aspects of al-Busiri's poetry are structurally inseparable from his praise poetry, including his praise of Muhammad. These findings raise questions about how socio-political antagonism, including anti-Coptic sentiment, may motivate and modulate literary production.

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Biographies

Vince L. Bantu is a professor of religion at LeMoyne-Owen College and a scholar of late-antique and medieval Christianity in Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia. Vince is the author of Those for Whom the Lamp Shines: The Making of Egyptian Ethnic Identity in Late Antiquity (University of California Press), The Book of Mystery of Giyorgis of Sägla (Rehobot Printers) and the forthcoming Global Christian Texts: Readings in Premodern Christian Texts in African, Middle Eastern and Asian Languages (DeGruyter Brill).

Mr. Mena Basta: is a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at Claremont Graduate University, concentrating in Coptic Studies. His dissertation treats the Copto-Arabic Synaxarium as formational literature within the liturgical life of the Coptic Church. He is the translator of The Ascent of the Spirit (Gorgias Press, 2026), his English rendering of Pope Shenouda III's The Release of the Spirit, and the author of Golden Channels (ACTS Press, 2026), a study of Pope Kyrillos VI’s literary corpus.

Paul Beniamin: is an Egyptian-American actor, writer, and director who trained at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and began his career in off-Broadway productions and film. He is the founder of Like Father Films, a company dedicated to creating diverse, meaningful, and innovative content for broad audiences. Paul wrote, directed, and starred in the award-winning film “NOON,” which screened internationally, earned multiple nominations, and has been used to raise awareness about religious persecution, leading to speaking engagements in cities such as Princeton and New York as well as the Bermuda International Film Festival. He later created the digital series “Kicks & Losers,” a character-driven story released on YouTube that has surpassed 100,000 views and continues to reach growing audiences. His upcoming feature film, The 21, is about the 21 Coptic martyrs in Libya, goes into production at the top of the year

Prof. David Brakke: is Joe R. Engle Chair in the History of Christianity and Professor of History at the Ohio State University. Among other books on ancient Christianity Egypt, he has published with David M. Gwynn The Festal Letters of Athanasius of Alexandria, with the Festal Index and the History Acephala (Liverpool University Press 2022). He is a former president of the International Association for Coptic Studies and of the North American Patristics Society.

Dr. A. Josiah Chappell (PhD, University of California, Los Angeles): is a research associate of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society in Los Angeles and has taught biblical literature, ancient languages, and ancient Near Eastern history and religion at UCLA and Azusa Pacific University. In addition to the biblical languages and those of the earliest translations, his primary interests are in the literature and history of the Second Temple period, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. He recently published a new textbook: Basics of Sahidic Coptic. (Zondervan, 2025)

Prof. Salim Faraji: is Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He is also the founding Executive Director of the Master of Arts in International Studies (MAIS) Africa Program at Concordia University Irvine in Ghana, West Africa. He specializes in early Christian history, Africana and Africanist historiography, Coptic Studies and the Kerma, Meroitic and Medieval periods of Nubian history. Dr. Faraji is a founding member of the William Leo Hansberry Society and the author of The Roots of Nubian Christianity Uncovered: The Triumph of the Last Pharaoh among other numerous articles and book chapters.

Dr. George Ghaly (Deacon Severus): has been a dentist for over 25 years. He has served as a chanter and reader first in Queens, NY and Natick, MA. In the early 1990s, George helped translate and publish an extended version of the Coptic Midnight Service, the Agpeya and the Liturgy of St Gregory. George has attended and contributed to many liturgical conferences held by St Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society in UCLA since 2008. George graduated Macquarie University in Syndey Australia earning a Master of Arts degree in Coptic Studies in 2008. George graduated St Athanasius & St Cyril Coptic Orthodox Theological School (ACTS) in California earning a Master of Theology (Th.M.) degree with a focus on liturgical studies in 2021. George specializes in liturgical studies and has written articles on Coptic hymns and liturgical works. George was consecrated as a full deacon to serve in the Coptic Diocese of New York and New England with the name Deacon Severus in 2018

Dr. Mary Ghattas: received her BA in History from UCLA in 2010 and her MA from Claremont Graduate University in 2012, where she wrote on the interstices between church and state in her thesis on Nubian Christianity & the Church of Alexandria. She received her PhD from Claremont Graduate University in 2023. Her PhD dissertation examined the politics of the Oriental Orthodox churches in building the state of modern Egypt. While she has many research interests, her favorite is historical analysis--discovering the interplay between the sources and the produced historiography, and how each in turn affects narrative and memory.

Ruqayya Yasmine Khan joined CGU’s Department of Religion in 2013 as the Mohannad Malas Chair of the M.A. program in Islamic Studies. Khan’s research interests embrace Arabic literary studies (both medieval and modern), Qur’anic studies, women & gender studies, and the digital age and religion. Khan’s more recent scholarly interests include Antique Egypt, Late antiquity and Islam, and the literary cultures of Umayyad Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad. She teaches seminars on Islam, women and gender, and the Qur’an at CGU. She is also the Faculty Coordinator for the Critical Comparative Scriptures Doctoral Program in CGU’s Department of Religion. Khan has received travel and research fellowships from the American University of Cairo in Egypt as a fellow for C.A.S.A (Center for Arabic Study Abroad); the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Ford Foundation; the Fulbright-Hayes Award for Teaching and Research at the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina; and at CGU, from the Fletcher Jones Foundation award for her publication concerning Hafsa bint ‘Umar ibn al- Khattab, a significant female figure of the early Muslim community. She serves on the steering committee for the Study of Comparative Religion at the American Academy of Religion and on the Editorial boards of several journals in the field. She also actively works as a public intellectual, having been interviewed by PBS Religion & Ethics News Weekly (national) and PBS SoCal World, the Los Angeles Times and the Claremont Courier. She has also attended and contributed to numerous interreligious and interfaith initiatives, events and forums at local and regional churches, synagogues and mosques and at the Chaplain Center at the Claremont Colleges.

Mariam Habib Matta: is an MPhil student specialising in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, as a FAMES-Browne Cambridge Trust Scholar. She is an incoming PhD candidate in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, supported by the Carter Research Fellowship. She graduated with a first-class BSc Hons Politics degree from the LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) as a Laidlaw Scholar. Mariam has interned at the UNHCR, CEOSS, and CSI and in her academic career Mariam has done research on AI in Iran, Indigenous identities of the Middle East, antisemitism in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Coptic identity, extremism, and political Islam.

Prof. Maged S. A. Mikhail: is Professor of History at the Californian State University at Fullerton. His research focuses on Coptic history and the history of Egypt and the Abrahamic religions during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. His publications include, From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt (I.B. Tauris 2014), The Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria (Routledge 2017), “Utilizing Non-Muslim Literary Sources for the Study of Egypt” (Cambridge 2022), and “The Tenth-Century Origins of the Fast of the Dormition” (Brill, 2026).

Dr. S. Michael Saad: is the Managing Editor of the Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia and Chair of the Coptic Studies Council at Claremont Graduate University. He also hosts Coptic Civilization, a LogosTV program broadcast in both English and Arabic via satellite, YouTube, Facebook, and LogosChannel.com. Saad has authored six book chapters and approximately 200 publications spanning modern Coptic history, culture, diaspora studies, and microwave engineering. He earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1987, served as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago (1985-1996), and was named IEEE Fellow in 1997. His publications are available at: https://chicago.academia.edu/MichaelSaad. Fellow Member of the St. Shenouda Society.

Prof. Carolyn Schroeder: is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma, where she is also a member of the College of Arts and Sciences’ interdisciplinary Data Scholarship Program, Affiliate faculty in History and Religious Studies, and a Fellow at the Data Institute for Societal Challenges. Previously she was Professor of Religious Studies at the University of the Pacific (2007-2019) and served as Director of the Humanities Center there from 2012-2014. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University in 2002 under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth A. Clark. She is an author and/or coeditor of multiple monographs and publications in Coptology and digital humanities. She is also co-founded and is a Principal Investigator of the interdisciplinary online research platform Coptic Scriptorium (copticscriptorium.org), which produces digital editions, natural language processing tools, and other digital resources for the study of Coptic literature and the Coptic language A Fellow Member of the Society.

Dr. Tamara L. Siuda: is an Associate Managing Editor of the Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia. She is an Egyptologist and Coptologist and received an MA in Egyptology from the University of Chicago, a second MA in Coptic Studies from Macquarie University, and a PhD in Coptic Studies from Claremont Graduate University. Tamara’s current research projects focus on contemporary Coptic martyrs and martyrologies.

Prof. Mark Swanson: teaches and is director of Advanced Studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. His book The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (641-1517) (Cairo/New York: AUC Press, 2010) has recently been re-released in paperback. He is a proud Fellow Member of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society.

Hany N. Takla: President of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society and Director of the Coptic Center in Los Angeles. Obtained his MA in Coptic Studies from Macquarie University, Sydney Australia. Part-time Lecturer at the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department, University of Notre Dame, and other theological institutions. Fellow Member of the Society.

Prof. Tim Vivian: is professor emeritus of Religious Studies at California State University Bakersfield and a retired priest of The Episcopal Church (Anglican Communion). He’s published numerous book reviews, journal articles, and essays on early Christian monasticism. The most recent volumes are The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (2021, 2023), Exhortation to the Monks by Hyperechios (2024), Becoming Fire: Through the Year with the Desert Fathers and Mothers, revised and expanded edition (2024), and The Teachings and Sayings of Neilos of Ancyra: Three Essential Works from Early Christianity (forthcoming, 2026).

Dr. Luke Yarbrough: is a scholar of early and medieval Islamic history and thought, focusing on political administration and inter-religious relations. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA.

Conference Bulletin

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27th St. Shenouda-UCLA Conference of Coptic Studies July 17-18, 2026

27th St. Shenouda-UCLA Conference of Coptic Studies, July 17-18, 2026