Christmas is coming in 5 days; no, I didn’t get it wrong, I know we usually celebrate Christmas before the New Year, but to the Coptic Christian community in Egypt, it falls on Jan 7 according to the ancient Egyptian civil year calculation, which is similar to the older Julian Calender, as opposed to the Gregorian Calender we have adopted today.
I’m ignorance of Orthodox Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on a different date, until Marianna, a volunteer at the St. Sergius Church in Cairo, enlightened me. My sister and I had gone to the Old Cairo area (also known as Coptic Cairo to tourists) last week, where many ancient churches and monasteries located within a walled area, with narrow cobble stone paths and old buildings erected from rocks.
The Coptic is a term originally derived from the Greek designation for native Egyptian population in Roman Egypt (as distinct from Greeks, Romans, Jews, etc.). After the Muslim conquest of Egypt, it became restricted to those Egyptians adhering to the Christian religion. Today, the Coptics formed 10% of Egypt population, they are the largest religious minority in the country. (more…)
Here and There 