Beautiful Egypt 313 – “Feast of Blessing the Waters of Rivers” – 11/9/2019

Few days ago, Our Muslim brothers celebrated the beginning of the Muslim calendar 1441 A.H. Tomorrow Christians will celebrate the beginning of the new Coptic calendar 1735, which is known for “The Feast of Nayrouz”. We congratulate all Egyptians with both the Muslim and Coptic calendars, praying God that well, prosperity and peace would prevail on our beloved Egypt and the whole world.

The Beginning of the Coptic Year

The beginning of the Coptic year is connected with the Coptic martyrs of Egypt whose blood was shed during the reign of the pagan Roman Empire which ruled Egypt for many centuries whereas Egypt witnessed the toughest eras of persecution. It was also known as “The Ten Persecution Rings”, which started by Nero the Emperor then it was escalated and reached its peak during the reigns of both Diocletian and Maximianus the emperors. As they carried out massive attacks on Christianity throughout the whole empire.

Despite persecution was on the whole empire but the torment of the Christians at the East was the toughest and most violent of that at the West. As the Eastern part was under the rule of both Galerius and Maximinus who had deep hatred for Christians.

Egypt led a unique history for those bloody incidents in particular from the rest of the empire provinces, the estimated number of martyrs was approximately eight hundred thousand!! It was mentioned about them during that reign: “If the martyrs of the whole world were put in one scale and the martyrs of Egypt in the other scale, the Egyptians scale would be outweighed!”

The Roman Emperors in Egypt were famous for their severe cruelty along with the fierceness of torment!! History mentioned some of them, for instance Arianus the governor of Ansna as well as Armanious the governor of Alexandria. Whenever other governors wanted to torture Christians severely, they would send them to Egypt!

Al-Maqrizi mentioned about Diocletian: “He murdered Christians excessively and he was the last Roman Emperor who worshipped pagans.”

 The Coptic Church took the beginnig of the rule of that tyrant in 284 as the start of its Coptic calendar known as “The Martyrs’ Calendar”.

The meaning of Nayrouz

The word Nayrouz originated from the Coptic word “Nayaru” which meant rivers. As the season of the flood of the Nile was completed in Egypt, then the word was pronounced as “Niroos” during the Greek Era, until it was pronounced as “Nayrouz” which was thought to have a connection with the Persian festival. However some resources mentioned that the word Nayrouz was an abbreviation of the Coptic sentence “Nayaru Ezmorou” which meant “praise and bless” and which also meant blessing of the waters of rivers, for Nayrouz festival to become “the Feast of Blessing the Waters of Rivers”.

Also the word “Nowruz” was mentioned by Persians in the meaning of “the new day”. As there was a strong bond between the Persian Nowruz festival and the spring festival, so they celebrate it on March 21^st.

With the start of the New Year

With the beginnig of a New Year; we remember those who scarified their lives for keeping their faith and their beliefs till their last breath. They set good examples of courage and gentleness which were inseparable parts of their lives. For example when we read what the Theban Legion wrote to the emperor after he ordered their death and they were six thousand six hundred and sixty-six soldiers: “Oh Great Caesar, we are your soldiers but at the same time “servants of God”, we aren’t rebellions, we already have weapons and we can defend ourselves and disobey you. But we prefer to die as innocents rather than to live impure!”

Also with the beginnig of a New Year, we feel that years of our lives are passing by, one after the otherquickly, we need to catch our breath and slow down a little in our life path also to examine what we had or had not accomplished in the previous years, for it to be a true New Year beginning. Many happy peaceful returns… Stories about Beautiful Egypt never end!

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center