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EMERGING CHRISTIAN MEDIA IN EGYPT: CLERICAL AUTHORITY AND THE VISUALIZATION OF WOMEN IN COPTIC VIDEO FILMS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2013

Febe Armanios  and
Andrew Amstutz
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Abstract

This article examines the depiction of women and gender within Coptic Orthodox video films or “hagiopics” produced between 1987 and 2010. As part of a recent religious renewal, hagiopics have expanded, altered, and reinvented traditional stories of saints and pious figures and have also generated, within this traditionally patriarchal setting, a wider space for the articulation of female voices. While their inclusion can be seen as potentially empowering for women, this paper suggests that during Pope Shenouda III's reign (1971–2012), the films became a powerful vehicle for broadcasting the church's conservative teachings on female power and authority, marriage and marital dissolution, spousal abuse, and femininity. By highlighting an array of exemplary female characters, hagiopics capture women's role as custodians of a distinctive Coptic ethos and of family and communal cohesiveness. The films’ emphasis on women's physical modesty, submissiveness, and obedience to male figureheads also hints at the modern church's anxieties about women's increasing autonomy in choosing marriage partners and their growing demands for more equal treatment within the church.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 513 - 533
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: The research for this article was made possible by Middlebury College and by the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, funded by the John Templeton Foundation and administered by the University of Southern California. The authors are quite grateful for the rich feedback provided by the four anonymous reviewers and the IJMES editorial staff. We thank Boğaç Ergene, Christi Stanforth, William Lyster, Asuka Tsuji, Hany Takla, Gaétan du Roy, Carolyn Ramzy, Wagdy Elisha, Owais Gilani, Lizz Huntley, Allison West, and Joe Giacomelli.

1 We borrow this term from Pamela Grace, who uses it in reference to religious films that capture the “hero's relationship to the divine. . . . [in] a place where miracles occur, celestial beings speak to humans, and events are controlled by a benevolent God.” Grace, Pamela, The Religious Film: Christianity and the Hagiopic (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Sanders, Theresa, Celluloid Saints: Images of Sanctity in Film (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

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17 As Lila Abu-Lughod cautions with reference to Egyptian soap operas, these forms of visual media can be “problematic because they encourage viewers, including such women who share the widespread discourse of morality that also undergirds serious serials, to have faith in authority.” Abu-Lughod, Dramas of Nationhood, 82. See also Burke and McDowell, “Superstars and Misfits,” 68.

18 Mahmood, Saba, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

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21 Harrison and Rowley, “Babies by the Bundle,” 48. For more on Coptic women's activism against conservative church laws on divorce, remarriage, and even dress codes, see “Mariz Tadros, al-Marʾa al-Qibtiyya la Taqbal al-Iʿtidaʾ ʿala Karamatiha,” al-Yawm al-Sabiʿ, 18 May 2012.

22 Echchaibi, Nabil, “From Audio Tapes to Video Blogs: The Delocalisation of Authority in Islam,” Nations and Nationalism 17 (2011): 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 See, among many others, Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape; Abu-Lughod, Dramas of Nationhood; Armburst, Walter, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and van Nieuwkerk, Karin, “Popularizing Islam or Islamizing Popular Music: New Developments in Egypt's Wedding Scene,” Contemporary Islam 6 (2012): 235–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 See Elsässer, Sebastian, “Press Liberalization, the New Media, and the ‘Coptic Question’: Muslim–Coptic Relations in Egypt in a Changing Media Landscape,” Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 1 (2010): 131–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Iskander, Elizabeth, Sectarian Conflict in Egypt: Coptic Media, Identity and Representation (London: Routledge, 2012)Google Scholar; Heo, Angie, “The Bodily Threat of Miracles: Security, Sacramentality, and the Egyptian Politics of Public Order,” American Ethnologist 40 (2013): 149–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “The Virgin Made Visible: Intercessory Images of Church Territory in Egypt,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54 (2012): 361–91.

25 For more on the overlaps between North and South, see Jenkins, Philip, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 14–15Google Scholar.

26 Elizabeth Oram, “Constructing Modern Copts: The Production of Coptic Christian Identity in Contemporary Egypt” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2004), 62.

27 Ibid., 62–63.

28 See van Doorn-Harder, Pieternella, “Copts: Fully Egyptian but for a Tattoo?,” in Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies, ed. Shatzmiller, Maya (Quebec City: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2005), 27–28Google Scholar.

29 The use of film, photography, posters, and other visual media to celebrate the centrality of martyrdom within communal and national identities has been carefully explored in the literature on the Middle East. See, for instance, Hashash, Mahmoud Abu, “On the Visual Representation of Martyrdom in Palestine,” Third Text 20 (2006): 391–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Varzi, Roxanne, Warring Souls: Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Febe Armanios, “The Coptic Charismatic Renewal in Egypt: Historical Roots and Recent Developments” (paper presented at the quadrennial Congress of the International Association of Coptic Studies, Rome, Italy, 15–22 September 2012).

31 See Chestnut, R. Andrew, “A Preferential Option for the Spirit: The Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Latin America's New Religious Economy,” Latin American Politics and Society 45 (2003): 61Google Scholar.

32 See, for example, “al-Anba Bishuy: Hunaka Muʾamara fi al-Kanisa did al-Baba,” al-Yawm al-Sabiʿ, 18 May 2012.

33 Armanios, “The Coptic Charismatic Renewal in Egypt.” See also Csordas, Thomas J., “Global Religion and the Re-Enchantment of the World: The Case of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal,” Anthropological Theory 7 (2007): 310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 On the transdenominational influence of charismatic orientations, particularly in the realm of media, see Gordon, Tamar, “Introduction: Visual Cultures of Pentecostalism,” Material Religion 1 (2005): 309CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the gradual accommodation by traditional Catholic clergymen of charismatic ideals, see Chestnut, “A Preferential Option for the Spirit,” 71–77.

35 Rowe, Paul, “Building Coptic Civil Society: Christian Groups and the State in Mubarak's Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies 45 (2009): 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a full discussion of clericalization, see van Doorn-Harder, Nelly, Contemporary Coptic Nuns (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Dina el Khawaga, “The Laity at the Heart of the Coptic Clerical Reform,” in Van Doorn-Harder and Vogt, Between Desert and City, 142–66.

36 The highest profile example of excommunication was that of George Habib Bebawi, a one-time professor of theology at the Coptic Clerical School in Cairo who had published widely on Coptic dogma and theology. In 2007, the Coptic Holy Synod found him guilty of opposing “the right Orthodox teachings of our church.” For a published copy of the excommunication decree, see El-Keraza Magazine, nos. 5–6, 23 February 2007. El-Keraza is the official magazine of the church and its editor-in-chief was Pope Shenouda.

37 Hasan writes that “popular sentiment holds monks to be on a higher spiritual plane than priests; they have not had their bodies defiled through sexual intercourse.” Hasan, Christian versus Muslims, 62, 68. See also van Doorn-Harder, Contemporary Coptic Nuns, 55.

38 On these roles, see van Doorn-Harder, Contemporary Coptic Nuns.

39 Liveris, Leonie Beth, Ancient Taboos and Gender Prejudice: Challenges for Orthodox Women (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005), 90Google Scholar.

40 Marie Assaad, interview by Febe Armanios, digital recording, 30 June 2011, Cairo.

41 The list was published in “Kushuf al-Nakhibin li-Intikhabat al-Baba 118,” Watani, 22 July 2012.

42 Hosny Guindy, Hani Shukrallah, and Mariz Tadros, “Marriage, Politics, and Jerusalem,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 1–7 April 1999.

43 Shenouda, Pope III, Homosexuality and Ordination of Women (London: Coptic Orthodox Publishers Association, 1993), 40Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., 41. The verses in question are 1 Corinthians 11:3–15. Contrast Shenouda's stance with the more progressive interpretations of the Coptic Presbyterian minister Habib, Samuel in al-Marʾa fi al-Kanisa wa-l-Mujtamaʿ (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa, 2006), 70–76Google Scholar. Although the Presbyterian Church in Egypt has yet to ordain female priests, in recent years it has allowed women to be involved as prayer leaders and “administrative elders.”

45 Shaham, Ron, “Copts and the Debate over the Grounds for Dissolution of Marriage in Twentieth-Century Egypt,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21 (2010): 418CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 See Berger, Maurits, “Public Policy and Islamic Law: The Modern Dhimmi in Contemporary Egyptian Family Law,” Islamic Law and Society 8 (2001): 94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Ibid., 98, n. 40. The church's fierce defense of its prerogatives over marriage and divorce resemble similar contestations over Muslim personal status law in India in the 1980s. See, for example, discussions of the Shah Bano case in Lawrence, Bruce B., “Women as Subject/Women as Symbol: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Status of Women,” Journal of Religious Ethics 22 (1994): 163–72Google Scholar; and Vatuk, Sylvia, “A Rallying Cry for Muslim Personal Law: The Shah Bano Case and Its Aftermath,” in Islam in South Asia in Practice, ed. Metcalf, Barbara (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 352–70Google Scholar.

48 See Shaham, “Copts and the Debate over the Grounds for Dissolution of Marriage,” 411, 414; Tadros, “The Non-Muslim ‘Other,’” 119; and Shawq, Ashraf, al-Zawaj wa-l-Talaq fi al-Masihiyya (Cairo: Dar Manhal al-Hayat, 2008)Google Scholar.

49 Berger, “Public Policy and Islamic Law,” 98–101.

50 Ibid., 115–16.

51 Sezgin, Yüksel, “Women's Rights in the Triangle of State, Law, and Religion: A Comparison of Egypt and India,” Emory International Law Review 25 (2011): 1015Google Scholar.

52 In May 2010, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled against the Coptic Church and granted two divorced men, Hani Wasfi and Magdi William, the right to remarry. Following angry protests by pro-Shenouda Copts, the verdict was overruled by the Supreme Constitutional Court, possibly at the nudging of President Mubarak. See Tadros, “Behind Egypt's Deep Red Lines,” Middle East Research and Information Project, MERIP Online, 13 October 2010, http://www.merip.org/mero/mero101310.

53 Imad Khalil and Rajab Ramadan, “Aqbat al-Zawaj al-Thani Yatazaharuna amama al-Katidraʾiyya wa-Yashtabikuna maʿa al-Amn,” al-Misri al-Yawm, 15 August 2011.

54 Schochat, Ella, “Egypt: Cinema and Revolution,” Critical Arts 2 (1983): 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shafik, Viola, Popular Egyptian Cinema (Cairo: American University Press in Cairo, 2007), 104–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Shafik, Popular Egyptian Cinema, 41.

56 Both films created a stir because of their criticism of the Orthodox Church and their depiction of Coptic women. See Mehrez, Samia, “Bahibb Issima: Copts and the Public Sphere,” ISIM Review 15 (2005): 34–35Google Scholar; Shafik, Popular Egyptian Cinema, 61–64; and Laachir, Karima, “Sectarian Strife and ‘National Unity’ in Egyptian Films: A Case Study of Hassan and Morqos,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 31 (2011): 221CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In recent years, the government also sanctioned more inclusion of Coptic-Muslim issues in television serials. See Abu-Lughod, Dramas of Nationhood, chap. 7.

57 Coptic “Holy-wood” shares many similarities with the devotional film genre popular among Muslim minorities in India, as described by Rachel Dwyer, who identifies this genre as existing outside “A-list” national cinema, largely circulating at religious gatherings, often centering on the lives of female characters, and presenting a filmscape in which the religious majority community is largely absent. Dwyer, Rachel, “I Am Crazy about the Lord: The Muslim Devotional Genre in Hindi Film,” Third Text 24 (2010): 124–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Shafik, Popular Egyptian Cinema, 53. Omar Foda explores the parallel with Egyptian serials in “Saintly Soap Operas: An Examination of Three Coptic Saint dramas,” Arab Media and Society, no. 12 (2010), http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=761.

59 Mahmud Sultan, “al-Tatarruf al-Qibti: Dawlat al-Kanisa al-Diniyya,” al-Masriyyun, 5 September 2010.

60 “Hiwar maʿa Mukhrij al-Aflam al-Diniyya al-Ustadh Majid Tawfiq,” 2 November 2009, http://www.katibatibia.com/posts_details.php?id=1083&cat=26&.

61 Shafik, Popular Egyptian Cinema, 51.

62 Abah, Adedayo Ladigbolu, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: African Women in Nigerian Video-Film,” Communication, Culture and Critique 1 (2008): 337CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 “Hiwar maʿa Mukhrij al-Aflam al-Diniyya.”

64 Abrar al-Ghannam, “Religious Censorship in Egypt: Attitudes within the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt,” Arab-West Report Paper 11, January 2009, http://www.arabwestreport.info/sites/default/files/pdfs/AWRpapers/paper12.pdf.

65 “Hiwar maʿa Mukhrij al-Aflam al-Diniyya.” For a lengthy example of Shenouda's pre-screening blessing, see Qissat Hayat al-Batal Mari Jirjis: Amir al-Shuhadaʾ wa-Qiddis Kul al-ʿUsur, disk 1, beginning–15:30.

66 Ummina Irini is arguably the most studied modern Coptic woman. See Van Doorn-Harder, Contemporary Coptic Nuns; and Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine, “Umm Irînî (1936–2006): L'engagement monastique copte au féminin,” Le Mouvement Social 231 (2010): 101–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Qissat Hayat al-Batal Mari Jirjis, disk 1: 32:00–40:00 and 52:00–72:00. Although the Synaxarium does not mention these characters, the Coptic-Arabic text briefly mentions St. George's mother and sisters. See Basset, René, ed., Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite (rédaction copte), in Patrologia Orientalis 16 (1922): 324–29Google Scholar; and an undated manuscript originally from Mansura, St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society Manuscript ML.MS.041, 13r–14r.

68 Qissat Hayat Filupatir Mercurius Abi Sayfayn, Disk 1: min. 24:35–29:00 and 48:35–59:00. Basset, Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, in Patrologia Orientalis 3 (1907): 337–39; and O'Leary, De Lacy, The Saints of Egypt (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1937), 201–202Google Scholar. Safina is absent from the Synaxarium.

69 Al-Qiddis al-ʿAzim Anba Barsum al-ʿIryan, 24:37–32:00. The Synaxarium entry on Barsum the Nude is quite brief, and while the filmmakers may have consulted with the Arabic manuscript version of his life, that version makes no specific mention of his mother. For the Synaxarium entry, see Basset, , Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, in Patrologia Orientalis 17 (1923): 777–81Google Scholar. For the Arabic text, see Crum, W. E., “Barsauma the Naked,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 29 (1907): 135–49Google Scholar.

70 Al-Qiddisa Ilaria, disk 1: min. 5:26–27:35. For the written sources, see Basset, Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, in Patrologia Orientalis 11 (1916): 624–38; The Story of the Two Daughters of Zeno and The Story of Hilaria, in Legends of Eastern Saints Chiefly from Syriac Sources, ed. and partly trans. A. J. Wensinck (Piscataway, N.J., 2005 [1911–13]), 7–29.

71 Al-Qiddisa Rifqa wa-Awladiha al-Khamsa (dir. Majid Jamal), disk 1: min. 6–11 and 13:50–17:00; Basset, Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, in Patrologia Orientalis 1 (1904): 239–40.

72 Al-ʿAfifa wa-Masyadat al-Ashrar: ʿAn Qissat Susanna al-ʿAfifa, 14:39–16:10; Daniel 13:1–64.

73 See , Robert H., Jindra, Michael C., and Baker, Jason D., “The Audience Responds to The Passion of the Christ,” in Re-viewing the Passion: Mel Gibson's Film and Its Critics, ed. Plate, S. Brent (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 175Google Scholar. See also Ukah, Asonzeh F.-K., “Advertising God: Nigerian Christian Video-Films and the Power of Consumer Culture,” Journal of Religion in Africa 33 (2003): 203–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Garritano, Carmela, “Women, Melodrama, Political Critique,” in Nigerian Video Films, ed. Jonathan Haynes (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2000), 168Google Scholar. See also Meyer, Birgit, “Visions of Blood, Sex and Money: Fantasy Spaces in Popular Ghanaian Cinema,” Visual Anthropology 16 (2003): 15–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Harrison and Rowley, “Babies by the Bundle,” 51.

76 Sirat Hayat al-Arkhun al-Bar al-Muʿallim Ibrahim al-Jawhari, disk 1: 11:42–24 and 26:20–31.

77 Al-Saʾih al-Qiss ʿAbd al-Masih al-Maqari (al-Manahiri), disk 1: 15:30–18:00 and 23:45–27:00; the story of this modern saint was remade by Majid Tawfiq in Qissat Hayat Abuna ʿAbd al-Masih al-Maqari (al-Manahiri).

78 Umm al-Ghalaba: Qissat Hayat al-Khadima Umm ʿAbd al-Sayyid, disk 1: 1:38 and 6:49. On comparable visualizations of spousal abuse in the context of Egyptian performance culture, see Khedr, Mona, “Ambivalence of Piety: Gendered Identities of Egyptian Women in Performance,” Performing Islam 1 (2012): 47–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Umm al-Ghalaba, disk 2: 20:49.

80 van Doorn-Harder, Nelly, “Imagined Antiquity: Coptic Nuns between Past Ideals and Present Realities,” in Living for Eternity: The White Monastery and Its Neighborhood. Proceedings of a Symposium at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, 6–9 March 2003)Google Scholar, ed. Philip Sellew, p. 4, http://www.egypt.umn.edu/Egypt/1-pb%20pdfs/van-doorn.pdf (accessed January 2013).

81 Nadar and Potgieter, “Living It Out,” 143–44. For more on how contemporary Egyptian women tend to rationalize wife beating, see , Kathryn, “Women's ‘Justification’ of Domestic Violence in Egypt,” Journal of Marriage and Family 71 (2009): 1125–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Al-Qiddisa Ilaria, disk 1: 6:27 and 17:15–28.

83 Al-Shahida Marina, disk 1: 19:22–42:00. “Abla Fadila,” or Fadila Tawfiq, has hosted a children's storytelling program on Egyptian radio since the 1960s. See Mayy Ibrahim, “‘Abla Fadila’: Tufulati Thamara bi-Dakhili,” al-Sharq al-Awsat, 30 May 2010.

84 Umm al-Ghalaba, disk 1: 15:30 and 33:06, disk 2: 5:20–32:00. In al-Qiddisan al-ʿAdhiman Yustina wa-Kibriyanus, two female characters, Maureen (a slave) and the heroine Yustina, boldly interrupt a sermon given by a deacon to offer their own biblical commentaries or prayers. Al-Qiddisan al-ʿAdhiman Yustina wa-Kibriyanus, disk 2: 5:10.

85 In general, the films depict “good” Copts as reporting any theological deviations to the clerical hierarchy. For example, in al-Baba Butrus al-Awal, on hearing the heretical teachings of Arius, a group of laymen immediately decide that they must rush to inform the pope (al-Baba Butrus al-Awal, chap. 2: 46:18). The ideal of reverence and obedience toward priests is also evoked in scenes in al-Qiddis Abuna Yassa Mikha'il depicting women's interactions with an early 20th-century protagonist-priest (see esp. 41:00).

86 On the connection between artistic representation and religious film, see Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, “On Seeing The Passion: Is There a Painting in This Film? Or Is This Film a Painting?,” in Plate, Re-Viewing the Passion, 100–101, 106.

87 Dönmez-Colin, Gönül, “Women in Turkish Cinema: Their Presence and Absence as Images and as Image-Makers,” Third Text 24 (2010): 91–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On similar representations in Egyptian cinema, see Tartoussieh, “Pious Stardom,” 33.

88 Hasan, Christians versus Muslims, 190; also see Shenouda III, , Diabolic Wars (Cairo: Nubar Printing House, 1997 [1989]), 120, 181Google Scholar. On Coptic women's dress, see Van Doorn-Harder, Contemporary Coptic Nuns, 193.

89 Imad Khalil, “Waqfa Ihtijajiyya did ‘Bishuy’ li-Mutalabat al-Qibtiyyat bi-l-Tashabuh bi-l-Muslimat,” al-Misri al-Yawm, 19 May 2012.

90 This call echoes a preoccupation in recent Egyptian cinema with the “clean” and “chaste female body purified of the sullying effects of sexuality.” Tartoussieh, “Pious Stardom,” 36.

91 Sirat Hayat al-Qiddisan al-Shahidan Bihnam wa-Sarah, disk 1: 18:13–20:30; Basset, Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, in Patrologia Orientalis 3 (1907): 452–55.

92 Sirat Hayat al-Qiddisan al-Shahidan Bihnam wa-Sarah, disk 2: 10:00, our emphasis.

93 See van Nieuwkerk, Karin, “‘Repentant’ Artists in Egypt: Debating Gender, Performing Arts and Religion,” Contemporary Islam 2 (2008): 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abu-Lughod, , “Movie Stars and Islamic Moralism in Egypt,” Social Text, no. 42 (1995): 53–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Tartoussieh, “Pious Stardom,” 32.

95 Al-Qiddisan al-ʿAdhiman Yustina wa-Kibriyanus, disk 1: 20:56– 28 and 53:24 and disk 2: 4:50. All of these depictions are absent from written texts. See Basset, Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, in Patrologia Orientalis 1 (1904): 285–87, and the longer hagiography translated from Ethiopic in Edgar Goodspeed, J., The Martyrdom of Cyprian and Justa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1903), 18–22Google Scholar.

96 On these representations, see Abu-Lughod, Lila, “Egyptian Melodrama—Technology of the Modern Subject?,” in Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain, ed. Abu-Lughod, , Ginsburg, Faye D., and Larkin, Brian (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2002), 115–33Google Scholar.

97 In early Christian writings, women aiming for an ascetic life cut their hair and abandon cosmetics in order to look less feminine. Brakke, David, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 191CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 Qissat Hayat al-Batal Mari Jirjis, disk 2: 10:30–19:00. Susanna is absent from the Coptic and Coptic-Arabic hagiography of St. George. Instead, St. George finds himself in the presence of Queen Alexandra, teaches her about Christ, and converts her to Christianity, precipitating her later martyrdom. Like Susanna, she is dragged by her hair to the chopping block. Alexandra is also depicted in the film, and she too is converted by St. George. See Budge, E. A. W., The Martyrdom and Miracles of Saint George of Cappadocia (London, 1888), 226–33Google Scholar; and St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society Manuscript ML.MS.041, 37v–42v.

99 Umm al-Ghalaba, disk 1: 5:50, 14:00, 16:20, 20:00, and 30:50 and disk 2: 24:54.

100 Umm al-Ghalaba, disk 2: 25:33.

101 In Majid Tawfiq's al-Anba Samwil al-Muʿtarif (66:00–78:00) and Rifʿat Qundus's al-Qiddis al-Anba Maqar al-Kabir Kawkab al-Asqit (82:00), women aggressively pursue sexual relations with monks.

102 On ancient teachings, see Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk, 199–212; and Wilfong, Terry, “Reading the Disjointed Body in Coptic: From Physical Modification to Textual Fragmentation,” in Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings: Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity, ed. Dominic Montserrat (London: Routledge, 1998), 121–30Google Scholar. Contemporary discourses, as articulated by Anba Musa, warn young men that “the devil is constantly at your elbow tempting you with a passing girl, with a foul joke that you overhear, with a dirty magazine one of your friends shows you.” Quoted in Hasan, Christians versus Muslims, 190.

103 Qissat Hayat al-Batal Mari Jirjis, disk 1: 0:35.

104 Qissat Hayat Filupatir Mercurius Abi Sayfayn, disk 2: 11:02–15:00.

105 As Brakke writes, early Christian literature “portrayed virtuous women as being ‘made male’ or becoming ‘men’. . . . the monastic life succeeded martyrdom as the arena in which a woman could prove herself to be a ‘female man of God.’” Demons and the Making of the Monk, 184, 188–89.

106 Al-Qiddisa Marina al-Rahiba, disk 1: 12:00–20:00. Notably, an identical scene takes place in Faruk Aksoy's epic film Fetih 1453 (2012) about the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, wherein the character of “Era” (played by Dilek Serbest) cuts off her hair in preparation for battle.

107 Malaty, Tadros Y., Introduction to the Coptic Orthodox Church (Alexandria, Egypt: St. George's Coptic Orthodox Church, 1993), 334Google Scholar.

108 Bullough, Vern L., “Transvestites in the Middle Ages,” American Journal of Sociology 79 (1974): 1383CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also Davis, Stephen J., “Crossed Texts, Crossed Sex: Intertextuality and Gender in Early Christian Legends of Holy Women Disguised as Men,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 10 (2002): 1–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 Pope Shenouda III, Homosexuality and Ordination of Women, 17. Also see the pope's discussion of the “strong spiritual man,” in The Spiritual Man (Sydney: Coptic Orthodox Publication and Translation, 1998), 50–75. For a comparable clerical view of homosexuality, see Mikhail, Mikhail E., The Coptic Orthodox Church's View on Homosexuality (Seven Hills, Ohio: St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church, 1987)Google Scholar.

110 Schippers, Mimi, “Recovering the Feminine Other: Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Hegemony,” Theory and Society 36 (2007): 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Cornwall, Andrea and Lindisfarne, Nancy, “Dislocating Masculinity: Gender, Power and Anthropology,” in Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies, ed. Cornwall and Lindisfarne (London: Routledge, 1994), 11–47Google Scholar.

111 See al-Baba Butrus al-Awwal, part 2: 33:34 and 47:46; al-Baba Kyrillus VI, disk 2: 14:45. The inclusion of papal characters in the cinematographic depiction of medieval saints is particularly illustrative of the filmmakers’ efforts to bolster the expansive claims of the modern Coptic papacy through the narration of the premodern past. See al-Anba Bula Awal al-Suwwah, disk 2: 36:16, 40:00, and 47:57; Samʿan al-Dabbagh, part 2: 3:40, 4:30, and 5:56 and part 4: 2:40.

112 McCallum, Fiona, “Religious Diaspora and Information Communications Technology: The Impact of Globalization on Communal Relations in Egypt,” in The New Arab Media: Technology, Image and Perception, ed. Zweiri, Mahjoob and Murphy, Emma C. (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2011), 82Google Scholar.

113 Similarly, see Hegland, Mary Elaine, “Shiʿa Women's Rituals in Northwest Pakistan: The Shortcomings and Significance of Resistance,” Anthropological Quarterly 76, no. 3 (2003): 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.