Valley’s First Coptic Orthodox Church Dedicated in Northridge

NORTHRIDGE —  The ancient Coptic Orthodox Church--struggling as a minority faith in mostly Muslim Egypt and within the largely Protestant World Council of Churches--continues to gain a happier spiritual foothold in ethnically diverse Southern California.

The influx of immigrant Egyptian Christians in recent decades prompted the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria to create the Diocese of Southern California and Hawaii in 1995, naming one of his top bishops to head a diocese that now includes 21 churches.

That prelate, Bishop Serapion of Los Angeles, presided on Thursday at the dedication of its first permanent Coptic Orthodox church building in the San Fernando Valley. In brief rites at St. Mary and St. Athanasius Coptic Orthodox Church on Roscoe Boulevard, he noted that the developing Northridge church complex is the fourth to be built for the diocese so far. A fifth, larger Coptic church is being built in Covina.

But as some neighbors and local clergy from other churches congratulated the 400-family Northridge parish, the bishop acknowledged in an interview that developments on the world religious scene weigh on Coptic Christians, whose church traces its 1st century founding to St. Mark.

Reports that the Coptic bishop of Baliana, Egypt, and two priests have been accused of inciting strife and civil unrest, and that many Coptic Christians are being persecuted in Egypt, have been circulated by the California chapter of the American Coptic Assn.

Bishop Serapion said that periodic incidents of persecution or harassment of the minority Coptic Christians in predominantly Muslim Egypt is an ongoing phenomenon often made more difficult by unsubstantiated reports.

“Our work in our diocese is to try to get as accurate information as we can, share it with our people and to pray for those who are suffering,” he said. “We found a bishop was charged and that there are people who are suffering there.”

But asked about community protests in the Los Angeles area, he added: “My diocese does not organize protest marches.”

When disturbing reports are proven true, the bishop said that his policy is to let the church headquarters in Egypt, headed by Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, use its contacts with Egyptian officials to deal with such problems. “The church in Egypt is grateful for every free voice to express concern and support, but interference from the outside complicates the situation,” he said.

For that reason, Serapion said he was not greatly enthusiastic about the U.S. Congress’ approval of the Religious Persecution Act, which gives the White House options to sanction offending nations.

On the ecclesiastical front, Serapion said the Coptic Orthodox Church has decided to remain active in the World Council of Churches, which will hold its large General Assembly Dec. 3-14 in Zimbabwe. Some Eastern Orthodox patriarchs--particularly the Russian Orthodox hierarchy-- have threatened to withdraw from the Council, which is dominated by Protestant denominations.

Serapion will be attending as one of the 150 members of the World Council’s Central Committee, which runs the ecumenical organization in the seven or eight years between the assemblies.

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“We Orthodox find it very hard to accept some new ideas,” the bishop said, citing movements within western churches for gender-free language in Bible translations, the ordination of women pastors and greater acceptance of gay and lesbian Christians.

The leadership of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which has 12 million followers in Egypt and other countries, has decided to continue its membership in the Council despite the fact that the Orthodox churches lack the votes to veto the General Assembly’s more liberal--though nonbinding--declarations.

“But we are committed to the ecumenical cause to dialogue with Christians from all around the world and have a moral impact on some issues,” he said.

That ecumenical interest showed Thursday during the dedication ceremony for the Northridge church. Armenian and other Orthodox clergy spoke briefly, and Catholic and Protestant churches were represented as well.

Father Spencer Kezios of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, located about one mile away, praised the Coptic parish’s development. “Many children of this parish attend our school,” he said. “Your families and children are exemplary.”

That sentiment was echoed by a neighbor who lives in back of the Coptic church property. “I think this is a tremendous boost to the neighborhood,” said Michael J. Malak, an attorney in private practice who attends a Catholic parish in Sherman Oaks.

Malak was among a dozen neighbors who accepted the invitation to attend the dedication rites, but the atmosphere wasn’t always like that, he said. Like most congregations that plan to build churches where none existed before, the Coptic congregation ran into immediate opposition from neighbors who raised various objections.

However, the congregation received city permission to build not only the fellowship hall, which houses the temporary worship hall and offices, but also an education building now under construction and a future church sanctuary, according to Father Bishoy Bastawros, the pastor.

When Bishop Serapion was appointed to head the newly created Southern California diocese, the prelate, who turns 47 next week, headed Pope Shenouda’s department for ecumenical and social affairs.

He was an appropriate choice for Southern California, said a Coptic priest in Bellflower at the time. “Most of our leaders are professional people--engineers, architects, physicians--and we needed a bishop that everyone could respect,” said Father Bishoy Mikhail. “We couldn’t have had a spiritual bumpkin from the hinterlands.”

By coming to Los Angeles and being based at St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Highland Park, Bishop Serapion--who like other bishops in the Orthodox tradition must remain unmarried--was also reunited with four siblings.

Three of his brothers live in the San Fernando Valley and another in Huntington Beach.

While conceding the attraction of being near his family, he quipped that he really has many more brothers than that. “For a monk, all people are brothers and sisters,” he said.