its own interest, in many ways coming down unchanged from an older type than that of the Eastern Empire, in some a living survival of ancient Egypt. Egyptologists are more and more disposed to study the Copts as the descendants of the people who obeyed Pharaoh.[1] What follows is an outline of such information as may help to understand their services.
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FIG. 6. — PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF ABU SARǴAH AT OLD CAIRO. A, High altar; B, Stairs to crypt; C, C, C, Lecterns; D, Pulpit; E, Font; F, Patriarch's throne; G, G, Tanks.
A Coptic church has no external architectural features. Outside there is no sign of the domes and apses which you see within, nor even (as a rule) of the existence of a large open space. It is externally a jumble of buildings in no order; rooms for the clergy and their families, sometimes shops, crowd around the church and hide it from without. You go in by an inconspicuous door and are surprised to find yourself in a large and handsome church. This elaborate care to conceal their buildings outside speaks eloquently of the centuries of persecution. The church is practi-
- ↑ A. J. Butler: Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt contains a mass of information about Coptic archæology. A. Gayet: L'Art Copte (Paris, 1902).
