Adrian Fortescue (1874 – 1923) was a distinguished English scholar and a Catholic priest who led a saintly life. He descended from a line of distinguished men and women, among them one of England’s Catholic martyrs – Adrian Fortescue, who was executed in 1539 by King Henry VIII. Our Fortescue was a traveler, polyglot (he knew Greek, Arabic, Syrian, Turkish, and Persian, amongst others), and a church historian. He wrote two important books on the ecclesiastical history: The Orthodox Eastern Church (1908) and The Lesser Eastern Churches (1913).
The Lesser Eastern Churches deals with what is now as the Oriental Orthodox Churches, including the Nestorians, the Copts, the Abyssinians, the Syrian Jacobites, the Malabar Christians, and the Armenians. In his book, he dedicated Part II of his book to the Copts, including three chapters:
Chapter VI: Monophysism (pp. 163-213)
Chapter VII: The Coptic Church in the Past (pp. 214-251)
Chapter VIII: The Copt in our Time (pp. 252-290)
The reader would be advised to read the three chapters on the Copts. It’s a scholarly piece of work, although one does not agree with his views on the theological position of the Coptic Church. Fortescue is not however the type of the Catholic who would severely criticise the Copts – he shows a great deal of understanding and admiration. Many Catholic had taken an anti-Coptic stance – the Copts were anti-Chalcedonians, Monophysites, heretics, and non-Christians for that. In other words, they cannot know Christ or live in Christ or enter the Kingdom of Heaven for that. I am afraid, the Coptic Orthodox Christians on their part had a similar view on the Catholics. Each one was cancelling the other, condemned and cursed the other as heretic. I am glad that this attitude is changing. Even if the two Churches stay apart on theological issues, there is a way to accept the other as Christian – and there are several tests to apply on this matter. Do the others lead saintly lives? Do they have confessors and martyrs for Christ?
Fortescue applies the test of martyrdom to the Copts. Even though he believes that the Copts were wrong theologically on the Christology of Chalcedon, he does not condemn or curse them, or believe that they are not Christian (that’s they don’t have Christ in them) or that Christ rejects them. Here is what he says about that:
“The fourteen centuries of Coptic history are one long story of persecution. … It was not till the 19th century that European interference at last brought peace to the Copts.
During all this time the line of Coptic Patriarchs, from Dioscor and Timothy the Cat, continues unbroken, side by side with that of their Orthodox rivals. Both lines can show a long series of pontiffs who bore appalling ill-usage for their faith. The Coptic clergy and people keep alive the Christian religion almost miraculously through the long centuries of ill-usage. Their old language died out, except in the liturgy; they all learned to speak Arabic. Enormous numbers apostatized during the continual persecution, but not all. The comparatively small number which remain are those who, bearing everything with that extraordinary meekness which is characteristic of the native Egyptian, yet never let the faith of Christ be quite stamped out. What they have borne for it we can hardly conceive. Honour to the countless unknown Coptic martyrs who shed their blood, to the still greater number of confessors who bore poverty, imprisonment and torture for the Lord of all Christians. For, when the last day comes, weightier than their theological errors will count the glorious wounds they bore for Him under the blood-stained cloud of Islam.”[1]
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In Chapter XIV, Adrian Fortescue talks about The Hope for Union (pp. 446 – 450). Whether union is possible or not, I am not sure. But I am sure of one thing that can bring unity while each Church keeps her theological position – and that we all agree that Christ is in the other; that the other can lead a saintly life and be acceptable to Christ whatever his or her theological position in Chalcedon is. Saints, confessors and martyrs continued to exist in both Catholic and Coptic Orthodox Churches after Chalcedon. Each may start applying the Martyrdom Test to the other – or what we can call the Adrian Fortescue Test.
[1] The Lesser Eastern Churches (1913), pp. 250-251