After 30 years of patient prayer for a church of their own, the Coptic Catholic congregation in Sydney, Australia, last weekend jubilantly celebrated the opening of their church in Prospect, Sydney.
The new church, consecrated in the name of St Mark, was opened by Anba Ibrahim Ishaq Sedrak, Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church, who was on a visit to Sydney. He was received by a deacon procession chanting the praise “Prince of Peace” which is traditionally sung to welcome a prelate into an Egyptian church, and which derives from an ancient Egyptian melody that welcomed the victorious pharaoh back home in Egypt.
The event was attended by Egypt’s ambassador to Australia Yasser Abed and his wife, a number of New South Wales politicians, and heads of various Churches in Sydney.
The church, touted on its website as the first Coptic Catholic church in the Southern Hemisphere, is modelled in the traditional Coptic style with domes, an iconostasis, intricate carvings and religious art.
This is not the only church in Sydney named after St Mark; a Coptic Orthodox Church exists in Arncliffe, NSW, since 1972.
Watani International
24 March 2019