What lovely experiences you all have. It's truly a joy to read about them.
From across the Nile, rather than the Bosporus...
The community into which I was received was tiny (6 families) and for some time after my arrival met in a private home for worship, as they had for the previous 16 years or so, so there was not really any sort of plan/guideline, since we didn't have enough people in our corner of the world (the Southwest U.S.; what is it with Egyptians and living in the desert?) to mandate or support formal catechism classes. I don't actually know to this day how it is 'normally' done, but for me it was a lot of showing up for liturgy and vespers, and afterwards the priest, Abouna Marcus or sometimes Abouna Philemon (we 'borrowed' the priests from nearby Arizona, which has a few actual churches) would talk to me. And the people too. It was really everybody, and when I had some question Abouna would address it, or sometimes someone else had a question and he would repeat his answer in English just for me (and I guess the one 12 year old girl who had been born in America and didn't learn Arabic natively). All in all I think I was there for about 8-9 months before requesting baptism, which occurred at St. Mark's in Scottsdale, AZ., a very multi-ethnic and large parish (at least compared to what I was used to), full of Egyptians, Iraqis, European Americans (including a whole family that converted, with no Egyptian or other OO ties whatsoever), Ethiopians, etc. But I had been studying and praying for three years (2009-2011) before I even got to go to a liturgy, because in my home area of California there weren't and as far as I know still aren't any OO churches. All the local people of 'Oriental ethnicities' like Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Egyptians go to the local OCA and Bulgarian churches, and have been received there by profession of faith, as I understand it.
I took the name Shenouda at baptism after St. Shenouda the Archimandrite (
Shenoute in 'White People Egyptologist', as a Coptic acquaintance put it
), the 4th/5th century monk (b. 348, d. 466 according to tradition) and father of Coptic-language literature. He's pre-Chalcedonian, but not recognized by you guys, I guess. I later stayed in his monastery in upstate NY to do fieldwork, which turned into its own kind of catechesis, as to observe and meekly participate in the life of a monastery up-close like that is quite eye-opening.
I like to think I'm still a catechumen in the sense that I have been initiated, but still happily learn at the feet of all the great men and women who teach. Like Theosis, it's
never done, thanks be to God.
