Coptic Catholics

[dzheremi]

Regarding Oriental Orthodox use of the term "Monophysitism" or "Monophysite" (or any similar borrowed Western/Greco-Roman terminology) as a self-descriptor, I would not for a second lay this at the feet of our holy father HH St. Cyril, for his use of physis or any other reason, considering that this is simply the word that is used in most English works to refer to us, as they are mostly written by Chalcedonians or those otherwise relying on earlier Chalcedonian accounts which use that term. I even have positive accounts (well, positive for their time, in the nineteenth century when many Anglicans wrote about the Copts and the Syriac Orthodox) that refer to us using that term.

So the linguistic confusion is in the borrowing of the term "Monophysitism" itself, but that's an issue that many in our communion do not understand, probably because they are often speaking English as a second, third, or even fourth language. It's no different than all the results you can find on YouTube or wherever for "Syriac Orthodox Mass", instead of calling it Qurbono or even Liturgy. It doesn't really have anything to do with the theological disputes in the fifth century, even though it has its origin as a term in those disputes. Presumably the people who use it are just using what they think the most widely understood term is (and they're right that this is it), without considering or possibly even knowing its origins or its implications in the language. It's sort of like "Mohammedism" or "Mohammedan" used to be value-neutral descriptors of Islam and Muslims in Western literature, but now are not (there's a word for this phenomenon of 'value-switching/creating' of a term in the linguistic literature because I'm sick and my brain is in a fog). God willing in the future when we have raised generations in the West and elsewhere speaking the national/regional/local language natively instead of relying on people who are second language and above speakers, this will eventually stop occurring altogether.