well, not to derail, but that depends on who you talk to. because Palamism, two wills, two operations, etc which are also non-negotiable for us, many of them reject. Pope Shenouda, who is VERY important to them and beloved by them, wrote against Palamism.
If you are referring by this to his conflict with Fr. Matthew the Poor and the fight over essence/energies distinction (forgive me if this isn't what goes under the label of Palamism; I am not EO, obviously, so it's outside of my scope of interest), it is largely understood now that HH was answering various questions that had come up from inaccurate translations into Arabic concerning the essence/energies distinction, and because there are some people who (sadly, misguidedly, wrongly) take every single thing that HH wrote or said as though it is holy writ, the idea that he could have just been not writing correctly or maybe even not understanding the terms properly himself seems like blasphemy. That's silly of course, but that doesn't make it any less plausible. We're supposed to
not be like the Romans in their slavish devotion to the man in the chair. (Maybe I am extra-sensitive or a little bit more negative than average about this, though, because I came from Roman Catholicism...I don't know...I am not a good judge of myself; Lord have mercy.)
But it did create this situation in which there were some who still maintain that the essence/energies distinction is some sort of Chalcedonian voodoo or something, while on the other hand I have heard it spoken of approvingly (in person, too) by my own priest and bishop. If there is one thing that we desperately need to deal with, it's this "cult of Pope Shenouda" which refuses to look again at the facts, and misses or ignores the truth, such as when our father HH St. Cyril says (in his dialogues on the Trinity) “We are called ‘temples of God’ and indeed ‘gods’, and so we are. Why is that?
Inquire of our opponents whether we are really sharers in a bare grace without subsistence. But that is not the case. For we are temples of the real and subsisting Spirit. And it is through him that we are called ‘gods’, since by union with him we have become partakers of the divine and ineffable nature (cf. 2 Pet. 1: 4)."
This situation even led to times when our holy priests had to stand up for Orthodoxy to people like H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy (a very controversial figure within the Church anyway), as in the case of one Fr. Athanasius (I believe this is a priest in Kitchener, Ont., but I am not sure), who wrote a two-page refutation of the specific errors as printed in El Keraza (the Church newspaper, in Arabic), going so far as calling for the Holy Synod to investigate H.E. for spreading what amount to lies against the fathers by teaching things contrary to the wisdom of St. Cyril as found above and the other quotations found in the refutation, such as St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Didymus the Blind.
H.E. can believe whatever nonsense he wants, but he can be censured (and in my opinion and the opinion of many others, probably should be; the entire Church seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when he was taken out of the pool of potential Papal candidates a few years ago), or, if it reaches that far, be deposed from his position. No one has the right to foist their personal views on the Church if those are against the fathers, as they were in this case, whether it is HH Pope Shenouda III or H.E. Anba Bishoy, or anyone else.
Believe me, I'm not happy to air our dirty laundry like this, but I just want you guys to know that this is an ongoing thing, and there are many, many Copts who are being taught correctly even as some of our leaders remain in the cult of HH Pope Shenouda III (who I love deeply and sincerely, but I must acknowledge he was a man and like all men not immune from speaking or writing mistakenly; I actually avoid his books if I can, because they are so poorly translated into English that sometimes it's difficult to even understand what HH means in a given passage). This is something that we must fight for ourselves, of course, and even more to the point for the sake of Christ, and the faith as we most definitely have received it.
I don't know anything about Coptic opinions on Maximos or any of these later figures as figures, but the essence/energies thing was left in a mess, so we're still cleaning house, so to speak. Lord have mercy.
) that the Patriarch of Alexandria or of the Syriac Orthodox should have this role, but that doesn't make it a thing. Hence, just for instance, we mention by name the Patriarch of Antioch (one of the oldest churches of the communion) and the Patriarch of Eritrea (one of the newest, in terms of their 1990s autocephaly) in every Coptic liturgy, because this is following an agreement that we have with these churches in particular. It does not say anything regarding who would or should be ranked where. We don't really do that.
