Stories
the narratives it tells itself
The twenty-one on the beach.
In February 2015 Islamic State published a video of twenty-one men in orange jumpsuits beheaded on a Libyan shore; twenty were Egyptian Copts working as labourers, and the twenty-first, Matthew Ayariga, was Ghanaian and would not separate himself from them. The Coptic Synod added them to the Synaxarium within a week. In 2023 the Catholic Church put them in the Roman Martyrology — the first saints the two churches have recognised together since the fifth century.
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The Agpeya — seven hours, one psalter.
The book of hours divides the day into seven prayers, each with its own set of psalms, a gospel, and the absolution. Laypeople keep it as well as monks, and the shortest hour takes about ten minutes. It is the reason a Coptic funeral or a night vigil can go on for hours without anyone needing a printed programme.
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