Word: matta
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...Father Matta el Meskin, one of Egypt's most influential Coptic clergymen, told TIME Correspondent Robert C. Wurmstedt last week, "I can't say I'm happy, but I am at peace now. Every morning I was expecting news of more bloody collisions. Sadat's actions protect the church and the Copts. They are from...
From God they may have come, but Matta played a large part in their shaping. The abbot of St. Macarius monastery near Cairo, Matta was summoned to Alexandria by Sadat a week before the crackdown. Sadat and Matta discussed ways of defusing the looming crisis. Sadat asked Matta how far he could push Shenouda. The abbot says he outlined Sadat's limits in dealing with the Pope. When the ouster was decided on, it was Matta who submitted the names of five bishops who would collectively take over the Pope's functions...
Shenouda, 58, crowned ten years ago, was educated as a teacher. He served as an army officer in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and was then trained by Matta in the 1950s to become a monk. Shenouda, says Matta, is the best educated Pope in church history. But, he adds, "Shenouda's appointment was the beginning of the trouble. The mind replaced inspiration, and planning replaced prayer. For the first years I prayed for him, but I see the church is going from bad to worse because of his behavior...
Shenouda's confrontational activities coincided with a marked increase in Islamic fervor and militancy among the country's Muslims, and in the wake of the violent incidents this spring and summer, some Copts began to fear for their physical safety. As Matta puts it: "All of us are in this dilemma, [because] Muslims feel Shenouda is a threat to Islam and the Koran. He was working against the line of the government and moderate Muslims." Most Copts feel that Shenouda's ouster is a tolerable price to pay for communal peace...
Although no finished Gorky paintings are in the show, his drawings and preliminary studies for other compositions are examples of the mature Gorky--the abstract expressionist whom Gorky eventually discovered in himself with the help of the Chileam surrealist Matta, after years of imitating the work of his contemporaries and past masters. The study for "Calendars", recently donated to the Fogg, is a very strong work which shows Gorky in one of his finer moments...