Hegumen Gabriel Abdelsayed

The First Coptic Priest in the United States

Father Gabriel Abdelsayed was born in Egypt. He earned a doctorate in history from Cairo University and taught at several institutions in Egypt and the United States, including St. John’s University. He moved to the United States in 1969 and was the first Coptic priest sent by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III (September 1970) to shepherd St. Mark Church in Jersey City, the first Coptic church in the United States.

He helped found 15 Coptic churches across the United States and represented the Coptic Orthodox Church on many ecumenical bodies: the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches in the USA, and the dialogue between the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church. During the Carter Administration he served on a presidential committee concerned with religious affairs. His books include Egyptian Monasticism and Cenobitism (1963), The Rise of the Second Mamluk Dynasty (1967) and St. Mark in Africa (1968).

He departed on Thursday 2 December 1993 at the age of 66; he lived in Jericho, Long Island. The New York Times published his obituary on 5 December 1993 under the headline “Gabriel Abdelsayed; Archpriest, 66, Was U.S. Coptic Leader.” Read the obituary in The New York Times archive.

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Father Gabriel Street

In 2001 Hegumen Boulos Basili, a member of the Journalists’ Syndicate and the Writers’ Union, wrote in Al-Ahram of a “generous and great gesture” by the City of Jersey City, New Jersey, and by Ambassador Mahmoud Allam, Egypt’s Consul General in New York: naming one of the city’s streets after the Egyptian citizen Father Gabriel Abdelsayed, at a historic ceremony attended by the city’s mayor, its bishop Anba David, members of its council, and many of its leaders and residents.

The writer recalls that in 1972 he traveled to America to take part in honoring Father Gabriel on behalf of His Holiness the Pope, while he was a member of the People’s Assembly, and that an Egyptian conference held there, chaired by Dr. Esmat Abdel Meguid and attended by many prominent Egyptian emigrants, ended by forming a national committee named after Egypt, chaired by the journalist, poet and engineer François Basili, with Father Gabriel Abdelsayed as its spiritual patron. The article in the Al-Ahram archive (Arabic).

Coptic Migration

Father Gabriel Abdelsayed wrote several sections of the article “Migration, Coptic” in The Coptic Encyclopedia (vol. 5, 1991), covering the Coptic Church in the United States, Australia and other countries of Europe. Among its points:

The Copts were a settled people who loved their land; their migration abroad began only after the middle of the twentieth century. Wherever they went, they first sought a place of worship, borrowing or buying old churches from other denominations, and later building their own.
In the United States, Egyptian immigrants numbered about 31,000 in 1970, about 25,000 of them Copts. Coptic churches grew from two in 1970 to forty-one in 1989, when the Copts were estimated at 160,000–180,000. The first priest appointed to the United States (September 1970) was Father Gabriel Abdelsayed, for the first church, in Jersey City.
In Canada the Coptic Church began under Pope Cyril VI, with Father Mark and thirty-six Coptic families in Toronto.
In Australia, migration began in 1964 and peaked in 1969, when the first church was founded in Sydney, dedicated to Saint Mark; by 1989 there were fourteen churches.
In Africa, a bishop for African affairs was consecrated for Nairobi in 1976 (Bishop Antonius Marcus); Coptic churches spread in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Zambia, and the liturgies were translated into five local languages.
In Europe, Pope Shenouda III established the Eparchy of France in 1974 and the Church in Germany in 1975; the first Coptic Liturgy in Britain was celebrated in 1954 by Father Makari el-Souriany (later Bishop Samuel), and St. Mark’s Church in London was consecrated in 1978; there are also communities in Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Spain, Sweden and Denmark.

To read the full article: The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia.

Tasoni Tahani Abdelsayed

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

Tasoni Tahani Mahany Mikhail Tadros Pasha (Tahani Abdelsayed) departed to Paradise on Saturday 9 June 2012, after a life overflowing with giving, carrying her cross with contentment and joy. She bore the work of raising her children, for Father Gabriel Abdelsayed had given his life and effort to the service, founding the Coptic Church in America and giving until his last breath. He was found worthy to be set over much, and she was found worthy to rejoice with him in Paradise. As we grieve her parting, heaven celebrates her arrival. Blessed is her pure soul in the happy eternity, and consolation to all of us in the hope of meeting them again soon, knowing that their prayers are our support and comfort.

She was related to the families of Mikhail Tadros Pasha and Hegumen Matta Abdelsayed in Fayoum and throughout Egypt.