The 21: a journey into the land of Coptic martyrs

Description

Behind a gruesome ISIS beheading video lies the untold story of the men in orange and the faith community that formed these unlikely modern-day saints and heroes. In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach. In twenty-one symbolic chapters, each preceded by a picture, Mosebach offers a travelogue of his encounter with a foreign culture and a church that has preserved the faith and liturgy of early Christianity - the "Church of the Martyrs." As a religious minority in Muslim Egypt, the Copts find themselves caught in a clash of civilizations. This book, then, is also an account of the spiritual life of an Arab country stretched between extremism and pluralism, between a rich biblical past and the shopping centers of New Cairo.;The head of Saint Kiryollos -- What I write about and what I do not write about -- The video -- A conversation about martyrdom -- The martyrs' bishop -- The martyrs' pilgrimage church -- The martyrs' village -- The martyrs' houses -- With the martyrs' families -- Saint Menas's oil -- Matthew the Copt -- Abuna Bolla and Abuna Timotheus -- The martyrs' liturgy -- The flight into Egypt -- Hierarchical style -- Pilgrimage to the cloisters -- Wonders old and new -- With the Zabbaleens of Mokattam village -- A Coptic fantasia -- New Cairo, a mirage -- The minority and the majority -- Epilogue: the invisible army of martyrs. The head of Saint Kiryollos -- What I write about and what I do not write about -- The video -- A conversation about martyrdom -- The martyrs' bishop -- The martyrs' pilgrimage church -- The martyrs' village -- The martyrs' houses -- With the martyrs' families -- Saint Menas's oil -- Matthew the Copt -- Abuna Bolla and Abuna Timotheus -- The martyrs' liturgy -- The flight into Egypt -- Hierarchical style -- Pilgrimage to the cloisters -- Wonders old and new -- With the Zabbaleens of Mokattam village -- A Coptic fantasia -- New Cairo, a mirage -- The minority and the majority -- Epilogue: the invisible army of martyrs.