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The Catechetical School of Alexandria (founded c.a. 190) was a place for the training of Christian theologians and priests in Alexandria
Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
. The teachers and students of the school (also known as the Didascalium) were influential in many of the early theological
Christian theology

Christian theology is discourse concerning Christianity faith. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rationality analysis and argument to understanding, explanation, test, critic#critique, defend or promote Christianity....
 controversies of the Christian church
Christian Church

Christian Church and the word church are used to denote both a Christian Groups of people and a Church . The word church is usually, but not exclusively, associated with Christianity....
.

The earliest recorded instructor at the school, and the probable founder, was Saint Pantaenus. He was succeeded as head of the school by his student Saint Clement
Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria , was the first notable member of the Christianity of Alexandria, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216....
. Other notable theologians with a connection to the school include Origen
Origen

Origen was an Early Christianity scholar, theology, and one of the most distinguished of the early Church father of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Ancient Egypt who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had taught....
, Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory Thaumaturgus

Saint Gregory of Neocaesarea, also known as Gregory Thaumaturgus or Gregory the Wonderworker, was a Christian bishop of the 3rd century....
, Athenagoras
Athenagoras

Athenagoras has been the name of several notable Greece individuals:*Athenagoras of Ephesus, a tyrant of Ephesus around the 6th century BC*Athenagoras of Syracuse, statesman and strategos in Syracuse, Italy during the Sicilian Expedition, 415 BC to 413 BC...
, Heraclas, Dionysius "the Great",
Dionysius of Alexandria

File:Dionisii alek.jpgPope Dionysius of Alexandria, named 'the Great', was the Pope of Alexandria from 248 until his death on November 17, 265 after seventeen years as a bishop....
 and Didymus the Blind
Didymus the Blind

Didymus the Blind was an ecclesiastical writer of Alexandria whose famous catechetical school he led for about half a century.Although he became blind at the age of four, before he had learned to read, he succeeded in mastering the whole gamut of the sciences then known....
.






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The Catechetical School of Alexandria (founded c.a. 190) was a place for the training of Christian theologians and priests in Alexandria
Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
. The teachers and students of the school (also known as the Didascalium) were influential in many of the early theological
Christian theology

Christian theology is discourse concerning Christianity faith. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rationality analysis and argument to understanding, explanation, test, critic#critique, defend or promote Christianity....
 controversies of the Christian church
Christian Church

Christian Church and the word church are used to denote both a Christian Groups of people and a Church . The word church is usually, but not exclusively, associated with Christianity....
.

The earliest recorded instructor at the school, and the probable founder, was Saint Pantaenus. He was succeeded as head of the school by his student Saint Clement
Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria , was the first notable member of the Christianity of Alexandria, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216....
.
Clemensvonalexandrien
Other notable theologians with a connection to the school include Origen
Origen

Origen was an Early Christianity scholar, theology, and one of the most distinguished of the early Church father of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Ancient Egypt who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had taught....
, Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory Thaumaturgus

Saint Gregory of Neocaesarea, also known as Gregory Thaumaturgus or Gregory the Wonderworker, was a Christian bishop of the 3rd century....
, Athenagoras
Athenagoras

Athenagoras has been the name of several notable Greece individuals:*Athenagoras of Ephesus, a tyrant of Ephesus around the 6th century BC*Athenagoras of Syracuse, statesman and strategos in Syracuse, Italy during the Sicilian Expedition, 415 BC to 413 BC...
, Heraclas, Dionysius "the Great",
Dionysius of Alexandria

File:Dionisii alek.jpgPope Dionysius of Alexandria, named 'the Great', was the Pope of Alexandria from 248 until his death on November 17, 265 after seventeen years as a bishop....
 and Didymus the Blind
Didymus the Blind

Didymus the Blind was an ecclesiastical writer of Alexandria whose famous catechetical school he led for about half a century.Although he became blind at the age of four, before he had learned to read, he succeeded in mastering the whole gamut of the sciences then known....
. Others, including Jerome
Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
 and Basil
Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, was the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential 4th century Christian theologian and monastic....
, made trips to the school to interact with the scholars there. Currently, the dean of the Catechetical School of Alexandria is His Holiness Pope Shenouda III.

Beginning

The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world. It is part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria

St. Jerome
Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
 records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by St. Mark
Mark

Mark may refer to:...
 himself and the first manager appointed by Saint Mark was Saint Justus, who later became the sixth bishop of Alexandria .

There is another opinion that the school was founded mid-second century , around 190 A.D.

Under the leadership of the scholar Pantanaeus, the school of Alexandria became an important institution of religious learning, where students were taught by scholars such as Athenagoras
Athenagoras of Athens

Athenagoras was a Christian apologist who lived during the second half of the 2nd century of whom little is known for certain, besides that he was Athens , a philosopher, and a convert to Christianity....
, Clement
Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria , was the first notable member of the Christianity of Alexandria, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216....
, Didymus
Didymus the Blind

Didymus the Blind was an ecclesiastical writer of Alexandria whose famous catechetical school he led for about half a century.Although he became blind at the age of four, before he had learned to read, he succeeded in mastering the whole gamut of the sciences then known....
, and the great Origen
Origen

Origen was an Early Christianity scholar, theology, and one of the most distinguished of the early Church father of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Ancient Egypt who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had taught....
, who was considered the father of theology and who was also active in the field of commentary and comparative Biblical studies. Many scholars such as Jerome
Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest and Christian apologetics best known for translating the Vulgate. He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, and his version of the Bible is still an important text in Catholicism....
 visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars.

The scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects; science, mathematics and humanities were also taught. The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, and, 15 centuries before Braille
Braille

The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blindness people to read and write. Braille was devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, a Frenchman....
, blind students at the school were using wood-carving techniques to read and write.

Re-establishment


The Theological College of the Catechetical School of Alexandria was re-established in 1893 as the Coptic Theological Seminary?. The new school currently has campuses in Alexandria, Cairo
Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
, New Jersey
New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, on the east by the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean, on the southwest by Delaware, and on the west by Pennsylvania....
, and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles

Los ?ngeles is the Capital of the Biob?o Province, in the municipality of the same name, in Regions of Chile VIII , in the center-south of Chile....
, where Copt
Copt

A Copt is a native Egyptian people Christianity. Copts form a major ethno-religious group that has ancient origins. Copts are Egyptians whose ancestors embraced Christianity in the first century....
ic priests-to-be and other qualified men and women are taught on subjects including Christian theology, history, Coptic language
Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
 and art - including chanting, music, iconography
Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Ancient Greek e???? and ??afe?? ....
, and tapestry.

See also

  • Alexandrian school
    Alexandrian school

    The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic civilization cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic era and Roman periods....
  • Coptic Orthodox Church
  • List of prominent Copts
    List of Copts

    This is a list of notable Copts. For saints, please refer to Coptic Saints.Being an integral part of Egypt's history, the Copts, the Christians of Egypt, have shared in all aspects of life and had many contributions to the Egyptian political, professional and spiritual activities....
  • Habib Girgis
    Habib Girgis

    Archdeacon Habib Girgis was a modern-day Dean of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Habib Girgis was born in Cairo in 1876.He was the very first student for the modern-day Theological School, and was thus appointed to succeed his predecessor, Youssef Mankarious, in the year 1918, as the second dean of the renewed center of theology....
  • Pope Shenouda III
    Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria

    Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria By definition of his post he is the head of The Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria....


External links

  • Books
    • Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty


It should be noted that Origen
Origen

Origen was an Early Christianity scholar, theology, and one of the most distinguished of the early Church father of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Ancient Egypt who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had taught....
 was excommunicated by the Coptic Orthodox Church in early Church History.