Coptica v. 16 2017

80 Mark N. Swanson

there, before an image of the Virgin Mary, commended the penitent to her. 35

brought him to the Church of St. George in Old Cairo and assured the terrified Ṣadaqah that St. George rejoiced in those who, although polluted with sin, came to him in repentance. 36 There’s no word in the texts about any further ceremony; what, after all, could one add to the absolution of the Virgin Mary or of St. George? On the one hand, the evidence from the story of Fakhr al-Dawlah (and similar stories from the biographies of Marqus al-Anṭūnī and Anbā Ruways), reemphasizes the finding that medieval Copts welcomed back into the fold those who had converted to Islam, whether by coercion or by choice, and who then repented of it. The evidence complicates our picture of how these penitent apostates were received: a rite for use in the churches existed, but individual holy men appear to have had their own practices.

35 Abba Mark likewise commended the Muslim Copt Karīm al-Dīn to the Virgin Mary before sending him back to Sutan Barqūq. 36 MS Paris ar. 282, f. 134r.