NEW COPTIC YEAR: This Saturday, Copts will celebrate the beginning of a new Coptic year -- year 1721 of the Martyrs. Celebrations started last week, with church choirs, composed of children and teens of different ages, singing hymns in praise of highly celebrated martyrs like St George, St Mina and the virgin martyrs Dimiana and Marina. The Coptic calendar, whose months run parallel to the Ancient Egyptian agricultural calendar that would traditionally begin with the Nile flood at the end of August, was first adopted on 29 August 284 AD. That date marks the start of Roman Emperor Diocletian's reign. Diocletian was a tyrant who killed hundreds of thousands of Christians during his nine-year reign. Since Egypt was a province of the Roman Empire over which Diocletian ruled, its Christians were subject to the same persecution. Although other Roman emperors also persecuted Copts, it was under Diocletian that the most famous of Coptic Orthodox church martyrs were killed. "This is one reason why Christians chose the year 284 to mark the beginning of their Coptic calendar," said Father Bigoul of the Syrian Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun. On the eve of the New Year, the sermons and midnight prayers that had been taking place for the past week last all night, to be followed by special prayers and a dawn mass.
