Preface

1Organizing an international congress that brings together over two hundred and fifty participants from five continents during a pandemic is an experience for which one can hardly be prepared. When COVID-19 hit Europe and strict lockdown measures were implemented (March 2020 for Belgium), the organization of the congress was already well underway: many colleagues had already paid their registration fees and booked their hotels and transportation, funding had been secured, venues had been booked, and the program for the week had been set, including visits, a cocktail reception, and a gala dinner.

2The pandemic forced us to postpone the congress twice, first from July 2020 to July 2021, and then from July 2021 to July 2022. The Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies of the International Association for Coptic Studies (IACS) was finally held at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) from July 11 to 16, 2022. Travel restrictions following the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, the still tense health situation, and difficulties in obtaining visas also prevented or discouraged some colleagues from joining us in person. However, one must make the best of a difficult situation. To ensure the participation of as many people as possible and the widest possible dissemination, we allowed some speakers to present their papers remotely and live-stream the plenary reports on the congress website, where the bibliographies are still available.1

3Despite these challenges, the congress was successfully organized and took place under good conditions, thanks to the unwavering support of our colleagues and the patience of the participants. The plenary sessions, held each morning in the Dupréel amphitheatre—renamed Alexandria for the occasion—provided an overview of our field of study. The parallel sessions hosted around two hundred papers, presenting new findings and scientific projects. The week was punctuated with festive and cultural events: a cocktail reception preceded by an oriental music recital, a visit to the Royal Museums of Art and History, a gala dinner in the enchanting setting of the island in the Bois de la Cambre lake, just a stone’s throw from the university, and finally, a tour of the historic centre of Brussels.

4This volume is the first in a series of three, which will comprise the proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies. After the presidential address by David Brakke, president of the IACS, the volume brings together eleven contributions—as well as a stand-alone bibliography—from the plenary reports delivered by leading specialists in the main disciplines of Coptic studies. It provides an overview of current research in the field and focuses on methodological challenges as well as emerging new approaches. The contributions offer a critical and bibliographical review of recent work in diverse areas such as monasticism, liturgy, codicology and palaeography, art history, contemporary Coptic studies, linguistics, Nubian studies, archaeology, papyrology, Copto-Arabic studies, magic, and literature, reflecting the richness of Coptic studies at the dawn of the third millennium. This volume also includes the IACS resolution on the handling of cultural heritage (p. 33–35), discussed on July 13 in a special session and adopted at the Association’s General Assembly on July 16.

5The next volume, co-edited with Anne Boud’hors, will bring together articles based on contributions presented during the panel organized in honour of Wolf-Peter Funk (1943–2021). A final volume will include selected papers from the various parallel sessions. This series of publications aims to enhance the visibility of Coptic studies and reflect the diversity of the exchanges that took place during the congress. For the first time in the history of the IACS, the publication of the proceedings in printed form, as well as Open Access, will facilitate the dissemination of the most recent developments in the field of Coptic studies to both the academic and general public, regardless of financial and material resources.